Friday, February 06, 2009

I delight in Weaknesses


Our bodies are not meant to last forever :-)

Mine has treated me well and by God's grace I have endured many miles. I pray he provides for many more!

I have been training for a marathon in Birmingham Alabama, with my friend Darin, in mid-February using my regular protocol and getting in the training and making some nice gains. The problem - my hip was not recovering and getting more and more painful. To the point it hurts to put weight on it, to sit, to lie down is the worst. The joys of getting old!!!

Some history - when I lived in Valentine, NE in the 5th grade, I sustained permanent damage to my hip by the fall I took at the pool. Recently taken X-rays show a very deformed hip (femoral head, stem and socket). This is all not new. The many doctors that I have had the opportunity to examine my hip over the last 20 years have all told me the same thing .... my hip will not last as long as a normal one due to progressive arthritis. The fact that I have run marathons / ultra-marathons & Ironman's is very challenging to doctors (the power of God). My most recent doctor Joshua Urban (Nebraska Orthopedics) is impressed with how my hip 'arthritis' looks. It is not showing the wear that he thought he would see with being active as I am. He did confirm that I will need a hip-replacement, but now is not the time. That's good news - praise Jesus!

I had an MRI last week to see why I am in so much pain. Dr. Urban was specifically looking for a stress fracture, a 'liberal tear' (sp) in the hip cartilage or a muscular tear. The results of the MRI all came back negative. That is all good news too!

The doctor says that with arthritis there comes pain, tell me something I don't know. So with people that have hips in my condition but are not ready for total hips they give an injection of a steroid right into the hip. They do this in a surgical environment and is pretty common. Good results will be to be pain free in about a week and back to my regular activity level (swim, bike, run).

This whole experience is a reminder of what I put my faith in (my health) and how I need to repent of not putting my faith in Jesus. He has lead me to some rich reading in scripture of how I tend to pray for deliverance rather than for a deeper relationship with God, his son and spirit :-)

In my on-line research of Total Hip Replacements (THR) in the last couple of weeks, I came across some new procedures (since 2000) that is called Hip Re-surfacing (HR). In HR's they re-surface the femoral head and put a metal ball on it, maintaining its normal size, and put in a metal cup in the hip bone to receive the ball. HR's have allowed younger / active people with hip issues to resume their full activity level and wear much longer than THR's.

I made it through the 'injection' procedure with flying colors! Couldn't have done it without my beautiful wife taking care of me! And many thanks 'dad' for taking Cam and Meg to school in the morning :-)

Time will only tell on the success of the injection, but Dr. Urban is very optimistic. They have me on some pain meds, which I am trying not to take unless absolutely necessary. So I still have some pain in the hip / lower back but it should go away potentially by tomorrow! I have been given the go-ahead to start exercising as soon as I want to :-) I will admit part of me wants to jump back in, but some wise coach 'inner voice' is telling me to be smart and ease back in. So no Feb, marathon for me :-( Actually the doctor is telling me that I could continue to do marathons but to do so would greatly shorten the life of my hip. Time to be wise and not foolish!!! So for now, or at least the next few years I am going to retire from the long running 'marathons' and stick with shorter runs 5K, 10K, 1/2 marathons. And get more focused on my cycling (road & MTB), swimming and strength training. I will be honest, with all that being said, the thing I look forward to the most is being able to chase my children and wrestle with them. Cameron has had the upper hand the last few weeks :-) Its time for a come back! I praise Christ for his providence during the last couple of weeks (as always) and for the many reminders of his greatness!

Here is a passage of scripture that I have been praying through in the last few weeks:
2 Cor 12:9-10
But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

For His Glory - Kev

2 comments:

Ryan said...

Stay strong Kevin, sounds like you're not having any trouble at it, just keep it up! Take care of yourself. You know, thanks to Triple-T and the 8 hour race, my race schedule for '09 has a similar ring to yours, only racing sprints this summer. Hope to see you out there!

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