02-06-10
A simple bike ride is the cause for over a week’s worth of limping, icing, doc visits, prescriptions, shots under the knee cap, blah blah blah.
There were no crash & burns. In fact, I found a cool hill, (they do exist in FL. Though, usually manmade) and cranked right up it. I had no incidents at all. Simply put, the bike is too short for me.
THAT is what thrashed my left knee.
So, here’s what I glossed over last time…
I decided to start going back to Karate classes to regain some speed, flexibility and stamina. I was doing OK at my first class. Well enough that the Sinsei felt I should go ahead and spar. I sparred with a guy who was my height but had 70 lbs on me. My kicks were accurate but, I was slow, (still quicker than him.) I blocked one of his meaty kicks and torqued my left wrist.
Several weeks later, it still ached a little and spiked when I’d bend my left wrist to freakish angles. (Freakish wrist angles are, or at least WERE, my life) It hurt most when I threw my lefty-helicopter throw for fellow freestylers. I really love that throw, but it hurts too much to throw it with any real POP!
I finally decided to call a doctor to see what was going on with the wrist.
Meanwhile, Chad and I have been trying to get together as often as possible to work on WCDGD projects. Consequently, I had not been getting out and getting my greatly needed exercise. So, one day, about a week and a half ago, I decided to go for a bike ride. I rode a couple of miles on sidewalks and backstreets to reach a nice hill a few miles north of Barnett park on Pine Hills road. I got there and the body was starting to warm up. I charged up the hill (SHUT UP!!) And just plodded around scoping the area and, like most of us, imagined what I could do with THIS property if I got to design a disc golf course on it.
I’ll cut to the chase. No crashes. 2 days later I could feel my left knee starting to complain. A day later, I could barely put any weight on my left leg. And anything that made my knee torque to the side, even in the least, would send a spike of pain through up my leg.
The morning of my wrist appointment arrived. I missed it. But I rescheduled and made that one. I asked the office if they had a “knee-guy” available since I really needed to find out why my knee just went ballistic for what seemed, no apparent reason. They said “no.”
However, they suggested I go 1 block west, 3 blocks North, and 3 blocks west to a walk-in (in my case, “limp-in”) orthopedic clinic. I gave them my info, hobbled to a chair and sat down to wait. They called me within about 5 minutes. Cool. Then they said “We can’t see you today because you already saw another one of our doctors earlier today and your insurance company won’t pay us for the appointment.”
Now, I needed to see a “jaw-guy” because mine had dropped open when I slipped on that line of BS they had just spread before me.
I called my insurance co and told them I was being denied a medical visit because I had already seen another doctor in their system. The ins co said, “HUH? You can go whenever you want, and see whoever you want, for whatever you want.”.
I held the phone out to the people behind the desk and said tell that to my insurance company.
They said “no, we can’t bill them”.
I said, so it isn’t my ins. Co?
They said “no”.
I apologized to my ins person and hung up.
Then the desk jockeys said , we can’t bill your ins co because they won’t pay us.
At this point, I was pretty pissed. Not Bill Bixby pissed. But pissed. I had to drive away.
Once home I called the clinic again and got the office manager on the phone who made the same claim. I told her that I had a serious and legitimate ailment that needed to be addressed and they were more concerned about their paper work. And beside my ins co said they’re WRONG. I was put on hold for about 5 minutes. Upon her return, she stated that, in fact, I COULD be seen today.
I looked at the clock… 4:06pm. “What time do you close today?”
“We just took our last appointment at 4”
“So, you’re still bumping me to tomorrow.’
“How long will it take you to drive here?”
“About 20 minutes.”
“OK, if you can make it in 20 minutes we can still see you.”
“Well, I have to put shoes back on, hobble to the car and hope I don’t hit any traffic.
I acted out the above line and spun my balding tires pulling out of my neighborhood. About 3/4 of the way there, I saw a HUGE traffic back-up. I managed to side step it and pulled back into the same mess, down the road. I went back-roads again and came out at the far end of the police blockade and had to ask a cop to let me through.
I got there in 23 minutes but they did see me. The X-Ray revealed a very milky meniscus, which he said was heavily embedded with calcium deposits along with some arthritic areas as well. Usually, when this had happened in the past, it would go away within a few days. This one hung on for well over a week.
Yesterday was the first day I awoke relatively pain free. But it didn’t last long. I iced down a couple times at the end of the day. I didn’t think I’d be ready to play today because, yesterday my knee still didn’t feel as if it was solid. Today, my walk was fairly normal.
I tested a few throws and it felt OK, so I signed in and grabbed my card. The 360 came out of hiding a lot more often than normal because I still can’t really push off of the back leg. But despite some HOWLING winds I was –4 on the Parkside long course going into the last two holes. I went 4, 5 to finish at –1. But lead the masters div.
Round two, Randy Beers smoothed some very nice drives through some choppy and gusty breezes to shoot the low score off the day on the North course, only John E McCray matched that score. It was a pretty boring round for me. The breeze was too high, combined with my lack-o-push off, so I parred a LOT. I had two boogers and only 1 birdie, on the longest par 3 on the course. A fairly open, slightly downhill shot…and downwind. I did a 360 drive with a Pro Wraith and nearly aced it.
By the end of the round, I was ready for ice and meds. 
It was the usual suspects in the open div. John E McCray lead Climo by a small margin with Lexi “boobs” Bubis trailing by a few with local Rudy Vela-Cantu bringing up the top 4.
Tomorrow: Hopefully, a much shorter synopsis of day 2.
A few days ago, I went for a bike ride to break up the sedentary nature of getting our friz biz taken care of. True to form, a couple of days later, I was barely capable of walking. Speed golf? No problem. Massively contorted freestyle moves? Not an issue. Playing Ultimate or even karate class? No big deal. But riding a bike that’s a bit too short for me. KRYPTONITE to my left knee. I’ll go off on that story next time…,maybe.