I'm trying to get my body worked out. What? Well for starters I have things that hurt that I'm trying to fix. I hurt my left wrist in a big get off at Thunderhill last March, and it hasn't healed yet. Mostly because I crashed in August, and September both times aggravating the injury. Nothing was ever broken, just sore. After 9 months of sore I went to see a doctor, while I'm there I figure I'll have my knee looked at because it hurts like hell when I run.
I've got Kaiser so I have to start out with my primary doctor. She's a family practice doctor so after a few minutes with her I asked to see a sports medicine specialist. By the way I don't mind going to see the doctor because she's the hottest doctor lady I've ever met! I get a bunch of X-rays of both my knee, and wrist. Of course the x-ray technician is my friend Mole (http://www.myspace.com/the_mole_hole), and it's a completely different experience getting x-rays by somebody you know. I see the new wrist guy, and he pretty much told me there wasn't anything to do about my wrist. Soft tissue damage and it takes a long time to heal. He said if it still hurt in a year we'd do surgery. Great.
On to the knee. I go back to the doctor lady to review my x-rays, and she tells me that I have a small sign of arthritis in my knee. That's possible right. Let's see I broke that leg right where the tibia meets the knee joint. I did that while prospecting with the SFMC, but that's a story for another time. I also played sports in highschool, and danced in shows until I was 18 so any amount of damage may have happened. I used to have to tape my knees up before a performance so I went along with the diagnosis. OK off the the physical therapist to evaluate my knee (not as cute as my primary doctor). She bends me, stretches me, twists me, and comes to the conclusion that there's nothing wrong with my knee. Huh? She thinks it has something to do with my sciatic nerve. Oi! This actually makes sense. I've been seeing a chiropractor for a little while now dealing with some other issues involving my hip, neck, and arm all of which have a relation to my sciatic nerve. OK so two different people have diagnosed the same issue, but are going about different ways to fix it.
This all comes back to being healthy which in end makes me stronger, more limber, and more able to throw my bike around the track. Of course it has to come back to that doesn't it! All parties say I need to exercise more, and I completely agree. I'm not getting younger and thinner, well except for my hair. I know I need to get more physical activity in on a weekly basis. Prior to this round of doctoring I was making an attempt to get to the gym, or ride my bicycle in an effort to increase my stamina as I am getting tired half way through a race. Right now I'm only getting to the gym once or twice a week, and that's not going to cut it. Tomorrow, thanks to Sophia, and her mother I'm going to meet with a physical trainer who will help me create an exercise program that will be specialized for my motorcycle racing, and hopefully help with my other health issues.
One side effect of all this is cost. Chiro is at least $200 a month, gym $85ish, docotrs visits, x-rays, and so on it adds up. It's tough. I'm trying to live cheaply so as I can have money for racing because I got myself into trouble last year, but at the same time if I'm not fit what's the point. It's an example of how health care in this country is in need of some kind of overhaul.
The first race in at the end of March so we'll see if we can make any improvements by then.
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