Injuries and Comebacks
As an athlete, the last thing that you want to happen or are even thinking about are injuries. Growing up, I was always involved in sports. Particularly, I played soccer and bowling competitively but also played baseball, basketball, hockey, football and disc golf recreationally. I used sports as an outlet to hang out with friends and have fun. Also, I was locked out of the house as a child to prevent me from playing video games all day so I really had no choice in the matter.
Throughout middle school and high school, I played these sports. When I graduated high school, that is when I started declining in playing sports. My friends were at college and so was I. My time was replaced with studying and less organized sports. As time went on, I fell pray to the traditional college weight gain.
Between 3 years of undergrad and 4 years of pharmacy school, the only sport I played was hockey. Towards the end of my college days, I also began to workout with Beachbody programs. During these 7 years, sports and exercise faded and more adult like activities creeped in. Aka, watching TV, going out to eat and drink with friends, and studying.
During the end of my pharmacy schooling, I had found a passion for exercise. I was able to lose 40 pounds and was it the best shape of my life. I remember I could easily do 2 intense 45-minute workouts, followed by 2 games of hockey, and then wake up the next morning ready to do it all over again without being sore or tired. Those were the days. I was probably around 25, 26 at the time.
Then came the whirlwind of injuries at the age of 26.
I was playing a routine hockey game when I noticed a slight groin soreness at the end of the game. I didn’t think much of it. The following game was for the league championship. To this point, I had been playing hockey for about 6 or 7 years and we had yet to win a championship. During the end of the game, we were up by 2 goals when the opposing player came streaking into our zone and passed by our defense. I went into a lunge type of position to try and stick check the puck away from the player. It was at this time that there was a distinct load pop sound that came from my groin. The player had scored as well to put a little more salt in the wound. After that play, I was down and unable to get up. This was the first time in my life that I was not able to get up from some sort of injury. The pain was excruciating.
We ended up winning that game and the championship. For some reason, the winning of that game didn’t feel as great as I thought it would have. It was overshadowed by the imminent pain I was in. We went out to Applebee’s to celebrate the dub and I can remember that I could barely walk or let alone sit down.
I won’t recount the weeks that ensued but will summarize that I had tried physical therapy for 6 weeks and nothing seemed to be getting better. Everyone told me that I had a muscle pull and it needed rest. It was now 6 weeks post the injury and I could barely get off the couch, get into and out of bed, get in and out of my car, sneeze or even cough without the feeling of a knife being stabbed into my body. I knew that something was seriously wrong. I underwent an MRI which “revealed” a mild strain but no major damage. I instantly knew that something was not right with this picture. There was no way I could be in this much pain and have everyone tell me that it was fine and was a mild strain.
This is when I took action into my own hand. I knew that Arian Foster (at the time, the leading NFL rusher for the Houston Texans) has recently underwent groin surgery with the leading expert physician, Dr. Meyers in Philadelphia. I also knew many professional hockey players going to the same doctor as well for their groin injuries.
After sending my MRI to Dr. Meyers, he encouraged me to come see him. I ended up flying to Philadelphia, getting another MRI that day I flew down, and then the following day having surgery. The MRI revealed that I had completely tore my adductor muscle running up my leg, off of my pubic bone. It was also noted that I had a severe tear in my abdomen muscle that also connected to my pubic bone. Finally, after maybe 3 months, I had some clarity as to what was going on.
As a surprise, the recovery from this surgery was only 6 weeks before I could return to sport. At the time, I thought this was awesome. In retrospect, I believe I should have rehabbed the injury for a longer period of time.
After surgery, I was so focused on returning back to my peak physical performance and hockey career. This was the first time in my life that I had considered training for an event. I had the mindset that I was injured and I needed to prove to myself that I was finally “back” from that awful injury.
I had the brilliant idea of training for my first triathlon as my test of recovery. I had no idea what I was doing other than I knew I needed to swim, run, and bike. Then only exercise I was able to do for the groin surgery was to first walk and then run along with physical therapy. I had not been a runner in my life up until that point. I even hated running during soccer. With running being the only form of exercise I could do for that recovery time period, I soon began to enjoy it.
So, I began training for my first sprint triathlon. Running was going pretty well until I stared to notice a pain develop in my right hip. I didn’t think much of it at first because I thought I was recovered from surgery and had no other pains or complaints. I continued to run and bike and the pain in my hip kept getting worse and worse. I was probably up to 2-3 miles a day running with ease. The pain would start to appear about 2 miles into my run. As the time progressed, the pain started appearing earlier and earlier into my runs until I wasn’t even able to run or 100 yards without the pain starting to form.
This was the point I decided to see a hip specialist. I had an MRI done on my right hip and it was revealed that I had a torn labrum which most likely was the cause of my hip pain. Fast forward a little bit, I received right hip surgery to repair the torn labrum.
I was crushed because I wasn’t able to participate in my triathlon and also was crushed mentally because I had to yet again, stop training and just recover from another surgery. During the recovery time period, it was very difficult to stay motived. The recovery was about 3-4 months before I could return to sport or even running. I don’t know about you but for me, staying on track with eating healthy while not working or working towards a goal was pretty hard. I had gained quite a bit of weight during that time of recovery.
After about 4 months had past from the surgery date, I had another brilliant idea of training for a Spartan race to yet again, prove to myself that I was healed and “back” to my old self. I was around 27-28 years old at the time.
Training also involved running as the majority of a Spartan race is running. There was not a lot of pain in my right hip and was stoked that I was finally “back” after about 1 year having 2 surgeries.
I successfully completed my first Spartan race in September of 2017. Towards the end of my training for the race and also during runs after that Spartan race, I had noticed a pain in my left hip start to form. I didn’t think much of it until the pain took on a very similar fashion as when I had pain in my right hip. The same script followed precisely with my left hip as it did with my right.
I then received another MRI of my left hip. To my dismay, yet again, I had a torn labrum in my left hip. You could say the feeling of devastation would have been an understatement. I was crushed. March 2018, I had surgery on my left hip.
It turns out, I was born with some flat spots on the head of my femur. Not getting too geeked out, but, as the femur head rotates in the ball and socket joint of the hip, the head of the femur should be smooth and round. With having flat spots on a surface that should be round, you could imagine every time it rotated in the join, it would dig away at the cartilage that lined the joint. Over time, this is what let to both of my labral tears. The doc said it was a matter of time before this injury presented itself. With being an athlete and growing up playing sports, in my case, the symptoms of the injury presented itself much earlier as if I didn’t play sports. It would have happened anyways when I was older if I didn’t have played sports.
I had gained more weight post 2nd hip surgery and was feeling as if this train of surgeries would never end. It was different after this surgery as I didn’t feel the need to prove to myself that I was “back” but more or less accepted that things would not be the same as they had been when before I had my groin surgery. I knew this was a sign for me where someone was telling me that these injuries are happening for a reason and I was trying to figure out why this was happening to me and for what reason.
The strange thing is, I still don’t exactly know what the reason is. I have ideas but also, I have to trust that these injuries keep happening to me for some sort of reason and have to be comfortable with knowing things will work out how they are supposed to.
Fast forward to today, I had yet another surgery. I had to get my appendix out on January 7th, 2019. It wasn’t even a big deal. I was in the mindset of here we go, another obstacle that I have to overcome.
Up until that first groin surgery, I hadn’t had many physical obstacles to overcome. Now today, I have been through a lot of in terms of physical fitness and mental approach to my day to day events. I 100% believe that I’m much stronger today mentally, than I was before all of these surgeries.
When something is put in my path, maybe not physically but any obstacle that life presents to me, I am much better equipped at handling the situation. By someone constantly challenging my physical and mental abilities, I am now prepared to handled a lot of things that are thrown my way. This could be something that happens at work, with friends, at home, or something completely unexpected.
We all know life throws punches and some people really can’t handle the smallest of inconveniences. Maybe you go to Starbucks and the line is 10 minutes long and that one thing could ruin someone’s day. Its these challenges that we are face in life that builds character. One must have a breakdown before they can have a breakthrough. Muscles are built from constantly being broken down. They are built back up even stronger. Same thing applies to your life. When you’re dealt a bad hand in something with your life, next time you are dealt that bad hand, you will be equipped with being able to beat those cards and prospering through the situation. For everyone going through something difficult, let it be known, you are not the only one. You might feel that it is only happening to you but I promise, most people go through hard times. Success can’t happen without failure. Success by definition is overcoming failure, therefore, the more times you fail at something, the more likely you are to succeed at it the next time. Stay strong and be accepting when life throws curveballs at you. Know that you can’t be great without these difficult situations. Embrace the challenge and conquer your obstacles knowing that you can’t be denied. You won’t be defeated. You can’t lose. The only way to lose is by quitting and if you’re still reading this post, I know that you’re a winner.
