SWEET CORTISONE, "Da Da Da Da" and a Philip Seymour Hoffman Follow-Up

Where it began: 17 months ago.  September 2012. Two weeks out from the New York City Marathon.

 During a 13 mile run I tore the bottom of my quad. I was in front of a Big Boy restaurant, at 8 Mile and Farmington Road and ended up walking home with a limp. The restaurant has since closed down, but my injury remains. 

Despite rest periods of 3 weeks on at least 4 occasions, and another 6 week rest,  it still flares up again as soon as serious running begins. I saw my regular doctor and a sports doctor during this time which didn't provide answers. The 3 marathons I ran during these same 17 months didn’t help much. I finally I got a referral to the Core Institute.

 The Core Institute is pretty bad ass. They didn’t offer any voodoo cures, but did give me a cortisone shot.  My second cortisone shot of my life. My first was for bone spurs in my ankle and hurt as if  they were sucking out the marrow without anesthesia. This one was pretty easy and just burnt a bit. An MRI is the next option if the cortisone shot doesn’t seem to work.

I’m anxious and geeked to start running more than my 3 to 5 miles for all the regular reasons, and because my RUNWELL shirt arrived. (What's RUNWELL? an organization who uses the running lifestyle to combat addiction.) I want to cruise around the streets wearing it and incite small riots to follow me Forest Gump style. I also need to pick an event to start raising funds. Initially I had my eye on the Rock CF half marathon, but I may skip spring entirely and just do a couple fall events.

 Question for the day: Is there something odd about taking a substance by needle and having it injected so that I can run for an agency that fights drug abuse? Hmmmm…

 

If I start rummaging through car-wash garbage bins looking for 10¢ returnables to buy my next shot of cortisone, then it certainly is. For now, I’m just hoping it can return me to my drug of choice: Running to detox my mind, body, and spirit, headphones rockin my noggin, and two healthy legs beneath me.

Sweet Cortisone. Good times never seemed so good. 

Prayin it works. 

*Philip Seymour Hoffman follow up: Arresting the drug dealers who sold him the heroin seems so misguided here. Not that heroin should be legal or that they shouldn't be arrested,(I'm pro pot legalization, but not heroin) but Philip was a 'grown-ass man' as they say, and it just seems like a misguided effort at justice.

Articles all over the place are citing his words; "I know I"m going to die if I keep using" as particularly prophetic. 99% of addicts have said this, so it hardly qualifies as news.

  I am amazed at some of the lack of empathy with cold responses such as:

  "What a waste. He stuck a needle in his arm. How disgraceful. What the hell is wrong with him?" 

Well, he certainly was not a victim here. We are all responsible for our own recovery. He was completely responsible to stay clean, and did so for 23 years which is a miracle. His tragic death was a result of his own actions. But I think if folks could somehow understand or experience the power of a heroin craving and what it biologically does to the mind, they would sing a different song. 

I just stuck a needle in my leg with the purpose of getting high. Fortunately that 'high' is the healthy option of going for a run, but I kept running even though I knew it was destroying my leg. Really, we all are seeking some kind of peace, and to think drug addicts are that much different than any of us seems to me its own form of self-righteous delusion.

I don't think anyone at the Core Institute is getting arrested today. 

Cortisone Injection

Heroin Injection