Did Mike Lindell Cure My Knee?

• Lori Palminteri
• Uncategorized
• February 10, 2024

Yeah. That Mike Lindell. The dude who went from a crack head to being a self made millionaire, with the most annoying commercials second only to KARS 4 KIDS. Mike Lindell, who, with every new commercial he makes, the cross around his neck gets bigger and bigger. Like, bro. Maybe you have neck pain because your necklace weighs 14 pounds. Wear a modest regular crucifix like a normal, more humble Christian.

So did Mike Lindell cure my knee? The short answer is no, if you don’t want to continue reading. But by all means, readers are welcome here.

A couple weeks ago, my left knee started bothering me, and I wasn’t sure why (am I old?). It wasn’t a crazy pain, but leaning weight on it certainly hurt, so much so, I took a hiatus from my regular runs. Was this runners knee? Is my cartilage shot? Sometimes I wouldn’t notice it, but I especially noticed it when I would turn.

This mostly concerned me because of my upcoming Hawaii trip, where, in-between working, I plan on surfing, snorkeling and hiking pretty much every day. All things your knees are super important for. I really, really didn’t want anything messing up my pending adventures.

When I was young, I messed up my right knee water skiing. Back then on the Great South Bay, my dad would tow my siblings and I to ski on this inflatable dingy. (Picture below for those who don’t know what a dingy is, though the one in the picture is way nicer than the one we owned). A boat/motor that size I don’t think could tow a grown adult, but we were tiny kids, so it was doable for us to ski off the back.

My dad was a talented slalom water skier. This means, he could water ski on one ski instead of two. There are two ways to slalom ski. Both are difficult. The first way is to start with two skis and drop one (returning later with the boat to get it), or (even harder) you could start with just one ski.

We loved all water sports as kids and lived for summers. On this particular day, my dad had me and my brother on the dingy with the skis. I was being towed. All of a sudden, a huge 40 foot boat is about to pass. The bigger the boat, the bigger the boat wake. And I know already, my dad is going to head right for the wake to put me through some bumps.

In my head, I’m like, “oh shit.” The dingy bounces over the boat wake. And then I do. Launched in the air from these water moguls, I’m shocked I land every one. “Whoo-hoo!” Did you see that, dad?

Well, he really thought I was going to get thrown, so then my dad did something called a whip. Whipping on a boat when you’re towing a skier, tuber, wake boarder, basically means making a turn. But the turn tightens the line and your speed as the towed and you FLY. I can see it happening before it does. I just landed these jumps and now he’s testing me with the whip. I get a lot of speed. It’s fun at first. Until. Uh oh. Too much speed. I hit a wave at the wrong angle and my right ski pops off. But it doesn’t just pop off. It pops up. The tip of the ski, and I remember too vividly, had a direct hit with my knee cap, which popped out of the socket. When I hit the water, it knocked my knee cap back into place, but not without me screaming in pain.

When I was pulled back on the boat, of course my dad felt bad and my brother was laughing. When we got back to my mom, I told on my dad, in tears, “Dad whipped me and my knee popped out and it really hurts. I don’t know when I can walk again!” (I may have been a touch dramatic). Still, Mom yelled at Dad, “what did you do that for? They’re kids! Why are you whipping the kids?”

Out of context, I could see how “why are you whipping the kids?” could come off really horribly. In truth, we liked being whipped (not in the slavery type way) and thought it was funny to watch people wipe out. Until you got hurt, of course.

At this time in my life, I was a soccer player and a track runner. My knee was badly bruised and we had to get one of those knee braces because I was limping. My legs were (and are) chicken legs. The brace looked ridiculous on my skinny legs. What was worse, is I developed a bad rash behind my knee from it. I ran with that brace for a couple years until it was strong again.

I feared for years that this knee would reprise its role as injured, but it never did. So it was curious to me, that despite not doing anything to hurt it, at 34, my left knee was trouble some.

While I’m not a girly girl in most ways, one of the girly things about me is I do love a lot of pillows on a bed. One of my pillows, which my parents gave me because they bought it and didn’t like it, was one of those “My Pillow” pillows. It is, hands down, the worst pillow on my bed. I only keep it because I often work or use my bed as a couch (since I don’t have a couch) and prop pillows up. One time, a lover was over my place, and he was stuck with the My Pillow and he was like, “why do I have this extremely shitty pillow and you have like six comfortable pillows.” He wasn’t wrong.

I decided to sleep with my knee propped up. The My Pillow, despite it’s discomfort for your head, was the perfect pillow for your knee. It’s lumpy and weird texture was actually quite comfortable for my knee. And after just a few sleeps with it, I resumed a lighter running routine and in less than a week, my knee felt completely fine. I continued to sleep with it and found this a better way to sleep.

A favorite saying of mine for when people have a birthday is, “you are only as old as your knees feel.” Of course, I was relieved if not ecstatic that I would be going to Hawaii without injury. If I’m going to get hurt, it better be on my very last day in Hawaii. The lesson here? Be a crack head. (That’s not the lesson. That’s never the lesson.)