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Tenosynovitis is a condition that occurs when the sheath surrounding the tendon becomes inflamed and swollen. As the tendon moves within the inflamed sheath, there is an audible creaking or crunching sensation called crepitus.
Crepitus is the most demoralising injury because there is no easy cure. Fluid builds up between the muscle or tendon and the sheath around it, causing the creaking sensation because the muscle cannot slide properly in the sheath.
Apart from constant rest and icing, there is little else that can be done. It plays with your mind too because there are times when you are convinced it has disappeared only for it to return after the slightest exercise. It can vanish overnight only to return during the day; it gives you hope, only to kick you in the stomach time after time.
One of the dreadful things about crepitus is the crackling, squeaking, crunching feeling it gives. Without even touching it you know it is there just by moving your foot up and down.
On the day before the race, Gerard left a note on my pillow. He wrote that we had all been through a really tough and difficult time but the experience had reminded him of something told to him by the great Kenyan distance runner, Douglas Wakiihuri. Gerard and Douglas had worked together a lot and been good friends; Gerard helped coach him for a while. He remembered Douglas telling him that he believed the marathon was like a rose.
“A rose, Douglas? What do you mean?” “In this way, Gerard: at the top of the rose you have a very beautiful flower. This is the race and it can be a very wonderful sight. Yet, along the way to the top, there are very many thorns. These are all of the difficulties that must be overcome. Have you noticed, the more thorns, the more beautiful the rose?” Gerard went on to say that though we had been through hell in the previous four weeks, something told him it was going to be all right. He still felt I could do it. Douglas’s likening of the marathon to the rose stayed with me.
Gary: She was warming up for this long run, she felt something not quite right in her quad but she never said anything to me. We have talked like a million times since and she said she was scared to tell me.
Why should she have been scared? Probably because I would have said, “well, what the hell are you doing here? What are you doing this for? You’re not going ahead with this run.” That’s where I go wrong. I would have said, “you’re not doing this”, and there would have been a scene.
“Yes I am.”
“Well then, go and do it by yourself. I’m not staying around.”
Maybe if she’d thought I would react more calmly she would have mentioned it.
This crepitus was something Paula had experienced before, even though it was now in a different place and it was different in nature. But the bottom line was she knew it was a tricky injury. It comes and goes, it plays with your mind. We had to make quick decisions. We had a crisis situation. It was 11 days to the biggest race of your life, what do you do? Do you sit back and hope it will just come right or do you do something proactive and try everything you can? You can’t just give up. She was never going to give up.
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