I just got home from Dr. Hebert’s office. We went over my MRI of my Right knee. What we were able to see was some bruising of the distal end of the femur(thigh bone) that inserts to the knee, some slight tearing of the Meniscus, thinning of the cartilage(beginning of arthritis), and a slight lateral ligament tear. The good news is that the MCL and ACL were both intact.

All in all, it was good news. Now, if the Twins can just beat the White
Sox in the one game playoff in baseball today to see if they can qualify for the American League Playoffs, that will really make my day.

My daughter Rachel got some good news in the mail today: she found out that she was accepted to North Dakota State University in Fargo, North Dakota. I am sure that is a 50 pound sack of horse feed-size load of her mind. I know she had been concerned if her ACT scores were high enough to qualify. I don’t think she has to worry about that anymore.  I had no doubt in my mind about her being able to get in.

It’s nice to be ahead of the game. Here we are, the first quarter is not even over, and she knows where she is going to university. I really liked what I saw when she and I made our tour their earlier in the year.  NDSU is a good school for what Rachel is interested in doing for her professional life, and NDSU has the rodeo team and horse facilities that will give her the horse time and the opportunity to compete that will give her a well rounded college experience. Oh yeah, it doesn’t hurt that as an agriculture/science university, there is a large pool of single, straight guys at NDSU. Hey, college is not all about books and classes.

I guess I better get used to wearing the green and gold of North Dakota State. Go Bison!

I went in for my MRI on my right knee this morning.  This is the third time I have ever had to have one. I had one about 13-14 years ago when I found out that my chronic neck pain was due to a healed fracture that I had C-4 on my cervical vertebrae-kind of a chilling thing to realize that I could have been this close to being quadriplegic. The fracture was from many years previous when I played American football in high school. I even remember how I hurt it-I remember my neck hurt quite a bit and was stiff for a good couple of weeks.  When I had the MRI, I found out just WHY it hurt so much.

My second MRI was of my troublesome right knee. I originally hurt that years ago when I was a wrestler in high school. I just kind of worked through the pain and stiffness and just made do with it over the years. Well, my first season of playing rugby with Metropolis, I injured it at practice…while doing a warm up run and I stepped in a hole on our pitch at Columbia Park in northeast Minneapolis.  I had a partial tear in the lateral ligament and the meniscus that was discovered in that MRI from April of 2006.  Dr Hebert felt that initial rest and exercise should help, that I would not have to have surgery.

The MRI today was at Methodist Hospital over in St. Louis Park. I have to say that I was really impressed by the service and friendliness of the staff. The Radiology tech who was working with me was 32 weeks along with TWINS. YIKES! I could not help but to think of my 3 month old grandson, Duncan. I thought about all of the work that Ian and Andrea do with their son in terms of diaper changing, feedings, and the work that goes into caring for a young infant. I tried to imagine all of the at work-squared with a second child. I wished the young technician good luck in her soon-to-be-hectic life.

The one thing I never realized until I had MRI’s was that I was a bit claustrophobic. You are really in tight quarters. I tried to imagine jobs where rescuers have had tunnel after kids lost in well shafts and other holes. I thought about Marine and US Navy SEALS and Special Forces who were “Tunnel Rats” during the War in Vietnam. There is no way in hell I could ever do anything like that. I really think that I would lose it. My coping mechanism that works for me when I am getting an MRI is to close my eyes and keep them shut, then I try to imagine that I am in a diving bell or small submarine going deep, deep and deeper to where the waters are dark and calm. I know that won’t work for everybody, but for some reason, those images in my mind help me cope with being in tight quarters.

It took about 30 minutes, and overall it was not half bad. They even gave me headphones with my choice of music piped in. ( I had my choice of classical, country, rock, hip-hop, jazz…I chose alternative rock) I’ll go over my MRI results with Dr Hebert next Tuesday.

I won’t be able to watch my Metropolis club play this weekend as I work nights, and the A squad plays in Iowa on Saturday, and the Killer B’s play at Rochester at 1 PM on Sunday. When I am in the middle of a 5 in a row streak of night shifts, I need all of the sleep that I can get. I’m off next weekend and should able to at least watch the games next Saturday.

To be continued….

My older brother Bill celebrates his 49th Birthday today. He has been really, really busy between trying to start up a Snap Fitness in Plymouth, going to watch his boys Charlie and Hutton play football, and trying to help my dad out at the Real Estate office. My brother is spinning a lot of plates, and with both of us being so busy in our lives, I just wanted to take a minute and say Happy Birthday, Bill. On top of being a really good Dad to your kids and a great all around athlete, I could not imagine having a better big brother.

Luckily, we all grow up and I don’t have to worry about you sitting on me and farting on me anymore. Well, at least there is ONE good thing about getting older and grayer.

Big news from France where a couple of New Zealanders are big news in French Club rugby.

First, it was announced that Byron Kelleher, the scrum half for Toulouse and former scrum half for the All Blacks, was named player of the year in France. He certainly had a great year in leading Toulouse to lifting Le Bouclier du Brennus (Brennus’ Shield) for the first time since 2001 and the final of the Heineken Cup, where Toulouse lost to Munster in Cardiff. All in all, a very good year for Kelleher, who along with the results, played with the swashbuckling joie de vivre that fans in Toulouse expect-winning is important, but style points are important too. For the fan base in this southwestern city, winning rugby without panache` is like washing down a serving of cassoulet with a mediocre red wine.

Catalan fans in Perpignan got a chance to meet THEIR Kiwi the other day when All Black star # 10-and hearthrob of more than a few young women (like my daughter Rachel) was brought out to the applause of several thousand l’USAP fans in the Catalan city. The bad news is that after the grueling Super 14 season and Tri Nations series-where Carter led the Crusaders and the All Blacks to titles- Carter’s body really needs some rest and will not actuall suit up for Perpignan untill December.  The hope of the fanatical fan base in Perpignan is that Carter can be the missing link who can lead Perpignan to it’s first French Title since 1955. 5 games into the season of the Top 14, Perpignan is second, 5 points behind the undefeated-and hated-Parisian club of Stade Francais, who have bolted out of the blocks and are undefeated in their first 5 games. It will be interesting to see if Carter can adapt to life in the Pyrenees Orientales region.

Interestingly enough, when Carter was asked why he chose Perpignan, and not Toulon, where fellow Kiwi’s Jerry Collins and Umanga now ply their craft (Collins as a player, Umanga as a coach) in the naval city on the Mediteranean. Toulon, it should be added, are mid table at 7th right now, not bad for a newly promoted club. Carter said that he wanted to learn French and try to get out of his comfort zone. Had he gone to Toulon, he felt he would have mostly hung around his countrymen, and he felt it was important to try to get the most culturally out of the experience. He also added that Perpignan is playing Heineken Cup Rugby among the best in Europe, wheras Toulon is just recently promoted and in spite of the amount of Euros that the club has been throwing around, will not be playing in the premier club competition in Europe.

I think it is commendable that Carter really wants to get the most out his experience and not just be a hired mercenary for Perpignan. In this day and age in professional sport, it’s a refreshing attitude, indeed. While Carter gets healthy, he can certainly give Perpignan a real shot in the arm once he starts playing in December. It should be added that all Perpignan has to do is to finish in the top 4 at the end of the regular season to qualify for the playoffs to see if the Catalan Club can finally ward off some seriously bad mojo and bring Le Bouclier du Brennus back to Perpignan.

I had my appointment with the Orthopedic MD this morning. We looked over my old MRI from two years ago, he did a physical assessment, and then we talked over my options. Option #1 was for him to open my knee up and see what he found, and then Option #2 was to do a new MRI, then depending on the findings, decide if I should do physical therapy or to operate. Not surprisingly, I went with what was behind door #2.  I felt that even if the MRI showed something, at least Dr Hebert is going to know where to look if has to do ortho-scopic surgery. I will do the MRI this Thursday, then I will follow up with Dr Hebert next Tuesday.

I am moving a bit better, but I have to say that I really notice the knee stiffness when I walk my dogs. Having a 70+ pound bulldog and an almost 70 pound Pyrenees tugging at the leash makes me have to constantly reshift my balance and weight, and that just wreaks havoc with my knee. It almost goes without saying, if walking two large dogs causes this much discomfort, making any more appearances this fall playing any rugby looks like a very remote possibility, indeed.

Dr Hebert felt that I probably have a worsening of the old tears that were in my meniscus and in the lateral ligament. In looking at the old MRI, he also felt like I have the beginnings of some osteoarthritis with some cartilage degeneration. He felt that depending on what the new MRI shows, he felt that I could get some good results with surgery-I realize of course that surgeons make more money when they operate instead of sending somebody to the physio.

If I can get a good result with surgery, I would certainly consider it. I would like to be able to get a run in next springs’ games, if I can. We’ll know more after next week. Stay tuned.

Watching the program “Total Rugby” on Setanta Sports today, they showed clips of the Veterans Rugby Festival that just finished up recently in Edinburgh, Scotland.

It looks like a great time was had by all. There were teams of players aged 35 and older from 18 countries-some from as far as Japan and the Cook Islands. The programs showed some of the really geriatric players-the oldest player was 85 years young. It should be added that it some age groups, the scrums are uncontested and I believe players over 65 wore red shorts to prevent them from being tackled or hurt. I could not help but to notice what a good time it looked like everybody was having while playing. I can only just imagine how much more fun the players had in the pubs of Edinburgh once the games were over.

The program also mentioned that the next world wide veterans festival will be in Sydney, Australia in 2010. THAT would be a fun trip. There is an increased number of tournaments that cater to the mature/older rugby player. This weekend in the USA, there is a big tournament in Aspen, Colorado. Back in the spring, there was a big veterans gathering in Edmonton, Alberta in Canada. This increasing number of old boy tournaments in fun  and different places sure gives me enough motivation to try to get my knee healed( I have my doctor’s appointment on Monday) and to stay in shape.

Who knows, maybe in two years time, I can have enough money saved to go to Sydney, and then go over to Victoria to check out my Aunt Kay’s new place, which is about 3 hours north of Melbourne. All I know is that the increased number of these old boys tournaments are quite the carrot on the stick to keep a middle aged guy like me involved with the sport.

    A few years ago, I stumbled onto a gem of a documentary called “Murderball”.  http://www.murderballmovie.com/       

One of my good friends on the blogosphere, a Kiwi lass named Ferdy, who does a great rugby-centric blog at www.ruggerblogger.blogspot.com was able to achieve a dream and was able to sing the New Zealand before the All Blacks-Samoa game a couple of weeks back. Short of being able to slap on the All Black kit and play with her compatriots like Dan Carter and Richie McCaw, this was the thrill of a lifetime for her. (She also had a chance to meet McCaw)

Curiosity got the best of me. I checked the Youtube web site to see if I could catch video of my friend singing her national anthem. I was not disappointed: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vtzzWxg1wrg

So, in honor of Ferdy, the Kiwi with the Golden Pipes, here is hoping that all of your dreams come true-or at least, here is hoping that you have a good Wednesday!

Here is a slideshow from the game. If you were able to find the You Tube link, you will recognize Ferdy in a shot from the slideshow as the pretty lady clad in black, microphone in hand, with the All Blacks lined up behind her.
http://multimedia.stuff.co.nz/taranaki/ABs%20Blacked%20Out/index.html

Was it really a year ago TODAY that my family and I were in France, and Ian and I watched a double Haka in the Rugby World Cup preliminary match between Tonga and Samoa in Montpellier? (A match won by Tonga playing 13 men against 15 the last 8-9 minutes)

Time flies.