So today I got some semi-bad news. I guess I will start from the beginning. Although I am a Realtor by day I am a  bartender a few nights a week to make ends meet while I still learn about the real estate business. Back in October I attempted to move a keg by myself, not a wise choice, and ended up tweaking my back a bit. I ended up in the ER the next day as I could not even get out of my car. The attending ER doctor that day told me that I pulled a muscle or just slipped a disk and over the course of the next few weeks things should go back to where they belong. Well, he was wrong. Last week I woke up in the morning barely able to move or get out of bed as the same spot was driving me crazy and causing me a lot of pain. I ended up back in the ER and this time they did a MRI. They concluded that I had a protrusion at my C5/S1 vertebrae. They put me on some meds to medicate the pain and referred me to a spine specialist, Milan Herceg,  at Orthopedic 1.

So I got to visit Dr. Herceg today and he took a few X-Rays and came back pretty quick with a diagnosis. I have a herniated disk and it requires surgery to repair. A herniated disk is when the disk is weaken and pushes outward. This ends up pressing on the nearby nerves causing the pain in my lower back and in my left leg. My left leg is numb and tingles almost all the time and is a constant nag. Dr. Herceg described it as having a rock in your shoe. You can either leave the rock in the shoe or you can take the rock out. I opted to take the rock out.

The surgery is minor, but never the less its still surgery. It will be an out patient surgery and Dr. Herceg will go in an cut away the nucleus that is pushing outward and any other dead tissue. This will relieve the pressure on my nerve and hopefully fix my issues.

Of all things I was most concerned with was the impact it will have on my training for IM 70.3. The good news is I will only be down for about a week and I will be able to resume cycling and swimming. The bad news is I will not be able to run for 4 weeks due to the impact on the spine from running. Once he told me this my heart sank and it still is in the bottom of my stomach a bit.

After thinking about it and weighing my options for a few hours I have decided to turn this negative into a positive. Running for me is easy to a degree and is not my chief concern for the race. Swimming has and is my biggest concern. The way I look at it is that I have four weeks solid to focus on swimming and becoming a better swimmer. At the end of four weeks one would figure that I should or could become a much better swimmer. I guess we will find out.

No matter what I am not going to let this set back deter me from my goal. With the help of my coach and doctor I will rehab and continue towards my goal of IM 70.3 Chattanooga. For the mean time I will continue to train as I have and let pain be my guide as to what I can and cannot do. That was the doctors advice.

So please keep me in your thoughts and prayers. I will be busy turning adversity into my advantage. Till the next post!

N~