Monday, April 14, 2014

Veruca Salt and MRIs

Oh, to have young legs again. I would pay 20 grand to have legs of a 20 year old. As long as I could do a payment plan, I would be all in. Probably 25 grand. 30 grand? okay, I'm in for 30. So when a doctor suggests I should get an MRI that will cost me $200 out of pocket, I eventually jumped all over it because damn it, I want some healthier legs....


The problem is that an evil mass of gook from hades has lived in my quad, off and on, for nearly two years. It lives on despite 4 different rest periods ranging from 3 to 6 weeks. After I ran the New York City Marathon in November of 2013, I took 6 weeks of rest, followed by light running, cross-training, more stretching, and weights. Sounded liked a good plan, what can go wrong?

Well, the evil mass of gook returned, and my latest of 3 doctors I have seen is an orthopedic surgeon from the Core institute and a doctor for the Detroit Pistons. (Oh, that's cool, he's important!) (Wait, they're in last place). A nice shot of cortisone chased the evil away, but like most evil things, it wasn't really dead, and it has returned for yet another sequel. Next up was the MRI

The morning of the MRI, I ran a bit harder than I have been. I thought "dammit, I want the evil gook to show itself". I did 8 miles, the longest of my long runs these days, in an hour and 3 minutes on a perfect spring day sporting my Runwell gear. It was wonderful, and as I write this, the evil gook smolders.

They do MRI's on Saturday nights at 8 pm I found out. And the MRI machines even have name brands written in big letters for you to see. Mine was a Toshiba. I imagined walking through Best Buy looking at a Samsung and Sony MRI machine, but then seeing the LG MRI machines at half the cost. I'm now a big Toshiba fan.



I found the MRI experience incredibly relaxing once I got used to the crazy-ass noises it makes, like it is about to malfunction and squeeze me to death. After the nurses told me not to move, put headphones over my ears, and there were no kids or new puppy to deal with, I was good. I could have stayed another hour. Now I wait.

I feel fortunate to be able to run. The injury is low grade, but chronic, and only hampers me from running fast and far.  I'm not fully grounded, and I am still planning on doing two half marathons for Runwell this year.   ("Don't care how, I want it know").

 April 22nd is the sign up for the Disney World Marathon, and my family is hoping to go. There's got to be a Toshiba machine out there that can fix me.

3 comments:

SupermomE13 said...

Hope you get answers and solutions. I had an MRI in early February and it was not my favorite, but it was nice to know what was wrong and how to move forward.

WHERE are the puppy pics???? :)

Kathee said...

I have shelled out a lot of money for my foot so that I can run slow and not very far. I would do it again in a heartbeat. My running saves the lives of those around me.

Jen Feeny said...

Fingers crossed for you!!!

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