A wonderful message from a Restore patient who is an 81 year old world class athlete!
Hello to all you ladies at Restore who brought me back on my feet from double partial knee replacements last Winter.
My plans to participate at the World Masters Athletic Championships in Toronto in July did not materialize because of the Coronavirus as did every other competition.
Instead I was invited to enter the Worldwide Virtual Masters Challenge four weeks ago. This was a competition based on the honor system. No cheating, no bolstering numbers and breaking rules. Unfortunately, I hurt my achilles at the warm-up for the high jump at Broad Run High School. But remembering all the tricks I had learned from you ladies on how to heal damaged goods, I was back on my feet two weeks later to compete in the javelin throw at the nearby Steuart Weller Elementary School.
It turned out that the other four American high jump competitors did not start the high jump either, obviously because they had no access to a high jump facility. So, nothing was lost in that event.
The preliminary javelin results for the Worldwide Virtual Masters Challenge were published the other day.
And in accordance to the numbers I am now the preliminary Virtual Javelin World Champion in the 80-84 age group. The numbers speak for themselves.
This was possible because of the excellent care I received by all of you. This also means that you can take at least partial credit for my success. Incidentally, my knees feel great and the residual pain from the accidental fall after the aborted second operation is gone as promised by my surgeon.
So, a heartfelt thank you to all of you wonderful therapists. Keep up the good work.
And if you are wondering what the significance of the black-gold stripes on my pants and the logo below the word USA on my jersey have, they are the colors of my track and field fraternity at what is the equivalence of high school in Switzerland. I guess, even though I represented the USA, deep down there, once a Swiss, always a Swiss. And this particularly since the day of the competition coincided with Swiss Independence Day!
Kind regards, Bernie Stamm
Permission was received from the patient to post this publicly.
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