Keep You Guessing

Before I get to the results of the MRI, I have one more person to introduce you to. My massage therapist. And don't even roll your eyes. I know what you're picturing. Hot stones, creepy relaxing music, dim light. OMG, sounds amazing. That's not what we're talking about here. Way back in the beginning of time when I first found out about my surgery with Dr. McGorgeous, I was limping around the back of my house to throw the trash in the dumpster we shared with a few other houses. One of these houses had a few Big Ten football players living there, and one of the linemen saw my ankle brace and limp and asked what happened. We'll call him SanFran, since he now plays for the 49ers. So I tell SanFran what happened and as it turns out, he has THE SAME EXACT INJURY! And he also had surgery with Dr. McGorgeous! Small world, huh? He tells me not to worry, that I'm in good hands and if anyone can get me back to normal, it's our surgeon. He then tells me that the most important thing I can do for myself after surgery is find myself a massage therapist. Apparently, the football team does it for them, but I would need to hire my own. And if it's good enough for a now-pro football player, it's good enough for me. So in August, as physical therapy started to progress, I found myself a massage therapist who specialized in sports medicine. Well, I actually found two. The first one needed a book to figure out where the ligament I tore was, was afraid to touch my ankle, and then tried to take my top off. Please, you gotta buy me dinner if you want to take my top off. The second massage therapist I found was THE ONE. Our first meeting was wonderful. He wasn't afraid of my scars, he got right in there and started to feel things out and ask me questions about my injury, my surgery, and my pain. He moved up from my ankle into my calf and started loosening muscles and releasing trigger points. FYI, "trigger points" is Latin for "tiny spots of Satanic pain". Seriously. At one point, the massage therapist (lets refer to him as MT. No...that's boring. How bout DJ MT? Yup, that's a winner) tells me that my calf muscles are so locked down from having to protect my ankle for so long that he doesn't know how I can walk. And standing up from the table and trying out my ankle again, I wasn't sure how I had walked before either. I think my visit was $35 and I would have paid him $35,000 for what he did for me that day. So DJ MT became a regular stop on my weekly rounds of ankle-getting-better-ness. And while he hurts me nearly every time I go in there, I know that the pain is helping me get better, and that he only likes hurting me a little bit. Kidding. Kinda. He did make me puke once. He taught me what "referral pain" is. Did you know that I have places near my knee that you can push on to make my ankle hurt? It meant that some of my ankle pain wasn't actually ankle pain, and he could fix that. Anyways, DJ MT plays a crucial role in upcoming chapters, so I wanted to introduce him now. But back to McGorgeous's office, where I'm waiting for the results of my second MRI. Stay tuned....

PS- that's what my ankle looked like 4 weeks after surgery. I figure we're good enough friends now to share.