Mecham Goes Into Surgery

[Polevaultgirly16]

Poor Jared how are you doing? Did you get alot of Drugs? hehe

[polevaulter08nw]

just asking the same thing, hows everything going?

[Mecham]

So after all your waiting.... here is the story...


After the first few weeks at BYU training started. I was so pumped, I couldn’t wait to start. At the beginning we had a general teamwork out. Let me tell you, it felt so good to be training so hard. Sprinting and Jumping left and right, back and forth, it was great to be there. I really was having the time of my life. It was my dream to be there, pole vaulting for BYU. I was the happiest man around.

One practice, which I will never forget... We were sprinting to stations where we would do different activities; I was doing step-ups onto a tractor tire. We were to do it for 45 seconds I think. About halfway through, my legs just gave out from under me and I just collapsed. I got up quickly, as my body would allow and made sure no one noticed. I tried to make it look like I slipped. The truth was that the pain in my hips came back. Came back with full force and worse than ever. There was no way I could keep practicing that way, but I did... I didn’t know what happened, but my mind just wouldn’t listen to my body. I had to prove to the team and myself that I could handle everything.

Practice was harder now, the training more intense. I finally told the head coach what was going on (he never really showed up for the general training). He told me to go visit the trainer's room. Of course I would go there after practice, to ice and things like that, which helped, but I never really was treated before. After a few treatments and exams and such, things didn’t get better. They referred me to the BYU Health Center. I was eager to go, as much as I didn’t really like going to doctors, I wanted this pain to go away as soon as possible. I was inspected a few times by a couple of different doctors just to get different opinions. I got some x-rays done and after that I went there (to the health center) about two or three times a week. No one could really figure out what was wrong with me. Bursitis was the only thing that really made sense to them. After seeing 4 or 5 doctors they referred me to a Hip Specialist. And based on the x-rays that we took earlier he thought that I had a pretty rare condition called a Femoral Acetabular Impingement. He told me that me femur bone didn’t really match up with my hip socket and that was causing the pain. Just to make sure he was correct, I had 3 injections done, to test whether the pain was coming from my muscles or bones. If it was in the muscle, one of the injections should take the pain completely away for about 6 months, or at least that is what we had hoped.

Because of those injections the pain went away for about 2 days. I can’t really remember the first day because they put me on some serious drugs that knocked me out for a day (pretty crazy dreams ha ha). That night happened to be Halloween, so I had many visitors, or at least that’s what my roommates told me. The second day was one of the best days I can remember, It was so relieving to be able to walk and feel no pain. I couldn’t run or jump, on doctor’s orders but the pain was gone. It was like Christmas as a kid, I really hoped that the pain would be gone for a long time, but I guess my luck had run out during that time. I don’t know how, or why but the pain came back again and with full force. Each day it got worse and worse.

The pain told the doctor that surgery is probably the best option. He knew of no other way to alleviate the pain if physical therapy, anti-inflammatory drugs, or injections didn’t work. I figured that it would be the best thing to do now, since we have tried everything in the state of Utah. The soonest the surgery could be done would be January 2nd. Christmas break was approaching and I needed to get some pre-surgery doctor appointments done. Just standard testing to see if I could handle the surgery and to just let me know what would happen. What they would do is make a 1 foot incision down the side of my hip, detach the femur bone and cut away at some bone on the hip and femur to make the bones fit more precisely. I wouldn’t be able to attend school at BYU; I would be in a wheelchair for a couple months and then crutches for the next 4 months.

Since I would be home for a while before the surgery, the doctor told me of some major physical therapy to prep me for the surgery. We got a hold of my chiropractor and told him of the situation and how he should work on me. Of course those were the worst sessions I have been through. The pain has never been so intense and sharp; I had to stop him because it was literally unbearable. My body knew that this was not working, it just couldn’t. There had to be another way to go through this prep work.

Later that day a friend of my family called my Dad and told us about a Holistic (including or involving all of something, especially all of somebody’s physical, mental, and social conditions, not just physical symptoms, in the treatment of illness) Physical Therapist, that worked wonders on her and how she should be able to help a little.

By that time I had almost given up and didn’t want to have anything done to me other than the surgery. You almost couldn’t talk me into seeing another doctor unless they gave me a drug to knock me out. I guess my parents made an appointment and without a choice I went to this doctor. Like every other doctor that I went to, I had to fill out page after page of paper work. This doctor had different pages though; she asked very specific questions about my history. She asked me how I sat in a chair, how I drove a car, how I walked, where my wallet was in my pockets, it kind of got annoying after a while but it was all for a good reason. When she started to work on me she showed me how aligned my body was, or… I should say out of alignment, my left leg was longer than the other, my collarbone was off, and my hips were shifted. Yeah a lot was wrong with me. After she showed me how bad my body was, she told me that by the time I left that day, all of those parts would be in alignment and the pain should be mostly gone.

HA! When I heard that I said, well how long do you plan on staying here? And the treatment started. She slowly and softly massaged my hips and legs and back, and adjusted them in a way that I have never seen before. She would ask me if any of the spots that she worked on were tender or sore, and of course, they were. She massaged them and occasionally went back to the areas she started with and asked if it was sore or tender. Much to my surprise, they weren’t. There wasn’t any pain when she went back again. Weird… About an hour later the session was complete and she took me back to the mirror to show me that I was perfectly aligned. I couldn’t believe that those small adjustments made such a huge difference. She told me that my shoulders, chest and spine weren’t flexible enough, and that pulled my on my hips, twisting, turning and yanking on them causing the pain that I had been going through. My jaw hit the floor when she told me that she wanted me to go on a jog right when I got home.

It really was a miracle when I got home and jogged around my neighborhood. There was no pain at all… I really couldn’t believe I went from using crutches and barley even walking, to jogging and running. I will never forget that day. I felt more free and alive than I have ever felt. I was to see her again that next week, and everyday until then I just ran, further and further each day.

After my second treatment, she told me I was clear to go back to college and enroll in classes and start training again. She told me to be very careful…very careful. She told me to take things very slow. My training was to be taken seriously and treated as post surgery therapy. So I flew back to Utah. And started slowly but surely training…yet once again.

[master]

That's quite a story. I'm glad to hear something is finally working for you. I hope its benefits will last.

- master

[jumpbackin]

Wow Jared, that's awesome! I'm so happy for you. That surgury sounded brutal to me and not a very promising.

Was it Linda Berseth who ended up helping you out? My wife has repeatedly asked me to see her. I've not because, like you, I'm sick of doctors, chiros and PT's and I just want to figure it out on my own. It's been a couple years since I've seen anyone, but after hearing your story, I would definetely pay her a visit.

[Mecham]

Yes that is her name. Her office is on sullivan just south of the freeway. If you need to know her address, just let me know and I can get that to you. And by the way... I will be in my first competition since the injury this Friday at BYU.

[jumpbackin]

Thanks. I know right where it is.

Good luck on Friday.

[rainbowgirl28]

I moved this to the Training forum, in case someone else ends up with a similar kind of injury and finds this helpful.

[Mecham]

Well... As most of you know, I was in Finland on a Mission for my Church. My hip started acting up again while I was there, and I found out that I had a pretty bad labrum tear. This tear required surgery. So I finally got the surgery I had been telling you about.

I blogged all about it at http://www.jaredmecham.com if you want to check it out! It's probably the coolest blog ever.

[bulldogvaulter]

wow that sucks I am sry. I know when I dislocated my elbow and couldnt pole vault my whole freshmen year it sucked, but now I am vaulting better then ever I hope the same for you too.