Yesterday I checked my little Timehop app. (If you aren’t familiar with Timehop, it’s an application that links to your social media profiles and aggregates any content posted in the past on a day by day basis).

So my February 19 Timehop included: “1 year ago,” a photo I posted on Twitter of my physical therapy plan.

1 year ago yesterday I was transitioning from weekly PT to a home program, working on starting to run again and getting stronger.

And it seemed to work. I accumulated a pretty good program. I  graduated from walking on the treadmill to running. And then I graduated from that to running on my own.

“Run until it hurts and then run 10 more minutes.” I was told.

So I did. It was okay at first. But then it hurt. A lot. It wasn’t getting better.

This is the point in my story where it starts to diverge from a normal recovery process. This is the point where what I thought were answers started to get cloudy.

So in mid-April I went back. And we cut everything way back. I stopped running. (And I haven’t run since then). I tried intensive stretching. I tried electromagnetic treatments. I tried different topical medicines. With no avail.

“What is wrong with me?” I wondered repeatedly. There has to be more.

By now the calendar read May. I had a follow up scheduled with my surgeon. And I decided to schedule an appointment with a different doctor to get a second opinion.

My therapist (a sweet, kind woman, by the way) thought I needed to get an MRI. She was convinced one of the two doctors would order one for me.

I went to see the new doctor.

No MRI, he said. Scar tissue, he said. Go visit a new therapist, he said. Someone who’s a hip specialist. He will help you.

I had an appointment with my surgeon scheduled for the next day. I cancelled it. And never went back.

On May 8, I went to Mic Bender at Lancaster Physical Therapy for the first time. I’ve spent a lot of hours there. I’ll talk about that more later in my story. Mic specializes in what’s called “ASTYM.” It’s a soft tissue mobilization technique primarily used to break up scar tissue. He began to do that on the spot of my incision (about 3 inches on the outside of my upper leg) and along my IT band.

Unfortunately, I didn’t have too much time to work with Mic. I had planned to head to the Sunshine State for the summer for an internship.

And the Sunshine State was where my feeling of “something isn’t right” exploded into something I never anticipated.

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“Be strong and courageous.
Do not be afraid or terrified because of them,
for the LORD your God goes with you;
he will never leave you nor forsake you.”
Deuteronomy 31:6