cowabunga!

I walk with quite a limp these days, and use a cane.  My favorite retort to those who notice and ask, is “surfing injury”.  Not a consequence of those many miles pounded in as I was pulled into the running craze, although I did curtail that activity because of achy knees.  My formerly pit pat retirement left me with knees that let me walk like a normal person.  Then came Mazatlàn.  Now, I’ve always had an especially strong call to the beach, where I could “ride, ride, ride the wild surf”.  Maybe ’cause my beach was Lake Michigan, where the waves can be wild but don’t sustain a surfing culture, I felt no consequences but memories.  So, Mom’s pop gift sounded fun, from the esteemed Mazatlàn Surf School (1).  A dedicated snowbird at Casa Bonita (2) she was good at goading her kids into situations they might not otherwise consider.  This would leave us for a ride on Playa Bonita, one of Mazatlan’s gems.  Mazatlàn is a surfer’s paradise, with many choice spots (3). 

Not much for a crowd that time of day,  Our instructor introduced us in basic surfer movements, all of which would have engaged our core strength 20 years ago.  We judged proper prep would be many “burpees” (4).  See here as we prep for the day.

Well, you can’t get those retroactive!  So a flail was in order. Which is what happened at Playa Bonita.  Despite our cheerful little Mexican instructor, our ancient towers of gringo blubber failed to ascend to cowabunga status.

Home back to late winter, we were both back to work and into the buzz.  But that left knee, why is it hurting and swelling?  Hey, I’m an arthritis doctor, so my buddies could fix me up.  Indeed they did, with my one-time mentor poking my knee, withdrawing fluid, and injecting steroids.  X-rays showed just a tiny bit of osteoarthritis, so it all seemed consistent.

Things were peachy keen knee-wise for a long while.  My 4-mile round trip walks to campus as I escorted my sweetie to her office were a highlight.

Since decrepitude is supposed to descend on the retiree, when an old knee considered dormant comes back, oh, well.  I’d been on the other end of this exercise, and it was sometimes kind of surreal.  Some good pals still having to work for a living saw me and did the requisite pokes, ‘sounds, and injections.  But, alas, relief was short or incomplete.  Realize, that facing such patients was my raison d’etre, I would have salivated had such a patient appeared in my office.  I landed in the hands of the same surgeon who helped to fix my shoulder after my December 2014 bike accident.  He put my options at just getting a total knee (my XRs were nearly normal) or a ‘scope.  So I did, pushing it up to my wedding anniversary (10/4/86).  Big lateral meniscus displaced posterior horn tear (Bruce resected), some lateral compartment bare bone, lotta synovium (which he didn’t touch).  When nothing changed, I sat and grumbled reviewing contacts for orthopods I’d once known.  All said the same, arthroplasty was the only realistic option.  But the more I focused on the problem, the more it faded away.  By about 6 months after my ‘scope, I really wasn’t noticing any problems.  Decades of dealing with patients with knee arthritis, I should have remembered the waxing and waning course, confounding as the anatomic perturbations would be unchanged.  I probably enjoyed 2 years of a good knee until early November 2025 when my sweetie face planted after exiting a gas station, fracturing her patella.  As I nurtured her through my detection of a big effusion and transit to orthopedics via her PCP, that ol’ left knee of mine started acting up.  Sympathy pains?  Time and a cortisone shot got sweetie’s knee back to baseline.  Mine didn’t follow.  My buddies with their needles got me about 2 weeks of relief.  Since then, it’s been the cane, a brace, some contraption I bought on line that vibrates while giving me infrared rays, and liberal applications of DMSO (5).  I’ve been collecting orthopedists’ name since my last flare up.  Some were based in cities I’ve been posted before (San Diego, St. Louis, Chicago) plus some local people.  I’m skirting the U.  Maybe an overreaction, but let’s say in the late 80s my name was not held in high regard by the Orthopedics section.  Like one of my profs in med school said “A doc in need of medical care should check himself into a teaching hospital in a distant town under an assumed name”.  But, I remember that every doc enjoys novelty.  So, I look forward to telling any future orthopod I see about my “surfing injury”.  Maybe they’ll think back to Jan & Dean (6)

What ya get used to!

References

1. Mazatlan Surf School.  https://mazatlansurfschool.com

2. Hudson P.  Surfing In Mazatlán Sinaloa: Surf Spots, Lessons, And Hotels.  Playa Plazas 7/31/23.  https://www.playasyplazas.com/surfing-in-mazatlan-sinaloa/

3. Casa Bonita https://casabonitamazatlan.com

4. @WeShape.  How To Do the proper Burpee.  YouTube.  https://youtube.com/shorts/zlYA1SENYG4?si=a-sK11VxIpccCw8m

5. Trice JM, Pinals RS.  Dimethyl sulfoxide: A review of its use in the rheumatic disorders.  Semin Arthritis Rheum. 1985: 15 (1): 45-60.   https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0049017285900095

6. Ifasul.  Jan & Dean – Ride the Wild Surf.  YouTube https://youtu.be/fcnjYHrhYgg?si=A2TI04NaK_NuvYIz