November 1, 2007

Little Worker Guys

Updated Version

When I was dealing with my whiplash injury over the summer, one of you suggested I read the book "Zen in the Martial Arts" by Joe Hyams. Like Funakoshi’s "Karate Do-My Way of Life", it was a quick and enjoyable read. There are lots of cool Bruce Lee anecdotes throughout, and I thought it provided lots of food for thought.

Being injured, there’s one particular story from the book that seems to keep popping up in my head. I can’t recall exactly who this happened to in the book, but I believe it was one of Hyams instructors who was injured. The doctors gave him some not so great news. (I can’t recall what he hurt now either, but it was some joint so just stick with me on this). Every night, when he went to bed, he imagined little worker people in his body. He imagined them down to their worker hats, even their lunch bags. He visualized them going to work on his injured body part every single night.

When he went to the doctor, the doctor couldn’t believe the improvement, but it wasn’t a complete success. He had imagined these worker people building up his joint and they had done such a good job that the joint was almost too strong, too stiff.

So, when he went to bed, he imagined the worker people going back to the joint and refining their work. When he went back to the doctor again, his joint was healed completely.

Every night as I’m drifting off to sleep, I imagine little worker people in there. They sort of resemble Mario Brothers characters. They have white hard hats on, denim pants and little red t-shirts. They also have silly moustaches. They bring with them silver lunch boxes and on the first night they carried bags of tools with them (Now they just leave their tools in my knee overnight so they don’t have to carry them down from the brain each night). Because the surgeon is so sure I tore my ACL, each night they get busy reattaching it.

We’ll see if they’re any good. MRI is this afternoon.

Post MRI

You people told me it was going to be loud. You did NOT, however, tell me that it was going to sound like there were 100 birds simulataneously and repeatedly flying into a window right by my head. Man it was loud.

I will tell you that upon entering the room, I didn’t like the looks of that tube one bit. I could immediately feel myself getting worked up. My heart was pounding. I must have asked the lady about 16 times if my head was definitely going to stick out. Her first response was that "it should" and then she changed that to "It will honey. You’ll be fine" because she could tell that her first response was about to get her a very uncooperative patient. How do people go all the way in there? I hope I NEVER have to do that. And I don’t mean to be rude, but unless you’re a skinny little thing, how the heck does one even fit in there?

The woman stuck some headphones on my ears and told me not to move. I willed my body to relax and closed my eyes. I was expecting something like ocean waves or Enya in my headphones but instead it was a local rock station. The first song was Mick Jagger. Then it moved onto Guns-n-Roses’ "Sweet Child O’ Mine" and eventually Led Zepplin, not exactly going to sleep music.

I was fine until she told me the scan was going to start. My leg muscles immediately tensed up and I could feel them twitching a bit. Plus, my knee wasn’t super comfortable strapped into this contraption thing. I was worried she’d have to re-scan my knee but she didn’t. It took about 20 minutes and I was out of there.

I brought my films home with me, just in case I happen to run into an MD who knows knees over the weekend or something. Also because Mr. BBM and I like to self-diagnose a la google, which is exactly what we did. We went to google images, looked up normal MRI ACL scans and then compared them to the torn ACL images and looked at my scans.

In normal ACL scans, the ACL looks almost like a thick black cord, maybe the thickness of two shoelaces. Unfortunately, my ACL does not at all, look like that. My ACL looks like. . . shredded chicken or crab meat perhaps, or frayed wire, or a really, really, bad frizzy hair day. It doesn’t appear to be attached at all to the femur either. I’m not a doctor and neither is Mr. BBM, but Mr. BBM has looked at MRI’s before and works in the medical field. It doesn’t look encouraging at all.

Now I have to wait until Tuesday to see the doctor and get the official verdict. I think I’m in for a long couple of months.

***I’ve joined this National Blog Posting Month thing which means I have to post every single day for the month of November. Would any of you like to join me? I was thinking it would be really cool to have a martial arts or martial arts followers group. Interested? Get on board here and drop me a comment or email and let me know you’re also crazy like me. It’s not just torture either. You can actually win prizes if you meet the challenge. You can join the martial arts group here. Please join me because one person does not a group make.