I went in to see bike fitting guru Andy Pruitt last Thursday to see if I could take care of some nagging leg pain that started late in the summer. He made some changes to my saddle position, and amazingly I could feel an immediate difference. We’ll see if that continues.
One other thing he did was x-ray my pelvis to see if there was something that would affect my hamstring pain. He noted a couple things: 1) My left leg is a centimeter longer than my right, and 2) I have a small protrusion around my hip socket. Nothing major there, it could just cause problems if I did a lot of running (similar to Christine’s issue actually). His recommendation, don’t become a runner. Done. You don’t have to ask me twice not to run.
When you get an x-ray at the Boulder Center for Sports Medicine, it automatically gets sent on to a radiologist so they can look at it from another perspective. Andy was looking for something specific to bike fit, but the radiologist has a different set of things to check out.
About an hour after I left their office, I got a call from Andy telling me that the radiologist saw something unusual in the L4/L5 lumbar region. Unusual meaning “tumor” or “mass”. Of course they say it’s “most likely” benign, but that doesn’t make me feel any better. They highly recommended that I get that checked out ASAP, so I had them schedule a MRI for me. They were able to get me in on Monday, and I’d have a follow-up to get the results on Tuesday.
So that left me feeling really uneasy all weekend. It’s one of those things that is hard to put out of your mind. Am I okay? Do I have a cancerous tumor growing inside me? Is my stomach upset because there’s a problem or is it psychosomatic? Am I sore from racing or something else?
Finally, Monday rolls around and I leave work early to go down to Boulder for my scan. The scan is pretty non-eventful. The worst part was that they needed to inject me with a contrast agent through an IV. I hate needles. But it wasn’t so bad. I felt really relaxed after getting the scan. That is, until I started thinking about how I needed to wait another day to find out if I was dying. When you can’t sleep, I recommend alcohol. Actually, I was a little sleepy from getting up early to take Christine to the airport, so I turned on my iPod with some soothing Harry Potter and drifted away.
This whole time, I hadn’t told Christine. For sure a bad idea, but I didn’t see any good that would come out of both of us worrying. Plus, she was about to take her mom to Paris, and I know she would have delayed her trip if she knew. Sorry C., you’re too damn selfless, and I couldn’t let this wreck your trip to croissant-land :)
The end.
Oh wait, I haven’t given you the punchline. I got a call this afternoon from Andy’s assistant. She said that the MRI looked normal and that I didn’t need to come down. A short while later, Andy called to give me the scoop. It turns out that I’m missing my L5 lumbar. I don’t know where it is, but let me know if you see it anywhere. I don’t know what the ramifications are of a missing L5. It’s unusual, but not unheard of.
So that’s it. I’m not dying (that I know of). I’m going to have a beer (or 6) to celebrate that fact.
hate that... glad it's nothing.
ReplyDeleteHappy cycling.