Tibial Plateau Stress Fractures

That's my latest diagnosis, and it's a mouthful.

Seriously? Seriously. This is crazy. I was just minding my own business, trying to get back into running, and this is what it gets me. A recovery time of 8-10 weeks, and you know what they do for stress fractures? Nothing. You have to rest. A lot of rest. And elevation of your affected leg, or legs in my case. Did I mention rest? And just how does one who has a 4 year old and an 18 month old do that?

I have a friend that's a PT and she saw me at birthday party on Saturday and she had made me feel a little better when she said it was highly unlikely that I had bilateral stress fractures, since that's pretty rare in the "normal" population. Apparently I'm not normal. The ortho doctor this morning assured me "Oh, it's actually more common than you'd think, especially in army recruits."

Um, don't know if you've noticed, but I'm not exactly wearing cammo, my friend.

And someone explain this to me - I'm not an Olympic athlete by any means, but I'm also not 100+ lbs overweight, so how is it those jokers on Biggest Loser don't come up lame like this more often???

So now I'm trying to figure out just how I'm going to get all my mommy/wife duties handled over the next three months. We are looking into getting someone to clean the house on a regular basis for us (thanks Mom!). But just the simple things like cooking dinner, laundry, and grocery shopping are all of a sudden a big pain in the ass....or knees as the case may be.

If anything, let this be a lesson to anyone who's taken steroids for prolonged periods and/or is a Crohn's patient. When I was originally diagnosed with Crohn's in May 2002, my doctor immediately put me on steroids. Like 30 mg or so a day, for months. Works like a charm while you are on them, but dear Lord it can wreak havoc on your body. Stay away from long term steroids! Because of these steroids, I managed to develop osteopenia at the ripe old age of 33 (I think that's when I was diagnosed). That means my bone density is lower than what it should be, but not low enough to be classified as osteoporosis. After I told the orthopedist this, he was 99.9% convinced this is why this happened.

So yeah, good times right now. I know I could have something much worse going on, but it's still a pain in the butt!!