Back in the very early 1960's I was one of the first wave of women to take Birth Control pills. The dosage, in those days, was astonishingly large. Ten (10) milligrams of the pregnancy preventing hormone! The results were predictable. By subjecting our bodies to this huge dosage, we were profiling pregnancy at a rate not usually found except among the over 40, fat, and multi-birth crowd.
Most of us got to celebrate this breakthrough with gall bladder disease.
The problem was, of course, that physicians did not believe a 22 year old, weighing 130 lbs, and in excellent health, could profile as a classic, older, gall bladder patient.
So, for a year, I suffered the pain of the damned, 3 hospitalizations, and an addiction to codeine, until a smart young emergency Room Physician ordered an upper GI. There it was! A gall bladder full of "gravel".
What you might wonder, does this have to do with Tiger?
Well, during that year of non- and mis-diagnosis, I quickly discovered I couldn't eat anything with fat, or grease. I stripped all fats from my diet, ruthlessly, in an attempt to bring the attacks under control, and get off the pain meds. I lost 35 pounds in just 8 months.
Weak, and generally out of sorts, I discovered that I no longer knew my body. It was too small, too fragile, a stranger to me. No dancing, no hiking, no tennis. Nothing that required strength and endurance. Nothing that required muscle or balance. I was trapped in a strangers body.
Now. Tiger spent the past 9 months since his knee surgery in recovery and rehab. He has been strengthening his body with hours everyday in the weight room. He is trying to avoid leaving any bone or tendon unsupported by a thick sheath of muscle. He has bulked up so much that a side by side comparison of Tiger last year at this time, and this year in the Players, almost presents a different body type!
Tiger doesn't know this new body. He doesn't know its strength, its balance, or its size, yet.
Do not freak out. It will come back. All of the knowledge is there. It just needs to be brought into the reality of this new hyper-jock that Tiger has become.