Speedbump 2: Injury and Pain

This is a continuation of my story documenting the parts of my life that have brought me to Day 0, when I decided to change my daily habits for life, and for the better, to ultimately achieve my goals of reaching the best shape of my life, being fit and healthy, and full of energy. For other posts, see the rest of my story.

After my crazy year in Grade 10, I slowed down my high school sports compared to the previous year. In Grade 11 I only played soccer and golf in the fall, hockey for one team and basketball in the winter, and then volleyball (and some golf) in the spring. It still was a lot, but at least I would get days off to rest. It was this year that my second speedbump started to manifest. I started having lower back pain, the great affliction that most people associate with getting old. I was 16. It wasn't too bad in Grade 11, it started out as mostly just a dull ache and I never thought too much of it. I would get spasms every now and then when I was playing hockey. Later in the winter season though, I injured my right knee in a game of basketball, straining my Lateral Collateral Ligament (LCL). I went to physiotherapy for ultrasound treatment, did some resistance band exercises, and strapped my knee into a brace and kept playing. Hey, no pain, no gain, right?

Well, the knee wasn't too bad and got a bit better after a few months and was probably around 90% and by volleyball season I was running around making digs just fine. By the time summer came around again though, the nagging back pain started to affect my golf swing a little bit. The previous summer I had my best year of golf, qualifying for Nationals and winning and placing in a lot of the local tournaments after making a decision to drop baseball and focus on my golf game (two totally different swings!). Maybe it was mental burnout as well, but I failed to make it back to Nationals that summer, or even come close to my performance from the previous summer.

Into Grade 12, my senior year, the back pain started to progress even more. During hockey games, the spasms were getting worse and more frequent. They were getting so bad that my body would freeze up and I wouldn't be able to move temporarily. In a fast paced game like hockey, this sort of thing can't happen. I finally got to a doctor to check into it and I was back to the physiotherapist that had worked on my knee with some back exercises and ultrasound treatment. We experimented with taping up my back for hockey games and wearing a funny brace, none which helped stop the spasms. By the end of hockey season, the spasms had progressed into more pain in my hip and shooting pain down my leg. Throw in a pulled groin late in the hockey season, and it was apparent that my body was shutting down on me.