Monday, December 5, 2022. (No Play)

I got a surprise in my Facebook feed at lunchtime today…

Major League Pickleball. There has to be lots of cash being pumped into all these pro leagues to support the advertising.

Doctor Appointment

I had a 2:30 p.m. appointment with Dr. Welle, the surgeon who did the rotator cuff repair on my shoulder. He poked and prodded my right knee a bit then moved my leg back-and-forth and, in the end, we decided on a Cortisone shot plus a referral to physical therapy. The doctor got out the Cortisone shot and I was kind of amazed at how much liquid he shot into my knee. It was the entire syringe of a milky substance. Without me asking any questions, he assured me that even though he was injecting the shot on the right side of my knee, it has a cavity and a Cortisone would help with the entirety of the knee, including the left side as well.

Back to Work . . . Ow!

I returned to work after my doctor’s appointment and about two hours later my knee started to hurt—and I mean, hurt a LOT. After an additional 30 minutes or so it got extremely painful. So painful that walking was excruciating. While at my desk, I looked up online the side effects of a Cortisone shot into a knee and it said “extreme pain and swelling”. No offense to my good doctor, but he hadn’t warned me of any of the side effects!

By 5 o’clock I was sequestered in my office sitting in my chair at my computer and not moving. Even standing up out of my chair took a lot of willpower since it the so painful. I made a couple of attempts to walk out into the store and I used an empty mailing tube as a cane. The best I could do with that was shuffling and I didn’t get very far from my office doorway! One of my staff offered two ibuprofen which I gladly accepted. I gave up moving around and just sat at my desk and did work there, leaving everything else to my staff. I warned my wife that I might need a ride home after work.

I did manage to drive home although I ended up using my left foot on the brake and my right foot on the gas since just moving my right foot back-and-forth between the two pedals was very painful. When I got home, I traveled around as little as possible. After eating dinner, I shuffled back to my bedroom and laid down, elevating my leg.

I got up in the middle of the night and the pain had reduced by about a third. Very promising.

Tuesday, December 6, 2022 (Court Day #565)

By this morning, most of the side effects of the shot were gone and I was about 80% back to normal. Thank goodness! Things like this make one not take walking for granted!

A friend of mine, John Z., I contacted me recently about learning to play pickleball. He was going to come on a Sunday with his son a week and a half ago, but it didn’t work out as his wife had other plans for him.

We arranged for a Tuesday night at Skypark. He texted me this afternoon and asked if I was still going considering it is wet and cold. I texted back saying it is never too cold for pickleball!

When I arrived at the courts at 6:45 p.m., at the arranged time, I pulled into a completely empty parking lot. I was wearing sweatpants and a sweatshirt and Ted’s “on loan” brace on my right knee. There were two players out doing a singles game. I also saw a lone figure walking around on the courts a little bit aimlessly. I called out asking if it was John and he replied in the affirmative. He came out and met me at my car I presented him with one of my backup paddles.

Starting from Zero

I started out John with dinking to get him a feel of the weight of the ball and how it reacts on the paddle. He was used to tennis. We did that for a little while and I explained the rules and very basic strategy. Then I had him do some serving. He did quite well, getting most of his serves in. (When my brother John tried for the first time, he got less than half his serves in!) We moved on to a game of skinny singles with some straight on and some diagonal. It was no surprise that I beat him twice by a very wide margin.

Scott & Christian

On a nearby court were the two young guys—in their late 20s—the two who had been there when we arrived. One was named Scott and the other one was named Christian. They asked if we wanted to play doubles. When we finished our skinny singles game, we invited them over.

I could tell that they were relatively new players. John and I played against them and beat them twice. For his first time out John played well. From what I surmise John plays tennis somewhat regularly.

When we were in the midst of the second game against Scott and Christian, a man along with the younger guy laid down their paddles next to the court and asked if they could take on the winners. At this point I got much more interested in making sure we won the game—it was a close score—which we did.

Terry & Gavin

Scott and Christian left, saying they have been playing for two hours. It was time for Terry and his nephew Gavin. Terry was visiting from San Diego County and Gavin is living in Aptos going to school at Cabrillo College. Gavin grew up in the foothills of the Sierra mountains.

John and I won the first game, lost the second game, and then came back and won the third game. Gavin was the weaker of our two opponents but he was a decent player. For his first time out, John did really well.

What was crazy was the number of balls that we broke. We were initially playing with Terry’s ball but it broke. Then I got one of mine out, then it split along the seam. Out came another ball, and it too broke after a while. I dug out third ball of mine and it lasted a little while until it broke too. The last ball, one of Tristan’s “11 to Win” balls, lasted through the final game. We broke four balls in three games. Granted, none were new. But it wasn’t super cold. Sure, in the nippy mid-40s, but I was playing in the high 30s last week and we barely broke any balls. Maybe it was combination of temperature and just hitting the ball hard.

We were done playing about 9 p.m. then John and I chatted for another 15 minutes before heading to our nice warm homes!

Number of days on a court: 565
Number of total hours: 2,533

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