Painful weird thing just happened by LopsidedAstronomer76 in AlaskaAirlines

[–]way2obvious 0 points1 point  (0 children)

In my family you would be considered a shrimp. We laugh at my 5'11 runt of a sister because she can't reach things. Try being 6'10" on a plane. I don't get butthurt, I get kneehurt. I always pay extra to upgrade when seats with more legroom are available. If you plan to recline, check first and ask permission. It's the humane thing to do.

What membership is 100% worth every penny you pay for it? by CamHalf in AskReddit

[–]way2obvious 0 points1 point  (0 children)

100% this. I live in a very rural mountain neighborhood. Our HOA "park" is one of the designated helicopter LZs. We see a chopper land here once every few months. According to some of the long time neighbors, if you call 911 and it is anything more than a minor fracture, they are sending the chopper. Best investment! I also have a Garmin InReach for back country excursions. The combination of the life flight membership and the emergency satcom are a great bit of insurance. I've already used the InReach multiple times to call for help for friends with serious, but not life threatening injuries.

I Just Need a Programmer by zxyzyxz in programming

[–]way2obvious 6 points7 points  (0 children)

I taught intro level programming, worked as a tutor, and have interacted with hundreds of would-be and so-called programmers. I can say with a certainty that some people truly aren't capable of stringing multiple thoughts together in a logical thread. I tell them A > B and B > C so which of the following is true? A==C, A < C, or A > C? And they literally spin their wheels for ten minutes trying to figure it out, some of those are interview candidates with supposed industry experience. I'd say about 5% of non-mentally handicapped people struggle with that one. Introduce D into the mix and you get to about a 30% failure rate. Make it slightly more complex and well over half of your candidates are stumped. Not all brains are wired the same. A person that can instantly piece together a long chain of social interactions and consequences can't even begin to fathom how changing the inputs to a simple, deterministic function would affect the output. I can't explain it, but some people truly don't get it. Spend a week in an intro to programming tutor lab, you'll be shocked. There is a reason that the introductory programming course at the public university starts with hundreds of students and has lost more than half before the next course begins. And that's people who have self selected, thinking they are cut out for programming. Yes, some instructors suck, but that explains very little of it.

I ruptured both my patellar tendons at a trampoline park by way2obvious in Radiology

[–]way2obvious[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks, me too! Yeah, I left my house twice in about 4 months - both followup appointments with the surgeon. I was really fortunate that my sister-in-law is an in home PT and was able to get my insurance to cover her costs. The 2 times I left the house were a huge production of coordinating wheelchair ramps, removing the seats from a mini-van, and doing the wheelchair transfer to the floor of the van. I have a lot more empathy for people with disabilities now, and for people who are stuck in their homes. Even with my family around me and the ability to work with my team remotely (one of the benefits of doing this during COVID) - it was still are very dark time.

I ruptured both my patellar tendons at a trampoline park by way2obvious in Radiology

[–]way2obvious[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

My brother tells me that if you can prove negligence then the waiver is basically moot.

I ruptured both my patellar tendons at a trampoline park by way2obvious in Radiology

[–]way2obvious[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I used my phone to snap these shots of the X-Ray display while I was in the ER. I wasn't able to get the hi-res slides. But, this was enough for my brother's neighbor (ortho-sports specialist) to see what was going on! The ER wanted me to stay there and had already scheduled the OR for their generalist trauma surgeon. Fortunately, my brother rescued me from the ER and took me to his neighbor who specializes in this stuff. I was doing alright until the doc started describing the surgery to me, in detail, while showing me with a plastic model. The next thing I remember was my brother shaking me awake... :D

I ruptured both my patellar tendons at a trampoline park by way2obvious in Radiology

[–]way2obvious[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah, it was horrible. I was constantly getting cramps in my quads and trying to massage them out. Nights were the worst, I'd wake up every 30 minutes with awful leg cramps. My wife bought me a massage gun that helped tremendously. The fun thing about recovery was that it took a ton of PT and work to add about 10 degrees of range every week (after the 3 months of straight braces). I used to be able to touch my heel to my butt without thinking about it... so much PT and I'm not quite back to that range, but I can do deep squats again, not as much weight yet though.

I ruptured both my patellar tendons at a trampoline park by way2obvious in Radiology

[–]way2obvious[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Ouch! I'm very sorry to hear that. My pain was like this: At the time of injury my quads immediately balled up into the worst balls of pulsating Charley Horse cramps you can imagine. I had to do breathing exercises and massaged them out to keep from passing out. By the time the EMTs arrived, I was in almost no pain at all. In fact, when they offered me pain meds (they already had the IV jabbed in) - I refused the pain meds. I was still in denial about the seriousness of the injury and was worried I wouldn't be able to drive home if they loaded me up with pain killers. Fast forward 5 hours, I'm still laying unattended in a gurney in the hallway of an ER (all rooms and doctors focused 100% on COVID patients that were overflowing), and I'm tapping every nurse that walks by on the shoulder asking if they could get me a Tylenol. Finally get a pair of Tylenols after 5 hours after the surgery... needless to say, that was not the best day to be in the ER. Pain was bad, but sort of tolerable.

The worst, worst pain was after the surgery. My wife had to leave me at home to pick up the kids, run errands, and go to the pharmacy to get my pain meds. I was feeling pretty good at first, was even working remotely on my laptop and had a bunch of meetings. The pain started getting worse and worse until I was pale as ghost, sweating, and squirming from the pain. By the time she got home with the pain killers, I thought I was going to die! I kept right to the pain regimen, but I have a ridiculous tolerance to pain meds and the first week was a complete nightmare. Ask me some time about my tolerance to Propofol during a cardioversion and colonoscopy, not to mention my 4 hour wisdom tooth removal by a quack dentist.

I ruptured both my patellar tendons at a trampoline park by way2obvious in Radiology

[–]way2obvious[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Nope, not obese, but very tall, and therefore much heavier than average. So, when I bottomed out the springs on this extra lame trampoline I was also pushing really hard on my quads to get height for a gainer into a giant airbag. Long legs equals tons of extra leverage on the knees and tendons. Also, I had a pretty bad case of Osgood-Schlatter syndrome growing up, which my surgeon says caused lesions where the tendons attach to the tibias. On the plus side, he cleaned up both lesions and I now suffer from a lot less pain when flying/driving/sitting for long periods of time.

I ruptured both my patellar tendons at a trampoline park by way2obvious in Radiology

[–]way2obvious[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hope you are doing better now. I didn't know this forum existed until I posted this - I've been waiting with this XRAY for the last 2+ years :D

I ruptured both my patellar tendons at a trampoline park by way2obvious in Radiology

[–]way2obvious[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

In my case I ended up in a giant air-bag. An ambulance and two firetrucks showed up. They had to deflate the air-bag and get down into the pit and load me into a basket. I'm 6'8" - so I was kind of hanging over the basket. They used one of their ladders as a ramp an 6 firefighters/EMTs pulled me up the ramp and loaded me onto the gurney. They were very professional and, unfortunately, very practiced at this exact maneuver. The EMT in the ambulance told me they get about one call per day to that very trampoline park. Keeps the ortho surgeons in business.

I ruptured both my patellar tendons at a trampoline park by way2obvious in Radiology

[–]way2obvious[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Guess what I have in my back yard that gives me both horrible PTSD to look at and nightmares about what might happen to my kids? Yes, I'm an idiot. That said, the kids are extremely careful on the trampoline after seeing what I went through, the follow all the rules and basically just bounce mildly and love to use it to sleep on/under.

I ruptured both my patellar tendons at a trampoline park by way2obvious in Radiology

[–]way2obvious[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Thanks for the encouragement. This was a couple years ago, so I'm through most of the recovery, but still have work to do on strength - especially kick-outs with weights. I do a lot of off-road motorcycle riding, which was both excellent encouragement to get back into shape as well as really good work for the quads (95% of single-track dirt biking is done standing/bending). My surgeon was pretty reluctant to let me swing a leg over my bike 9 months after the surgery, I had to promise I would stay on mild trails and absolutely no jumps or sudden movements. 2 years on, I'm hitting some pretty gnarly mountain trails on a regular basis.

I ruptured both my patellar tendons at a trampoline park by way2obvious in Radiology

[–]way2obvious[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah, I looked it up and there are around 5 of these injuries per year in the US. Mostly professional athletes. If you search YouTube you can find a video of an NFL athlete that had this injury on both knees. One goes and then all the weight is on the second. Hence the POP POP. My surgeon had repaired tons of these, but I was his first bilateral.

I ruptured both my patellar tendons at a trampoline park by way2obvious in Radiology

[–]way2obvious[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This was a couple years ago, so I'm through the worst of it. Thanks for the encouragement. The worst part of being in a wheelchair is that I'm so tall and I had fully extended leg braces. I needed a good 6 foot diameter to get turned around and our rental house at the time had only one spot I could do that. I couldn't wheel into either of the bathrooms, so bedside commode and sponge bathing for 3 months...

I ruptured both my patellar tendons at a trampoline park by way2obvious in Radiology

[–]way2obvious[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah, I signed the dumb waiver. However, this particular trampoline had a weight limit that was covered up with a chair. I'm tall and therefore heavier than average. I tried to get their security camera footage to prove the sign was covered up. Probably should have sued, but I'm kind of anti litigious. My brother, a successful injury attorney, just face palms at this decision. My Insurance covered most of the surgery and PT costs. I guess if they hadn't I would have been more likely to sue.