Hurt Bad

[Thorpesaurous]

So as some of you know, I have really bad knees. In fact, one of the resons I started posting here is because my knees really gave ended my ability to play, and therefore generally be involved in the basetball community I grew up in, and this became something of an outet for me.

Since then I got into coaching, and after a few surgeries, and adjusting my expectations, I've been able to play a little bit. And this year was my biggest in a while. I got invited to join an awfull men's league team, but they had three decent players, and adding me, we actually won a game, and when all four of us are on the floor together, I dare say we're competitive.

Thursday night we're playing the second best team in the league, who's filled with kids in their early 20s, including some who play in DII programs. I don't start, as one of the other guys plays PG, so I go in for him so we know we can at least get the ball up. But fourth quarters we all play together.

So I come in, and feel really good. Get a layup, draw a foul, drop an assist. And we're close. I turn it over on a pass to the corner, and I'm backpeddling on D with my buddy behind me on a 3-2. The kid coming at me can move, so I use an old trick, I deke to the left, to force him left, but jump back to backpeddling, and essentially cut the court in half. The kid does a nice little drift dribble and is gonna shoot a three. So I jam my right toe in the court around the elbow and drive myself out toward him to contest ...
But going from full throttle backward to full throttle forward, even as limited as those throttles are these days, proved to be too much. My right achilles tore right off the bone. It was this horrible stretchy feeling, followed by a huge pop sound. I thought my shoelace had popped. I actually got off the ground, and on the way down realized it. I grabbed the shooter by the shoulder and told him don't move. But he shoved me off chasing the rebound. I kept my balance and asked the far ref to stop the game, but he didn't. However the closer ref behind me heard it. He came up and grabbed me. Said it was the 4th he'd seen this year, and he and my buddy got me to the bleachers where his wife called 911. My sweat ran cold. I thought I was gonna throw up. It was excruciating.
Ambulance took me to hospital, where they filled me with morphine. They took a useless x-ray, I knew what was wrong, but they carried on with acting like I'm an idiot. They casted me beyond the knee. Told me to see my doc the next morning. He sent me to an ortho to get MRI, who then decided that my purple heel did have a torn achilles, and sent me to surgeon. Surgery Tuesday, after an exhausting day of bullshit insurance hoop jumping.


So good morning rehab.

[J.101]

That sounds horrible all the best with the recovery process

[SourPatchKids]

Stay strong brotha

[Balla_Status]

Damn...first kobe now thorpe?

[Zan Tabak]

And this is why I don't play ball anymore. I'm not gettin paid (not making the NBA or even the D-league :oldlol: ) and I always seem to get injured in one way or another. The risk isn't worth the reward imo.

After my 'playing days' I got into weightlifting, you should give it a try.

Anyway, fast recovery man! :cheers:

[9erempiree]

Stay strong and think of Kobe. You and Kobe will be rehabbing your way back.

I guess you are going to be a Laker and Kobe fan now. You can relate.

[d.bball.guy]

Stay strong and think of Kobe. You and Kobe will be rehabbing your way back.

I guess you are going to be a Laker and Kobe fan now. You can relate.
:roll: :roll:

But yeah, OP, get well soon and hope for a quick recovery :cheers:

[Thorpesaurous]

So the last of the hoops has been jumped through. Surgery will be Thursday.

The good news is two things. The surgery is very simple. It's a half hour to an hour procedure, and generally speaking an outpatient process. I should be home that night.
The second good thing is that they're very confident about the outcome of this particular procedure. They're fairly confident that I'll be back to my mediocre self when this is all said and done, with some PT, and just time.

The bad news is the time. I'm looking at 1-2 weeks of letting the wound heal. That's a critical stage, and little to no risk can be taken. Until the sutures come out, I really can't risk anything. Infection could be devesatating, and if they come open, I'm essentially starting the process over. After that there's a 6 week run of absolutely zero weight baring. Again, this is a stage that could see me tear the tendon again, and again, we'd be starting over from scratch. And beyond that, Another six weeks of minimal weight baring. That will start with a boot and crutches, basically where I'm at now. Then move to sneakers and crutches. Then just boot for the last stretch, where I'll be able to walk on it, but it will stabalize the tendon while regain strenghth. That pretty much ends my summer.

This winter had seen me really start to re-introduce myself into playing basketball, and finding men's leagues that fit where I am, and I was really looking forward to continueing that, but I guess that's over now. And my usual role as multi league softball pitcher, because a) I'm willing to have balls rocketed at my crotch all summer, and b) I'm just good enough to not walk in a half dozen runs per game (both genuine skills), is also over this year. Coaching pop warner, which starts at the end of the summer, but that is probably over too.

So looks like I hooked up my fancy internet ready smart tv and signed up for netflix just in time, so expect to see me in the rate the last movie thread a lot, and probably a fair amount in the video game forum.

**** me!

[Bandito]

Stay strong and think of Kobe. You and Kobe will be rehabbing your way back.

I guess you are going to be a Laker and Kobe fan now. You can relate.
Ok I laughed, hope I could rep you.:lol

Hope everything works out for you bro. I had stress fracture on both knees and couldn't do much in the military BMT so I was sent to a medical squadron to get better for four months. Just imagine 4 months not doing sh1t with no internet.

[Thorpesaurous]

Ok I laughed, hope I could rep you.:lol

Hope everything works out for you bro. I had stress fracture on both knees and couldn't do much in the military BMT so I was sent to a medical squadron to get better for four months. Just imagine 4 months not doing sh1t with no internet.


That sounds terrible.

I do have some experience. But my two knee surgeries were like the exact opposite of this.

Surgeries were complicated, exploratory Orthroscopics, because they really didn't know how bad they'd be from the MRI. And a tissue sample retrieved for harvesting fresh cartellidge. As opposed to this one where they really know what they're getting into.

And then those wound up being 1-2 week recoveries each. Really not that bad. As opposed to this one which will be brutal after the fact.

And finally, they still aren't sure how my knees will react over time. They're a great mystery of science. Whereas my achilles they're pretty sure how this will turn out. It's gonna take time and work, but they know really know the end game within reason.

[kNIOKAS]

Best wishes, recuuperate well. Could you take your mind to really do something, while disabled? I'd say, "man, I'd totally learn HTML since I cannot really do anything else anyway". But what happens usually is like "I cannot do it since I'm not at full strenght", and then when in full strenght "I have to do something else, let's keep it for the time that I'm sick or something", and then end up procrastinating whatever.

[Thorpesaurous]

Best wishes, recuuperate well. Could you take your mind to really do something, while disabled? I'd say, "man, I'd totally learn HTML since I cannot really do anything else anyway". But what happens usually is like "I cannot do it since I'm not at full strenght", and then when in full strenght "I have to do something else, let's keep it for the time that I'm sick or something", and then end up procrastinating whatever.


That would be great. I'd love to like ... learn to play the guitar ... or something while I'm sitting around. But the fact is is that I'll wind up watching Movies I never got around to, playing video games, and reading a book or two.

I don't know why that is, but that'll just be the nature of it I'm sure.

[eriX]

That would be great. I'd love to like ... learn to play the guitar ... or something while I'm sitting around. But the fact is is that I'll wind up watching Movies I never got around to, playing video games, and reading a book or two.

I don't know why that is, but that'll just be the nature of it I'm sure.

Watch some documentaries man, one thing about knowledge is that you can never have enough. There bound to be something that interests you where you can spend you energy on and rehab whilst learning.

[rufuspaul]

Tough luck Thorpe. I hope the surgery goes as planned and the rehab progresses quickly. Sending positive vibes.

[Thorpesaurous]

So last night marked my triumphant return to the glorious game of basketball!!!


A mere 9 and half months since tearing the achilles, and probably 10 weeks sooner than really expected. I've been coaching with my buddy his sons' team. We're in the under 9 year old division of a local youth program. It's been fun. Last year we dominated at Under 7, but we were actually good enough that he wanted to skip a division to drive his older son, who's on the cutoff for playing the level down. That would be fine, but all our parents asked for us as coaches, so now I have a bunch of kids who are really a year too young. It's fine, we've won a handfull of games, and the kids have learned a ton. His older son is really very good, and the younger one is only 6 and seriously holds his own.

Anyway, during practice, with the small ball, and on a 9 foot rim, I've been goofing around to a degree to see how my foot felt. I do layup lines. I do pattern drills. I'll run the occasional dribbling suicide. And in spite of some serious stiffness, it's never felt like it was gonna fall off.

So my buddy gets the call from the guy who runs our team for the men's league, and almost hesitantly tells me about it. I call Mark, and ask him if he's got room. I'm almost a perfect guy for a roster. Good enough to trust, but can't really push it playing time wise, so I can really be used for giving people short rests. I'm a talker on the court. Have always gotten along with people I play with. I'm a pass first kind of a dude. And I know enough that I can do things like doodle up plays at ends of games, manage substitions, and that sort of shit.
Mark says sure, just make sure no one has to carry me off the court this year.

I get to our first game last night. And mainly I'm just looking to run. See if I can. And while it's a slow trot, when I focus I can iron out any limp. Next is sliding. Latteral movement, while not something one associates with an achilles, actually concerns me, because the strength in my right calf has evaporated over the course of the year. So I can push one way much better than the other, and my fear is that I'm going to put way more pressure on that right knee than usual because my calf isn't going to be helping much. But again, with some focus, and cheating a bit, I can make it look ok. Fake it till you make it, as the saying goes.

The big test is getting off the ground, and then perhaps the scarier test after that is coming back down. If I try to jump and can't, fine. If I try to jump and can, well then I better hope I have the strenth to land, because I'm coming down one way or the other. So I go through layup lines, and I've been working on this in practice with the kids, jumping off of one foot. I haven't jumped off of one foot since like elementary school. I've been teaching the kids to do it, because it really does teach better form. And then you can go to two feet later on. I also teach jump stopping, but it's too hard to put them together at 7 and 8 years old. I've been a two foot jumper since somewhere about middle school, and had some pop in my day. But I'm really nervous about the amound of force that a jump stop will put on my foot. So I go through lines, and feel ok going off of my left foot. I land in a hoppity sort of 1-2 that reduces a lot of the impact on the healing foot.

We start the game with 8 guys, but a 9th shows up, and unfortunately it sounds like I have 2 more on the roster who aren't there. I'm not looking for too much. We run two 20 minute halves, and my aim was to get two 5 minute stretches out of it. I wound up with about a four minute go in the first half, and about an 8 minute run in the second. I was certainly not my old self. I was hesitant to bring the ball up court, perhaps as much due to rust as anything, because that's really who I am. But I made it up and down the court. Slowly, but I made it.

Once I broke a sweat, I got off a couple times. Two really deliberate shot fakes got my off the bounce. I got into the lane, through a pass fake, and was heading to the hole with my left. I planted that right leg to go up, and just went no where. I got crushed by a foul, and the guy complained that he thought I was gonna jump. I told him I thought I was too. Just didn't happen. One for two from the stripe.

In my second trip out, I was determined to show off some. I threw a couple of wow passes that had the guys on my team cackling from the bench when one kid took one right off the gut. Another slow shot fake got me a little leaning banker that I hit. I got a steal in a one on one fast break defense situation, which is how I hurt myself the first time. Grabbed a couple rebounds. Dove on a loose ball at mid court.

Overall I was pretty happy with my showing.

After the game my buddy's kids came over with my sandals, and after exposing my scar, some of the guys who didn't know me were a little freaked out. I sensed a little regret from one of the guys who got on me for letting a guy snatch a rebound from behind me. But I didn't care. I was just happy to be going again. It's a 10 week 12 game season. I'm not sure how those couple Tue and Thur weeks will play. But I'm confindent I will get better as the season goes on. If the rust comes off my ball handling and I can adjust my stroke to compensate for less legs and less balance. Rework my floater / tear drop / pull up game to compensate for not being able to finish, and I actually think I can be a legit starter on this team, even though I probably won't have the legs to do it.

And the adrenaline kept me up all night. I just can't imagine the day when I stop wanting to play basketball. And when my left achilles tears this season, I guess we'll find out.

[ForeverHeat]

:applause: :bowdown:

That was emotional man I remember reading this thread a year ago.

[rufuspaul]

:cheers:

[Rake2204]

Man, I read this thread as being current. The return caught me off guard. Congrats!

Two questions though: 1) How old are you and 2) How painful was the initial injury?

[Thorpesaurous]

Man, I read this thread as being current. The return caught me off guard. Congrats!

Two questions though: 1) How old are you and 2) How painful was the initial injury?


I'll be 37 on March 1st god willing.

The injury was pretty excruciating. I can't get the feeling of it out of my mind. Not so much the pain, as the physical sensation of the feeling of the thing tearing, almost slowly. Kind of the way you'd tear a piece of fruit by the foot, where the the tensile strength you can just feel going slowly, then "POP!!!".

I know my first instant reaction was one of my foot just weirdly not working. It wasn't until a few seconds went by that I felt the warm rush of pain run up my body and trigger. The cold sweats and feeling like I was gonna puke was genuine. But once I got sat down, sort of mentally decided what it was, and got something to chew on, I sort of let the pain go. And it was only an hour before the the ambulance got me to the hospital, where they almost immediately hit me up with morphine. I remember waking up the next morning and thinking I might actually be alright. That's how good that morphine will do ya.

On the other hand, I did throw a blood clot during recovery which didn't help my cause at all. Being on blood thinners is not good for healing ... and that's my non-medical expert opinion.

The blood clot was one of the most excruciating things I've ever felt. I was in a walking boot, probably a month after surgery. I had been given some pretty serious pain meds, but other than the first two nights after surgery, and mostly for sleep, never touched them. All of a sudden I'm being woken by the pain in the middle of the night. I had gone back to work pretty quickly. I was on an aspirin regiment that I was honestly maintaining. And was keeping my foot up as much as I could. Apparently not enough. Just trying to do too much I suppose. On the crutches too often.

Anyway, it finally got bad enough for me to talk to the doctor, and thank god I did. He was actually kind of a prick about it. Said I shouldn't be feeling that kind of pain, that it couldn't be from anything he did, wanted me to go see my regular MD, but I pushed, and he gave me an appointment, for which he didn't show up. I wound up with the AP. My mother has 40 years as an RN, and really knows her stuff, and thankfully she was there too. The AP who was a hot young girl, said the surgery seemed fine, although a bit too swollen. It wasn't until my mother suggested the clot that the girl said maybe. They set me up for a scan as soon as I could get there, and when I did the girl was freaked out. She was an AP too, she was on her cell phone to her boss saying I was bad. There was talk of possible amputation. I spent the weekend on hardcore blood thinners, basically out of it, until finally being weaned down to something like your grandmother's cumadin.


The bad news is that I've all but been told this will happen to the left leg too eventually. My achilles are both scarred to hell from years of damage from playing. And as I've gotten older, they lose their elasticity, and when one of those tiny scars gets stretched the wrong way, when I was younger the tendon could hold up, but not anymore. But my feeling is I can try to squeeze as much more basketball as I can out of my body now, probably blowing it out in the process, or I can stop playing, which I don't want to do yet, and blow it out 10 years from now trying to get off the toilet or some shit. The repaired one is apparently stronger than ever, so it's not going to go anywhere. It just lacks the original flexibility. Any issues I have with that are related to how much I need to compensate for it for my own discomfort, which is something I've always been pretty good at.

I do also worry about my knees, which have also had multiple orthoscopic surgeries done, in regard to them taking on more stress to compensate for how weak my calf is at this point. But whatever. As long as I'm playing even just a little.

[glidedrxlr22]

Did you gain weight with less activity? How were you cardio wise after you played again recently?

[Jailblazers7]

Jesus, your description of an Achilles tear made me want to puke.

Glad to hear you are doing well. I don't know whether to describe your love for the game as admirable or insane but it is certainly extraordinary.

[Thorpesaurous]

Did you gain weight with less activity? How were you cardio wise after you played again recently?

I've gone through this before with people and been told I'm a fatso, which really doesn't bother me much at 37.
In HS I played at about 190 lbs, and I'm just about 6' tall. I had, and still have really big thighs and and a big ass. But I was in rediculously good shape. Went two years without losing a sprint in a practice. Ran in the four by 100. Played safety on the football team. No one would've described me as heavy, but then again no one would've ever guessed I weighed more than 170 lbs.
I played in college as a walk on but spent a year as a manager, and the amount of physical work I put in wasn't as drastic. I got up to 210 or so.

I've sat most of my adult life at around 235. On the day of the injury I had been working out and playing pretty regularly and had gotten to 222 lbs. I actually weighed myself that night before leaving work. After the injury I ballooned up to as high as 260. I started bike riding a bit around the new year, and changed my diet a bit (I've drastically reduced my white carb intake, although not eliminated it). I'm back to about 235 now.

I have a bit of a unique cardio situation. I was born with one lung. So I've always gotten winded sort of quick, but my second wind is unusually strong. My doctor says it's a matter of my one lung stretching out giving me these big deep breaths. I don't know if that's truely the reason, but it's always been the case. I'm certainly not going to say I was gonna be running circles around people, but I really limited what I did for the sake of my legs, and can't for sure say how good or bad it would've been. My second half run of 7-8 minutes did conclude with some defensive basket hanging.

[KobesFinger]

I've gone through this before with people and been told I'm a fatso, which really doesn't bother me much at 37.
In HS I played at about 190 lbs, and I'm just about 6' tall. I had, and still have really big thighs and and a big ass. But I was in rediculously good shape. Went two years without losing a sprint in a practice. Ran in the four by 100. Played safety on the football team. No one would've described me as heavy, but then again no one would've ever guessed I weighed more than 170 lbs.
I played in college as a walk on but spent a year as a manager, and the amount of physical work I put in wasn't as drastic. I got up to 210 or so.

I've sat most of my adult life at around 235. On the day of the injury I had been working out and playing pretty regularly and had gotten to 222 lbs. I actually weighed myself that night before leaving work. After the injury I ballooned up to as high as 260. I started bike riding a bit around the new year, and changed my diet a bit (I've drastically reduced my white carb intake, although not eliminated it). I'm back to about 235 now.

I have a bit of a unique cardio situation. I was born with one lung. So I've always gotten winded sort of quick, but my second wind is unusually strong. My doctor says it's a matter of my one lung stretching out giving me these big deep breaths. I don't know if that's truely the reason, but it's always been the case. I'm certainly not going to say I was gonna be running circles around people, but I really limited what I did for the sake of my legs, and can't for sure say how good or bad it would've been. My second half run of 7-8 minutes did conclude with some defensive basket hanging.

:biggums: How do you play ball with one lung? I feel ashamed of my cardio now, a couple trips up and down the floor and I'm bent over catching my breath so I hang back and just D up. Props man.

[Thorpesaurous]

:biggums: How do you play ball with one lung? I feel ashamed of my cardio now, a couple trips up and down the floor and I'm bent over catching my breath so I hang back and just D up. Props man.


I've been asked that many times. But I can't really tell you the difference because it's all I've known. Like I said, I've always seemed to get winded quickly, but then had an abnormally strong second wind. Who knows.

[KevinNYC]

Good luck

[Draz]

I hope you recover. Be safe brother.

[Bandito]

:applause:

Remember to take your time and don't rush it.

[HarryCallahan]

Cool story bro. Needs more slutty foreigners and poker though.

[tomtucker]

This is the kind of tears athletes are prone to get, especielly if they are overweight........only game where the team allows players to be fat are in MLB.......Just saw the Dodgers Yasiel Puig, he looked fat...........just read he gained 26 lbs, up to 250 now......he gonna tear like OP :facepalm

btw,congratulation to OP

[ImKobe]

This is the kind of tears athletes are prone to get, especielly if they are overweight........only game where the team allows players to be fat are in MLB.......Just saw the Dodgers Yasiel Puig, he looked fat...........just read he gained 26 lbs, up to 250 now......he gonna tear like OP :facepalm

btw,congratulation to OP

The achilles tear/rupture is totally random, it can happen to anyone in any condition, Kobe was in his best shape last season after having dropped like 20 pounds in the off-season and looked 5 years younger, yet he tore his on a simple drive attempt.

And I'm happy for the OP, I remember reading this last year.

[Thorpesaurous]

Last night was my fourth game back. Haven't been pushing too much. Like 2 five minute stints. But last night our PG was missing, so I figured I'd give it a shot. I had 11 at the half and a few wow passes. Too many turnovers. And a couple ugly threes. But I had a good sweat and felt good.

As the second half started, I was at the top of the 2-3. A screen was set on me for their shooter to get over. I got on top of it, and as I went bye, the screener opened to roll, and stepped on my left heel.

That same nauseating stretch, the tell tale pop, and my left Achilles is gone now too.

Met with Orthopedist this morning. MRI tomorrow. Then we meet again tomorrow afternoon. Hopefully we can get surgery in this week.

[boozehound]

damn, that sucks. Same thing happened to a buddy of mine the last time I played with him. Tried to change direction and his old man body fell apart on him. Heres to a successful recovery.

[Akrazotile]

Last night was my fourth game back. Haven't been pushing too much. Like 2 five minute stints. But last night our PG was missing, so I figured I'd give it a shot. I had 11 at the half and a few wow passes. Too many turnovers. And a couple ugly threes. But I had a good sweat and felt good.

As the second half started, I was at the top of the 2-3. A screen was set on me for their shooter to get over. I got on top of it, and as I went bye, the screener opened to roll, and stepped on my left heel.

That same nauseating stretch, the tell tale pop, and my left Achilles is gone now too.

Met with Orthopedist this morning. MRI tomorrow. Then we meet again tomorrow afternoon. Hopefully we can get surgery in this week.


Serious question.

Is this something that REALLY requires surgery?

I mean itd be one thing if your game was your career and you needed the absolute surest and quickest recovery. But in cases like this... I feel like this is just lining the doctors pockets. Muscle tears heal on their own dont they? If youre not a pro athlete, Id be skeptical surgery is REALLY necessary.

Doctors are no different than mechanics, lawyers, salesmen, politicians, or in other words HUMANS. They will pad a bill to help pay the mortgage on their beach house without batting an eye, and its easy to do bc everyone just figures "hey, hes the expert, better do what he says."

It irks me that medical professionals basically have free reign to prescribe whatever they want bc nobody else knows better, and it ends up affecting health costs and premiums to their gain at the expense of everyone else.


I mean no offense thorpe, but like most here youre a middle aged guy whose best athletic days are behind him. Do you really need to go under the knife for this??

[Thorpesaurous]

Serious question.

Is this something that REALLY requires surgery?

I mean itd be one thing if your game was your career and you needed the absolute surest and quickest recovery. But in cases like this... I feel like this is just lining the doctors pockets. Muscle tears heal on their own dont they? If youre not a pro athlete, Id be skeptical surgery is REALLY necessary.

Doctors are no different than mechanics, lawyers, salesmen, politicians, or in other words HUMANS. They will pad a bill to help pay the mortgage on their beach house without batting an eye, and its easy to do bc everyone just figures "hey, hes the expert, better do what he says."

It irks me that medical professionals basically have free reign to prescribe whatever they want bc nobody else knows better, and it ends up affecting health costs and premiums to their gain at the expense of everyone else.


I mean no offense thorpe, but like most here youre a middle aged guy whose best athletic days are behind him. Do you really need to go under the knife for this??

Small tears do heal. Complete separation of tendons do not. This is about being able to function again .

[boozehound]

Serious question.

Is this something that REALLY requires surgery?

I mean itd be one thing if your game was your career and you needed the absolute surest and quickest recovery. But in cases like this... I feel like this is just lining the doctors pockets. Muscle tears heal on their own dont they? If youre not a pro athlete, Id be skeptical surgery is REALLY necessary.

Doctors are no different than mechanics, lawyers, salesmen, politicians, or in other words HUMANS. They will pad a bill to help pay the mortgage on their beach house without batting an eye, and its easy to do bc everyone just figures "hey, hes the expert, better do what he says."

It irks me that medical professionals basically have free reign to prescribe whatever they want bc nobody else knows better, and it ends up affecting health costs and premiums to their gain at the expense of everyone else.


I mean no offense thorpe, but like most here youre a middle aged guy whose best athletic days are behind him. Do you really need to go under the knife for this??
I dont think you realize what his injury was. This wasnt a small muscle tear, it was a complete separation of the tendon from the bone. I would say it was neccessary but, then again, I like being able to walk.

[boozehound]

Small tears do heal. Complete separation of tendons do not. This is about being able to function again .
shoulda scrolled before I posted. My bad.

[boozehound]

Cool story bro. Needs more slutty foreigners and poker though.
def. more slutty fergners. I dont care about the poker.

[Levity]

Great read and great battle, buddy!

:rockon:

[rufuspaul]

Pulled my groin yesterday

there was a turnover, I was running on the left, old ass dude was half assin it on the right, little spanish dude had the ball in the middle. 3(2 and a half) on 2 break. spanish dude pass to me, took a hard dribble, elevated and dunked on some tall goofy white guy. The rim broke and I fell awkwardly but I was alright. As everyone was joking around about breaking the rim I saw the tall goofy guys girl watching(why do tall goofy lookin dudes always have hot girls?) I went up to her and started dancing and she smiled, then I did the splits and pulled my groin. Got back up without any hands though. Saved face.


:lol


Damn Thorpe. That really sucks. :(

[Levity]

Were you battling a lot of ankle injuries when you were younger? because this happening to both of your Achilles is absolutely shocking.

[Thorpesaurous]

Were you battling a lot of ankle injuries when you were younger? because this happening to both of your Achilles is absolutely shocking.


I did chronically sprain my ankles when I was young.

But my doctor said this is the result of a few things. But a big one is apparently that I have what he calls an aggressive posture. I naturally lean forward 5

[thebirdman]

I barely ever post on here, but I always liked your posts and you seem like a stand up guy. You stay positive (at least to the ISH community), which is really impressive.

Good luck with this one.

[Thorpesaurous]

I barely ever post on here, but I always liked your posts and you seem like a stand up guy. You stay positive (at least to the ISH community), which is really impressive.

Good luck with this one.

Thanks. I'll be back.

[Jailblazers7]

Sorry to hear that. Keep us posted on the recovery and hopefully we can look forward to some good movie reviews while you rest up. Sucks to have it happen so soon and on a fluke play to boot. Best of luck.

[Solidape]

Good luck man, kind a interesting reading your misfortunes and how things happen in an instance.

Speedy recoveries my ish brother!

[sundizz]

Just curious - how much does this cost? What sort of insurance you have etc? Medical costs really scare me!

Also, what about work? You just take time off?

[Thorpesaurous]

Just curious - how much does this cost? What sort of insurance you have etc? Medical costs really scare me!

Also, what about work? You just take time off?


Last year, the whole thing probably ran about 4-5 k, with the insurance. 500 for the hospital trip. Figure 50 bucks a visit for PT twice a week for 10 weeks. Plus 2000 for my deductable after the surgery. Another 100 or so in co-pays to regular doc, pre op surgeon visits, MRI (that's a big one, like 250). And that's all with insurance that my work picks up for me. All co-pays and deductables and out of pocket cost that is.
But I do pay for a supplemental insurance, like Aflac, but a company called Colonial. I pay 2 bucks a week. They pay 2500 for a torn tendon. Had I tracked it, I allegedly could've haggled and used my reciepts to cover the co-pays for PT, but frankly they sent me a check for 2500 right about when my bill for my 2000 deductable came in, so I just deposited it and moved on.

Generally the insurance my work provides has been pretty decent ... however ... so far this has been a huge pain in the ass.

My last time, the gym called the ambulance. I spent a few hours in the hospital, where I was sent home filled with morphine and told to see my Primary Care Physician in the morning for referrals. He did a quick run up on me, then referred me for an MRI. When that came in, he took it and used it to refer me to the orthopedist who eventually did my surgery. It was a full 7 days from tear to surgery.

So this time, knowing what the pain was, so not being nearly as afraid, I was able to suck it up. I human crutched it out of the gym. Got in my car (it's my left foot this time, so driving is still possible, which last time was not really the case) and headed home. I figured if I could suck it up through the night, I could skip the hospital visit and bill.
I got up the next morning and tried to call my doc, and got no answer. I'm up pretty early, so I get it. Then I figured I'd try the Ortho. Nothing there. That got me wondering if my new insurance needed me to even see my PCP. So I called them, and they said no referrals required. Great, skip another step. I finally get a hold of my Ortho, a couple hours later I was in.

He tells me he thinks it's 90% gone. Far enough that it's not just gonna heal on it's own, and in fact it'll be more painfull than last time during this limbo state, because now every inflection will tear a bit more, and it could still eventually pop. Whereas last time, by the time I got to him, it was done. It wasn't gonna get any worse. But the good news is, by skipping the other steps, if they can push me into an MRI today (being Tuesday), or tomorrow, they can try to book me for surgery Thursday, which is his normal operating day. On the way out they schedule me for 1045 the next morning for the MRI. FANTASTIC.

But my new insurance, the good folks at UnitedHealthCare through Oxford, fight with his people for three hours after I leave. They don't want to approve the MRI. I get a phone call and get asked if I can get down to their Fairfield office for an Ultrasound. The results of that will be sent to the insurance company in an effort to convince them that I do in fact need the MRI. You know ... because my foot is falling off. That doc was really cool. He runs the Ortho walk in clinic, and he usually gets walk ins. Like kids who fell off their bike, guys who pulled something in the gym or trying to leg out a single on the softball field. He rarely sees something this traumatic. He told me "Please don't take offense, but this is really cool, I don't see these big ones very often." He was young, and I'm pretty relaxed having been through this once before, and still feeling like everything is going for surgery Friday. He does the scan, and I get to see the screen, and you can see the angled tear of the tendon. 50%, 40%, 20, 10, 5 ... it may not even be there now. He does the "Thompson test", the fourth one I've had since the night before. You let the leg dangle from a seat. No tension anywhere, even through the thigh. Squeeze the calf, and the foot will pull up. It's just a simulated contraction of the muscle, which will pull the tendon, and move the foot. "Man ... I'd call that gone for any practical purpose. You got nothing going on there buddy."

So he writes me up at 80%. He spoke candidly about the insurance. It's rediculous they put me through this. His fear is that if he writes me up as 100% gone, then they might ask why we need an MRI. It's gone, go fix it. But he knows the surgeon is looking for a road map. He wants to get a decent idea of what he's looking for and where, before he opens me up. It makes total sense.

So I get the call last night, and they say they've submitted everything, and then called the insurance to push to try to get the approval, and those horseshit ****ing middle men say it could be up to 5 days to get a response. Just a complete and utter ****ing joke. My insurance is new as of March 1st. Same every year. The company I work for is a small business, and they do right by us paying full insurance. But every year it gets harder, and it seems the quality of our coverage goes down. It's not their fault. So far this year, two people have already come in screaming, as the cost of their regular medications, stuff they or in one case their kid, takes everyday, has skyrocketed. The kid's stuff went from 100 bucks a month to 700 bucks. That's a weeks takehome pay for this guy. It's a joke. They blame it on having to subsudize the national health care, which I also don't believe. But I know this, someone has to figure out something. It shouldn't be this difficult. And the fact of the matter is that it's an entire industry of middle men stepping on the gap between supply and demand. It's bullshit. And it seems like the federal government just wants to have it's chance to do the stepping, and really has no interest in getting care to people. It's really disgusting. This country could really use another revolution. It's going to wind up splitting along the lines of people who would have some value during the zombie apocolypse, and people who's worth is tied up in "system management", who's entire value is figuring out a way to cut as big a piece of everyone else's pie for whoever pays them to do it and then hope they get some crumbs.

[D-FENS]

Keep at it Thorpe. You're remarkably positive for having such a shitty thing happen.

This makes me want to start an official ISH injury thread.

[Thorpesaurous]

Pulled my groin yesterday

there was a turnover, I was running on the left, old ass dude was half assin it on the right, little spanish dude had the ball in the middle. 3(2 and a half) on 2 break. spanish dude pass to me, took a hard dribble, elevated and dunked on some tall goofy white guy. The rim broke and I fell awkwardly but I was alright. As everyone was joking around about breaking the rim I saw the tall goofy guys girl watching(why do tall goofy lookin dudes always have hot girls?) I went up to her and started dancing and she smiled, then I did the splits and pulled my groin. Got back up without any hands though. Saved face.


That's a good one.


And I apologize for the lack of slutty foreigners, and a bit for the lack of poker too I suppose.

I will probably have the time to throw together a report on my personal life again sometime soon.