Surprise! You have hip dysplasia!

I had my 7 week follow up appointment today, and it wasn't very reassuring. I know that it's only been 7 weeks, and I still have to wait and see, but I am not recovering very quickly. I still have a lot of pain, I'm pretty limited in my activities, and after he made me bring my knee to my chest, I could hardly walk the rest of the day. It's not terrible, but it's not great, especially considering that the tear-related damage wasn't bad at all.

So while I know that things should get better, there is still a concern that they won't. Today, my doctor revealed to me that I have hip dysplasia, and if the hip impingement surgery isn't successful, we can look at fixing the hip dysplasia (requiring open hip surgery, yuck). No thanks!

Just considering the 'if's:
-If this surgery doesn't work, I'm pretty sure I'm done with competitive sports. I am already contemplating my future in athletics anyway, but open hip surgery and the years of issues that typically follow are pretty good reasons to quit altogether given that I'd like to be able to walk when I'm 50. And maybe go on a hike.

-If the surgery does work, it still seems like a good idea to avoid activities that might cause problems (mainly activities with hip rotation, high impact, and probably the ones that cause my good hip to make terrible grinding/popping sounds). So that would mean goodbye breaststroke, goodbye running, goodbye weird dynamic stretches. Maybe this will be easier to adhere to now that I have a reason.

I do think, however, that focusing on something other than athletic competition might be good for me. So far, school has been a pretty good avenue to channel my competitiveness. I've attended a few networking events, and I already have a solid full-time job lead. In this economic environment, you gotta work to break into a new field, and that is exactly what I'm doing. This seems like it will be more rewarding long-term.

Week 2 or 6 depending on how you look at it

Well it's the 2nd week of school and my 6th week post op. My hip seems to be improving. Walking around campus last week was really painful, but this week it's not as painful.

The weird thing is that riding the bike seems to make it hurt more. My theory is that when I ride the bike, both legs work equally, so the left leg (the one operated on) thinks it is fine. Then when I try to walk afterward, my brain thinks that leg is fine, so I try to walk like normal, but then it hurts because the range of motion is still limited on that leg. It is similar after pool walking, too, but not as severe.

Part of me is slightly panicking as I realize that I am in graduate school and actually deciding on a career path. I feel like I am limiting myself, and I keep wondering about all the other things I could be doing. I like school, and I think it is interesting, but I still wonder.

I am also learning in my classes, though, that constraints are what allow systems to function well. Without constraints, people don't know what to do. Ex. great art work comes out of constraint, either constraint of materials or constraint of the artist's situation. Another ex. Professors can't hand out a blank school assignment. It needs to have constraints so the students know what to write about.

So, as a whole, I keep reminding myself that constraint is good and that something good will come of this.

Back to School!

Yesterday was the first day of my masters program. Returning to school is a weird transition after working for the last 1.5 years.

First of all, I don't really know a whole lot about what I am studying. Luckily the subject matter itself is inherently not that confusing, but there were still a few minutes in each class where I had no idea what the professor was talking about. In each case, though, I figured it out pretty quickly. If I were looking at engineering problem sets, I would be in trouble.

Secondly, for the last 1.5 years, I've pretty much done what I wanted. My jobs have all been pretty autonomous. In working for myself, I can do whatever I want. At my current marketing job, as long as I can prove that it will work, I can also generally do what I want. It is weird being told that I have to write journal entries every week or that I have to read all these articles. I suspect that my perspective towards school has changed. Now instead of worrying about grades, it seems like I am more concerned about learning.

Thirdly, the transition from marketing coordinator to graduate student is weird. In marketing, you can write however you want as long as it is effective, succinct, and increases your sales. You can make it catchy and endearing and use bold letters wherever you see fit. As a result of this, though, I've forgotten about school writing conventions. Am I still allowed to write in an endearing way? Can I start my journal entry saying "Since I spent the last year attempting to become a professional bike racer, naturally I chose RoadBikeReview.com for this project." I just don't know, but part of me doesn't really care because I think my perspective makes me unique and I don't want to lose that.

Oh and one more. Walking around campus is difficult. I didn't think it would be so bad because things are pretty close together, but I was really tired by the end of the day. My hip is doing ok considering, though.