After years of physical therapy and anti-inflammatories, followed by months of injections and finally artho knee surgery, I finally found my “miracle”.

Cortisone.

Yes, the temporary, liver-and-joint-killing, “illegal” steriod fixed my knee so I could return to play tennis.

Not my knee — I don’t have that much pigment and I’m far fatter.

Well, play in a fashion.  I still can’t run or jump, or hop quickly.  But if you hit the ball right to me, I can hit it back without crying.

I definitely needed the surgery and physical therapy, but I should have gone to the surgeon long ago.  I kept telling myself it was just tendonitis, and it would go away.

Well, it fucking didn’t — until the surgeon cut half the meniscus out, and we blasted all the dying bone cells with steriods.  Then I could walk and play doubles once again.

Back to the US, Back to the US, Back to the USTA…

The fucking douchebag millennial even talked me into rejoining my fucked-up USTA tennis team.  Every time I think I’m out, they keep pulling me back in.

I’m not even going to devote a full blog to how fucked up the USTA website is — let’s just say when I thought it couldn’t get worse, it did.  I had to switch devices and browsers to finally get it to work.

No matter how much local officials tell me the USTA does, I still hate that fucking website…

When it comes to the knees, I’ll keep:

• Doing the stretches, the leg presses and the one-legged squats
• Riding the bike on flat roads
• Putting on the sleeves to keep it from puffing up
• Covering them in ice at the end of every match.

But I have a strong sense I’ll be seeing the surgeon like he’s my heroin dealer.  I have to wait 3 months between shots.  I’m already jonesing for the next.

“Some people — it only works two weeks, some it works for two years,” the surgeon said.  You have to wait so it doesn’t destroy the knee or your liver.

The last shot was in April, I’ll be making that appointment for July, and another one in October…  just in time for Newks tennis camp.

Shoot me up doc.  Nothing else was working, and the alcohol is going to kill my liver anyway.

If David Crosby could qualify for a liver, and keep drinking, I might as well enjoy better living through Cortisone.