And a new week begins

And you think that Olympians don't have problems with motivation. I know the blog posts have been few and far between but I attribute my lack of posts to the constant worry about my knee and tomorrow's diagnosis.

Yup, I see the orthopedic surgeon tomorrow at the University of Rochester Sports Medicine facility. On a scale of 1-10 on the nervousness scale, I think I'm about a 20. Being the usual nervous and worried person that I am, I have pictured the meeting with the doctor to go a few different ways.

1. Worst case scenario: I meet him, he tells me that fencing isn't a sport (similar to a conversation I had with another surgeon in Rochester), and he tells me I'll never fence again anyway because I have another tear in my cartilidge. At which point I completely fall apart on the spot and never again blog on "citius, altius, fortius".

2. Medium case scenario: Similar to worse except for he prescribes bad rehab for me with some PT that doesn't believe fencing is a sport. Does anyone sense that I have a complex about this? When you've been told enough times that fencing is elegant like a dance or not worth sponsoring, you kinda start to believe them. Although my name is Iris, there is nothing delicate about me or my fencing.

3. Best case scenario: The doctor is amazing (not like any surgeon I have known before-who actually cares about listening to the patient) and decides that he is going to help me with my knee pain. Then he marches me over to a cabinet full of amazing knee braces and hands me one. At which point they award me the world championship medal because there is no one around who can fight the power of the knee brace.

Reality, I suspect, is nestled somewhere far from my own neurotic predictions.

I have a plan. I'm going to do what I call the "hearts and minds" strategy. I will explain my situation with all honesty to persuade him into believing that I'm not just another athlete with bad knees. And I'm not some weekend warrior who does fencing for fun because it's a cool recreational sport. No, I am a 25 year old woman who has put her life on hold so she can stand on a podium two years from now with a medal draped around her neck. I need a doctor that I trust to seek out all solutions to get me back on that strip because it isn't just my knee-it's my dream, it's my future, it's everything I have put on the line for this. Have I lost perspective yet? Perhaps, but it's all part and parcel of the hearts and minds strategy.

I am going into the doctor's office alone. I half jokingly asked my mother to be in the room with me so I have someone's shoulder to cry on if need be. I don't know what I'm going to do if the scenario is more number one than number three. I seriously doubt that this will mean the end because I will find a way to work around it, but I know that I have already been mentally set back. Take a step forward and then take two steps back. I wish I wasn't alone in that waiting room.

On a much brighter note one of the junior fencers has informed me that the September issue of Elle magazine has an article about the sport of fencing. Anna Kournikova "writes" a column every month about different ways for hot and hip women to stay in shape. Anna's quote after trying the sport?

"A woman who knows how to use a sword is really sexy".

Amen.