Preparing For A Doctor Visit After My Roller Skating Mishap!

Hey skaters, I'm Dirty Deborah Harry with the Dirty School of Skate. And today I'm here at Back Beat Skate Company. Do you see the floor? Do you see the space? You guys, you have to come down here, particularly if you want to get custom skates or you wanna actually try on Rydell boots. You guys, there's a fitting studio here. It's so unique, you've got to come down and then you can practice here on the floor. And if you're a skating teacher and you need practice and or teaching space, come bring your class down here. Back Beat Skate Company, located in Huntington Beach, California. Back Beat Skates on Instagram. All right, you guys. So today's video is somewhat of a PSA. Yes, I have thought long and hard about this and I actually overcame something in skating and I wanted to share it with you. It's story time for you. I had to go to the doctor. Why did I have to go to the doctor? I had to see the sports medicine guy. Why? Because I was out snowboarding and I ain't gonna lie, I might've been having like a good time while not snowboarding. And then I went snowboarding, you know, like what you do when you're not snowboarding, we're just having a good time partying and stuff. Right? And then I was snowboarding and I took kind of a bad fall and I tweaked my knee a little bit and I was like, oh my God, I have got to go see the doctor. I went and saw the regular doctor and you know how that goes and I had to literally like beg them to send me to the sports medicine guy because I knew that it was important that my knee be in tip top shape if I wanna roller skate, all right? So I get to the sports medicine guy. Well, I don't even get to him. I start thinking about it ahead of time and I'm thinking like, I am going to possibly run into the sports medicine doctor and he's probably gonna be a guy, okay? And no shame, but if he looks at me when I just walk in or he walks in and he sees me, he might not understand exactly what it is I do on roller skates, right? If I just tell him, oh, I'm here because I'm a roller skater and I screwed up my knee a little bit, you know, imbibing and then snowboarding, kind of like that, that could be a problem, right? He's not gonna understand. To be absolutely frank, he's gonna have his head buried in my chart and he's gonna be like, yo, you got a birthday coming up. You're a 57 year old woman. You a bit overweight. He might not actually believe that I do something athletic that is beyond what a lot of people are doing or capable of doing. It's not his fault. I am going to be super assuming when I say the sports medicine doctor in my area probably is dealing with runners, triathletes, people like that and more than likely men that are coming in with overuse injuries. I was thinking, God, if I just go in there and tell him, I'm a roller skater, that is going to be up to him to delve into his bank of memories and associate me with anything he knows about roller skating. That could be a varied treasure trove of ridiculous memories, right? He could be the guy who put on the roller blades once in the 90s and decided it wasn't for him. You know, he could be a guy who's roller skated a couple of times when he was a kid. Maybe he took his kid to the rink, but he doesn't know what it means when I say I'm a roller skater. The other thing is I'm thinking to myself, this guy may just straight up look at me and be like, all right, this lady's crazy. She too old to be doing this, like too old to be putting on roller skates because you know when you go to the beach or wherever you're in, you're outdoors, right? And you see someone wobbling around on their skates, he might think that that's what I'm talking about. I'm basically, I'm taking a risk. I don't know what he understands about skating. So I am going in there, he's in a rush. You know how doctors are these days. It's not like you walk in and they're like, hey, I got all day long, let's just chat. They're buried in the computer or their chart and they're asking you questions and you always feel like, I don't know if you're like me, but I feel like I'm semi being interrogated. It's always like, what's your name? What's your birth date? And then they just start going to teach you and so you don't have time. So I said, you know what? I'm gonna be prepared because it took me like two months to get this appointment, right? Two months. And side note, for two months, my little knee was all a little tweaky. So I'm just gonna put a little shout out to old bones because I'm strapping on that knee sleeve like my life depended on it because I do want to skate, right? So when I finally went to see him, I was prepared and I got Adria, the lovely Rollie Lux to put together a little trailer of things that I do on skates. So she did a little bit of me skating at the rink, a little bit of me doing jumps like figure skating. She put in me going to the skate park, me skating at the beach, all these things into a real quick edit that I could show the doctor when I went in. So of course, as it goes, the guy walks in and I'm just sitting there. He's just looking on the computer, ask me my name, ask me my birthday and stuff. And he's kind of, and I go, wait, like, wait, hold up right now. And I literally get out my phone and shove it in his face. I go, this is what I do. And I had to get him to look at what I do before he judged me on how I look, okay? I had to get it out of the way right away. And he looked at it and it was funny cause he was like, oh, wow, oh, oh, cool, oh, wow. And he watched it, it was kind of funny because I was like, you better watch this. You better see me, you better see me, see what I can do, right? Then I had to tell him, he goes, well, what brings you in here today? And I was like, well, I was snowboarding and you know, one thing or another. Anyway, bent my knee in a weird spot, jumped back up, snowboarded the rest of the day and then came home and I was like, huh, something feels off. So it was great because after that, I actually felt like he was on a mission with me to help me rehab this little knee situation. Thank God, like we did all the testing. It was no big deal. It's just a little bit of a sprain there on the, like little inside your MCL, just a little bit, just a little bit. But if you're a skater like me, you know, when you feel that, when you feel something's wrong or tricky with your knee, you're thinking, oh my God, is this the end? Is this where I'll never skate again? I mean, that's what you think, that's why it's so important. And it was interesting because I felt like then I had someone on my team that was gonna help me. So then at that point, he was like, we could do this, we could do that. And he, you know, come showing me exercises I could do. You gotta buy this. And then straight up, he's like, you gotta, you gotta, I'm gonna give you a prescription for this. It wasn't anything fun like you would think. I'm out there buying like old lady arthritic cream, but I don't care. I'll put that stuff anywhere you want me to, if it means I can still skate, right? So I am urging you to be prepared when you see your doctor, masseuse, an athletic trainer, a physical therapist, any of those people, go in armed with either video of what you do or video of what you would like to be able to do. So let's think about this. Video of what I can do is me proving straight up, to be honest, me proving, look, this is what I do. You can look at me and you can judge me all you want. And I'm not even saying it in a negative way. Maybe he's just used to seeing runners, you know, different body types than the one that I am presenting. Maybe he doesn't know, right? I also go to this place called the Stretch Lab. Shout out to Jenna from the Stretch Lab. You go there and they stretch you out like an athletic trainer would. Amazing. As soon as I saw her, I said, look, this is what I do. And this is what I hope to be able to do better. Once she saw that, it's like, oh, cool. Then they feel like they're on board and we both have the same shared goal. Can I also tell you that if you want to feel empowered at the doctor's office and you come in as less patient and more prepared, your visit will be so much better. When I walked in there, I was like, I know what I want out of this visit, okay? And it's not gonna be dependent on my doctor reading my mind or having any past experience with what it is I do. When skating, people hear you roller skate and sometimes they think roller skating is only for children. So if you're an adult presenting yourself as a roller skater, they're gonna think this person's mad. They're crazy. They don't take you seriously because they think you make bad decisions. Now, I ain't gonna lie. I make bad decisions, but it's in the pursuit of fun. So I don't worry about it, all right? Sometimes we make bad decisions, but the doctor, we want the doctor understanding better how to treat us and get us both to my goal, your goal, okay? If that is to continue to skate and be a better skater than going armed when someone's gonna talk to you about your body, you go in armed with evidence that yes, you can do things. And if you are going in injured, straight up, I mean injured, you broke something, whatever. I don't care. You bring that video. You say, this is what I was doing. And don't apologize for it. Not to be like, oh, I know it was dumb. I shouldn't have done it. No, that's what you're doing. It's perfectly fine. Their job is to help you get healthy. Make sure you're on the same page. Present the evidence. It's sort of like, it's funny. I almost felt like a defendant. Like I've got to defend myself here. It was probably the most productive medical appointment I've ever had. And at the end, he was like, kind of like, tell me more about this roller skating stuff. And I'm all, tell you more, say less. Here's my business card. Here's some stickers. Here's some passes. Come to the Fountain Valley Skating Center. And he was so happy about that. He was like, oh my God, yeah, that'd be great. Maybe I've converted just one more person to the cult of roller skating. That makes me happy. All right, skaters, I've got to go. You know what you need to do. Go practice.