Several years ago Bob Bryan of the tennis doubles fame had hip surgery in 2018. His YouTube rehab videos became my inspiration, knowing that my own left hip was diagnosed as arthritic and headed to replacement. I saw him play at the BNP Paribus tournament the spring of 2019, less than a year after his replacement!! Bob and Mike Bryan are twins and world class dominating doubles partners and my secret wish (maybe not so secret) is that my own twin grandboys do something similar. Isn’t that every grandparent’s dream? OK, my other wish is that they grow up to be self-supporting and contributors to their communities, but that’s another blog, right?

So when I tore my gastrocnemius (aka calf or “gastroc”) my thoughts went back to the Bryan videos. Of course Bob Bryan was a world class athlete (I am not), had money to have a personal physical therapist (I do not), and had a goal to return to playing tennis (I do, too. I include skiing in my goal.), at a world class level (I do not. Greens and blues and maybe some blacks ? would be fine).

I tore the muscle while skiing a small bowl at Taos Ski Valley, New Mexico. I had ridden a ski patrol toboggan many times when I was a patroller and I had to learn to take a toboggan down–we’d play the roles of patroller and patient as we practiced. Once when snowboarding at Afton Alps, MN, I got hit and had to take the toboggan in for observation–but there was really no damage.

This time I knew there was damage, and the toboggan was a wonderful way to get down the mountain. It’s kind of like the fact I don’t really like hospitals but they are wonderful places when you need them.

The injury happened on February 21. I had a wedding in Savannah I didn’t want to miss, so frankly the medical care I got was minimal. My leg hurt like the dickens for two weeks–one week in Santa Fe and one week in Savannah–And then all the while I drove six hours from Santa Fe to Denver, parked and took a shuttle to the airport, flew from Denver to Savannah. I luckily rented a wheelchair in Savannah that probably saved my sanity. I hobbled around using one crutch (I left the other one back in Denver because I thought I was healing up), discovered Savannah is best seen while walking,