Backstory: Over the years, I have hit a spot between the medial and distal thirds of my right tibia. During last year's track season, it hurt to stretch. At the time, I believed that it was "just" shin splints, sought no treatment, and continued to run through it. After that, I joined cross country, though I can't say that it bothered me then. However, I was in a weights class a few weeks prior to the track season this year, and it came back. We were sprinting on the hard ground of the hallway. Against my own caution, kids would walk back immediately after their turn. Thus, we would sprint into them, leaving three options: weave between them, hit them dead on, or put all of that force straight into our legs in a sudden stop. Guess which one I did? Yeah, that much force brought my pain right back the day after. I ran on it for a couple of weeks before seeing a trainer, who for whatever reason called it a shin splint. I did the therapy stretches and biking as told, and then the virus hit. I tried to run a week after, but one time it hurt so much that I just hobbled back home after a few hundred meters.
The rest of the school year passed by, and I finally sought out a doctor after staying away from running for a while. He took an X-ray, and said that it probably couldn't be anything but a stress fracture. However, I never saw it. Reading the notes on it, I think that there must have been a visible line, but I'm not sure. Anyway, he told me to go NWB for 2 weeks. I took 3.5 off. Then, I walked around for a week before becoming tired. I pressed on it hard and tried to sprint, and the damn thing hurt to walk on. A couple days later, the pain was gone. I have since started biking, but I have no clue where I'm at in terms of recovering. There is a palpable mass there, and has been for a long time, perhaps longer than 2 years. I'm trying to follow a plan that I found, although it's unclear to me whether or not it's permanently damaged, since I hear that that is possible through reinjury. Thus, I have become deeply sad about my prospect of ever running again, and in a domino effect of life. I can't get over the idea that it's over if this doesn't heal, but I don't know if it will.