Now I'm in the water, that tiny little dot 70 feet behind the boat, on the right hand of the picture. Momentarily the ski would lift me into a marvelous display of jumping the wake and touching my elbow as I skate across the water like Tonya Harding on steroids:
I hadn't skiied in probably 10 years. But it's just like riding a bike, right? I was never as good a skier as my sister, but our years at Shasta Lake afforded us many opportunities to slalom to our heart's content. You just pop up out of the water and the river or lake is your playground. Nay gentle reader, my fifty year old body registered a violent protest. As I attempted to get up on the ski (for the second, or was it the third time?) I felt a ripple in my right hamstring, and instantly my leg flooded with pain. The kind of pain where you know you are severely injured. Kim pulled the boat around and Kristar helped hoist me out of the water.
Kim made an ice bag, and I sat on it all the way back to the dock. I limped up to the parking lot, the pain continued to increase. I had beads of sweat on my forehead but made into the driver's seat. We were in Scappoose, and it waves of pain washed over me as I headed home. I had a terrible night, and the next day I asked Sherry to take me to urgent care. The doctor ran through one of those "does this hurt?" examinations. I had a fleeting moment where I wondered if my massive muscles would hinder her poking and prodding, but it seemed to be going OK. Until she hit the tear. I'm embarrassed to admit this but I screamed, literally; and tears came to my eyes. It hurt so bad. She gave me a shot, it wasn't morphine but something like it; and then told me to take the maximum dose of ibuprofen every four hours, and Vicadin to help sleep.
Well, that didn't touch it. The next Monday I went to the orthopedic surgeon. He acknowledged that it was a severe tear but that (thankfully) surgery was not required. He prescribed Oxycontin and Flexeril. My typical regimen became 12 ibuprofen, 3 Vicadin and 2 Oxycontin in 24 hours. The pain was so bad that I couldn't dress myself, which was embarrassing but Sherry just laughed and told me it was preparation for my old age. Ha, I'll get her for that. I had to use a cane for 2 weeks.
Here it is two months later and with a dozen therapy visits I managed to run a half mile on the treadmill and cycle for 45 minutes at the gym last weekend. The road to recovery is now fully in progress!
Check it out:
