I don’t know what lessons we are supposed to learn from pain. Some of them are more obvious. When you burn your hand on the stove, you learn to respect sources of heat and attempt to avoid them to prevent future injury. So it isn’t that all pain is bad. In fact, people with congenital analgesia, or those that do not feel pain, typically live very short lives. So the evidence is pretty overwhelming that pain is protective.
Still, what are we to make of nagging injuries that never really rise to the level of causing a reflexive withdraw?
Around 12 years ago, I was doing training in the military. It was the qualification course to become a green beret. The instructor leading the training had us running with packs on our backs. During the run, I felt a very slight pop in my right hip, and then it slowly became more painful as the training progressed. Other than the pop I felt, the pain was not unlike normal pain I had felt during my days of playing sports or other military training. I chalked it up to muscle related pain, or a strain, and thought if I rested it I would improve.
This was early on in the course. Over the course of the 2 years I remained in the qualification course, I felt a migration of pains that involved my hip, knee and even ankle.
I can’t really explain why I never got it checked out, but at the time it was a matter of survival. In order to avoid being removed from the training, I tried to cope with it, and in the process, explained away the worst possibilities.
As the pain persisted, I completely changed my running gait to shorten my stride and involve more of a forefoot strike. This helped with the joint pain, but immediately cut 2-3 minutes off of my 2-mile time. I went from consistently running sub-13 minute 2-miles, to running 14:30-15:00. The fact that I could run with relatively little pain, though, was sufficient. I scraped by through the rest of the course, making all of the required times on 12-mile foot marches and runs, but my ego was taking a hit.
I used to be fast. Now I was not.
There is a saying in the Army, less frequent as the woke take on leadership roles, but there are strong rangers, and there are fast rangers. There are also smart rangers, but as green berets, we were all expected to be smart. I had to also be strong, or fast. I wasn’t fast anymore, and I’ve never been terribly strong.
There were still moments, though. I did graduate and was qualified to serve in the position I had coveted in the military. With the transition I thought maybe some rest was needed and my body would recover with adequate recuperation.
That led to more weight gain. I never got fat, but I bulked up, going from around 160 lbs to as high as 190 lbs. Since running hurt, I decided that I would move more weight and get stronger. I could never work on my core and my lower extremities like I wanted to, though, because my hip still bothered me.
I felt guilty.
All activities I had once really enjoyed started becoming tasks to me. Even hobbies, like hiking, camping, or climbing were painful. I tried to make up for it with my teammates by contributing in other ways, but physically always felt out of place. We would go to the gym together, and it hurt. I’d go to the gym alone, and could never make the gains I had hoped for. A return to cardio and I couldn’t stretch my stride enough to get faster without pain. Increasing sprint work just hurt more.
To cope, I tried to help my teammates and others in adjacent teams by doing extra admin work. I would bust my backside trying to get everyone’s orders completed or finish packing lists for our next deployment. I would stay up late to do that work because I knew I would be limited in ways I shouldn’t be when work needed to be done. I tried to brush up on my skills by as much mental repetitions and dry firing as I could manage to get the most out of my training while doing the least physical work possible.
Putting on kit, and maneuvering on the range or in the house while trying to shoot simply hurt. Compensating for the hip would hurt my knees and my back. I tried going shorter, but harder, which wouldn’t work. So I’d lengthen it out and run slow, but very long, often stretching an 8 or 9 minute mile pace into 10 mile runs. I worked through minimalist shoes and varying different types of running shoes and even gave myself a stress fracture trying to run the Dam-to-Dam in Iowa, completing at least the last 8 miles on a broken foot that I ignored because I felt inadequate.
I managed, but I was never flourishing.
The entire time I was there I felt like a pretender. I couldn’t do what I wanted to do and felt like I didn’t truly belong.
Perhaps I didn’t. I messed up a few times and some of them got me in trouble. Nothing serious in terms of my career, but my pride already hurt, and screwing up felt like a huge let down. I laid awake at night hoping there wouldn’t be a real mission because I thought I would get my friends and teammates hurt, or worse, killed.
This caused me to drink more than I should have. I never struggled with alcoholism, but the number of times I gave myself over to drinking more than I knew was safe or wise increased dramatically. I didn’t recognize it for what it was at the time, but all of my other coping mechanisms were failing. It was an attempt to fit in with my seemingly immortal and unrelenting teammates.
Eventually the starting of a family and the wear of feeling inadequate on a team wore on me and I opted for another path. I applied for and was accepted to PA school. A far less physically demanding vocation. After completing training I reset my mind. I no longer wanted to perform great, but I just wanted to feel well.
That should be easily attainable.
Over a year of trying to just get physically active and exercise enough to feel good, I still couldn’t. A short jog of 1-2 miles would make my hip tighten up and take 2-3 days to recover. Getting the free weights in the garage moving in a squat or a deadlift would do the same. The med platoon would let me know of an activity going on and I had no interest. Staff physical training was something to avoid at all costs. A run with junior officers prior to heading to the box for a training rotation? Forget it.
Nothing was working.
Even family was being harmed by it. Walk the trail by the river? I was tired from work. Wrestle with the boys? Sure, but then be irritated and incapacitated for days, allowing frustration to harm my wife and kids.
It wasn’t healthy, and I knew it.
So I finally asked a physician I work with to check it out. After getting the MRI results, the labral tear that had been present for 12 years was staring at me in the face. Physically it felt nice to know there was a diagnosis. The cause of my symptoms might be repairable.
The toll it has taken on my emotions, spirit and mentality, though, may not be recoverable. Perhaps it isn’t meant to be. It has helped me to grow, personally and professionally, in ways I otherwise might not have. It has also kept me from potentially performing to my potential in the job I had sought and spent years of my life trying to attain. While there, I was never the teammate I could have been, and yet trying to make up for it may have made me a teammate I would not have otherwise been as well.
I do believe in God. I know that the plan he has for me is not the one I would have made for myself. I do not regret that it went the way it did, but I do apologize to those I have known for the lack of transparency. Rather than admit my pain and seek help for it, I tried to hide it and explain it away. I know that no matter what good may have come from it, my lack of honesty regarding my pain was more negative than positive.
Now, having received the surgery to repair the labrum, I hope that I am finally able to get to a point, physically, where I just feel good. I want to be able to get out and go for a run, ride a bike, or even hike some of the trails here in the beautiful state of Colorado without the pain that makes me fret, avoid and even become irritated before and after each attempt to enjoy it.
I can never get those days with my teammates back. I can’t make up for the attempt to protect myself or the irritation it might have caused them.
If you think you might have been injured, get it checked out. There are healthier ways to learn the other lessons I learned, and the scars may not be as painful in the aftermath.
To my teammates, I hope you’ll understand and forgive me. I promise, it wasn’t for lack of trying, and each and every single one of you drove me to try and be better. You are all great men, and I hope I earned my place not just as your teammate, but as a friend. I can’t promise I would have been able to keep up even without the injury, but I know I would have participated with a much bigger smile than I had at the time.
You were all, and still are, the greatest.
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