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Kathy Conway-
Women's Cross Country
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 As
a freshman, Kathy began running for the cross country team
in 1998. In early October she began to experience some hip
pain from running. She began rehab for a gluteal strain and
continued to participate, but her symptoms had increased by the
end of the month. She was referred to Dr. Steve Zabinski from
Shore University Orthopedic Associates in Somers Point, for evaluation.
The initial diagnosis was piriformis syndrome/ trochanteric bursitis.
She received a cortisone injection and we adapted her rehabilitation
program at Stockton. Again she had very little improvement
and returned to Dr. Zabinski for follow-up 2 more times in November.
Because of her varying symptoms and limited improvement she was
referred for an MRI in December, and went home for the break.
In January her MRI revealed she had a
lumbar disc protrusion. At this time we concluded she would
not compete in the Indoor Track season and she was removed from
any training for 3 weeks. Soon after this she also began physical
therapy at the Betty Bachrach Rehabilitation Center for a varied
approach to her problems. By March she still was unable to
return to running regularly, and she was advised she would miss
the outdoor track season as well. We then opted to remove
her from all rehab and running activities for a two week period.
She returned to rehab at Stockton and was able to run a few days
a week by the end of the semester,  if
mixed in with days off. For the summer she was to train with
non-aggravating activities and begin running again in August.
Upon her return for training camp in August, for the 1999 season,
she began doing 1 training session of the teams 4 daily. This
progressed to 2 with biking being one of them. In September
she began running all the training sessions along with rehabilitation.
She ran in the teams first meet with a lot of pain afterwards.
After her third meet we eliminated rehabilitation and she began
a program of stretching and icing only. Finally, her symptoms
began to fully fade and she returned to full participation without
problems. Her injury and delayed recovery was an extremely
frustrating experience. To her credit, her full return for
the cross country season surprised even us. |
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