December 09, 2008
Greetings and Salutations to everyone,
Cheers to the up coming CHRISTmas Holiday. Just wanted to update you all on a few things that have been going on with me.
Ok, (my e-mail so yes I CAN start an e-mail with Ok...DON'T JUDGE ME! LOL) so I do not know if I had mentioned it this summer but for a little while during my training I started to have some weakness in my left lower leg about three weeks before we had our Push Championships. I along with my trainers in Colorado were not sure why this was occurring but we assumed it was being caused by a pinched nerve somewhere in my hip, back or knee. Thinking this was the problem I began to do therapy 3 times a day to get my leg better before I really needed to use it in Push Championships. My trainers had me doing specialized exercises to help me regain strength in my lower leg, placing my leg in a cold tub, having ice and stem (electric stem machine sends low pulses of electricty down your leg to stimulate your muscle which helps with the healing proccess) formed on my leg basically doing everything I could do to get better. By the time Push Championships came I was definitely a lot better off then a few weeks earlier.
This brings me to today, a few weeks ago I began to experience the same symptoms again with my leg. Now I am getting mad! I am looking at my leg like "Seriously Leg! Are you Kidding Me,This Is What I Get Are You Serious"! My leg said nothing back of course, which made me more mad! (Its ok if I am a little crazy and come on...I throw myself down a sheet of ice at 90 plus miles an hour on a regular basics......we all knew something was not right upstairs! lol)
I let my trainers here in Placid know what's going on and the history of my leg, and they too figured it was a pinched nerve so once again I began the same treatment proccess as before. But this time I was not completely convinced that it was only a pinched nerve. Fortunately for me though this time my symptoms happened to occur right when we had a group of specialist come in to provide all the World Cup Athletes with a base line health examination. We had and EKG taken to look at our, blood drawn to check protein and cholesterol levels, our team doctor/arthroscopic surgeon Dr. Byrne, impact pact analysis done which examined our concussion history, Ultrasound Specialist looking at any known problem issues for each athlete, and a neurologist.
While being examined by the Neurologist I informed him about what was going on with me, he immediately began looking at my leg. He noticed that I was suffering from some muscle atrophy in my left leg in correlation to my right leg, along with some loss in strength. After our examinations were done I told my Trainers and Dr. Byrne what the neurologist had said, Dr. Byrned suggested that I have another Ultra Sound done in my leg and hip area again just to make sure nothing was missed. Once those results came back negative he suggested that I have X-Rays of my legs, back and hips to make sure no nerves were being pinched in any area. After all those X-Rays came back negative I had an MRI done on my back and hip to look a little bit deeper. The MRI was also negative making the situation more frustrating because I knew something is wrong but nothing was showing up!
I continued to talk to Dr. Byrne about what I was feeling in my leg, as Dr. Byrne listened to me, one more test popped up in his head. He decided that I should be tested for Compartment Syndrome http://www.cnn.com/HEALTH/library/DS/00789.html. Now here comes the fun part......to test for Compartment Syndrome it requires that they take a base line numbers from four different spots on each of your legs, 8 spots total. This required them to stick a needle, about the thickness of a writing pen stem into my lower leg in four different spots on each leg. The needle is attached to a gage that displays the pressure at each point. The normal persons baseline is usually around 15-20.....guess I am not normal my baseline started off at 30-35, yeah not good! lol When Dr. Byrne saw this he knew immediately that he was on the right track, but we still needed to complete the testing to make sure. After my baseline was taking Dr.Byrne had me run on a treadmill and several drills to cause my symptoms flared up. Once my legs were fatigued and flared up, Dr.Byrne had only a minute to do the needle test again on my legs. Dr.Byrne expected my the numbers to increase a little bit but me being the special person I am my numbers jumped up to 105, 85, 90 and mid 50's in some spots! Just for the record that is not a good thing at all with a potential to be dangerous.
What does this mean you ask?...well I shall tell you..... STOP BEING SO DEMANDING OF ME GEESSS its hard to arrange these thoughts! lol It means that in my lower legs, when blood starts to pump strongly causing my muscles to expand there is not enough room for them to do so, because the fascia which in-cases my muscles restricts the expansion to much. So at the end of the season I will have surgery where Dr.Byrne will go in and cut away some of this fascia enabling my muscles to expand the way they need. And I know some of you are thinking that I have gotten too big for my body but that's not the case so throw away all those jokes going though your heads....Amy, Rebbecca, Bobby Mac and the rest of you. lol
The truth is for some reason this condition occurs in some people regardless of athletic background, age, or muscle maturity, and the only way that has proven successful in resolving this issue is through surgery.
Of course when I found out this is what was going on I was relieved and stressed at the same time. Because at least now I knew what the source of my pain and strength loss was and at least if I have it taken care of then I do not have to worry about it aggravating me anymore while I train, but on the other hand who really likes to have surgery be it mild or massive. Keep the knives to yourself Doc I have enough in the kitchen! At least that is the way I see it. The surgery will be good though because if gone untreated the worse case scenario is that my legs could explode open from the build up in pressure which would really set me back in training a little. But I do not think that God has brought me this far to allow that to happen. In the mean time now that I know what it is I will just keep an eye on it making sure I pay more attention to how I am feeling and continuing to ice down after every practice, lifting session, and running session.
On a more personal note I stepped back and looked at my entire situation at look at the fact that my leg bothered me right before some of the most important bobsled test in my life. But I think it was God's way of getting my attention because if I was in Europe right now I would continue to push through the pain and have no clue what was going on with my leg and who knows what tragedy could have happen. Goes back to God works in Mysterious ways!
Other than that things have been going good with running, lifting, and sliding and God Continues to surround with me with good people which I am thankful for!!!! Wishing you all the Best!!!
GOD BLESS!!
Jesse
http://www.jessebeckom3.com/
http://www.jessebeckom.blogspot.com/
