Ref, You Are Bleeding! – Rodric Leerling

What is Influencer Marketing? – Rodric Leerling

When in #InfluencerMarketing, you are “indaHash”, just as being”indaHouse”. Using ### all the time …. Forget C2B, welcome to the age of H2H marketing.

Don’t mess with my assistant – Rodric Leerling

Last weekend I was assigned a rookie ref with an experienced radiation. But with this kind of confidence, you can also go too far or make wrong judgments.

The Cool Projects I Worked For (Part 4 – Consumer Research)- Rodric Leerling

Having worked as a freelancer for several years now, one tends to forget how it all started and how my career choice in 2004 has defined where I am today.

MinutePoll, CoolBrands, SuperBrands, TrendBox

Did he really show a red card? Rodric Leerling

Another rookie ref close to receiving his Dutch FA ref badge and the green light to ref games on his own. We bumped into each other at the sports complex – two guys who typically didn’t belong to either the club nor a team preparing to play.

Mentoring a rookie ref again after a year – Rodric Leerling

To my surprise I was assigned to a rookie referee I accompanied at one of her first matches for the Dutch FA, late 2016. She proved to have made big progress.

A first: being harassed as ref mentor – Rodric Leerling

Assigned as his mentor,  I looked over the ref’s shoulder while performing the player pass check. I might have made a comment on a missing picture, but nothing really negative. 

Check your whistle ref! – Rodric Leerling

It apparently is known as the ‘referee’s ear’. I never heard of it before (…) but ever since I have this ringing noise in my head, I started to connect the dots.

Back to Knee One – Rodric Leerling

Four and a half months and I’m back to ‘knee one’. The physical situation is similar to when it started in May: a swollen, stiff knee. The latest injection with double dosis steroid worked exactly four weeks.

When docters tick off most of the obvious medical boxes – Rodric Leerling

This week, another much anticipated hospital appointment took place. It was to become a new discomforting medical talk.

It all started with good news. The rheumatologist told me no real abnormalities were found in either bloodtest or new x-ray photos. More importantly, no crystals whatsoever were found in the excessive knee fluids het extracted last time. Meaning, it is almost certainly not gout or ‘pseudo-gout’ (chondrocalcinosis). The bad news was slowly building up in my mind. And made written notes this time to remember the test results in more detail.

The specialist suggested one more fluid extraction from my swollen knee and wile the needle was still in, inject it with double the volume of corticosteroid in order to try once again kill the stubborn inflammation. I agreed as this seemed the last effort to cure the 15 weeks knee misery. In two weeks time, a 3rd extraction (if anything left) will take place for a final check on pseudo-gout. And another blood test.

I had to ask the question: so doc, what’s next if all this doesn’t work out? Well, if it’s definitely no gout (and that’s already for 99% certain), we are entering the early indication of the rheuma realm. A new therapy will need to be started and another medication to stop the inflammation. Probably back to a prednisolon course.

The injection was less comfortable than the previous extraction. The medication was added and I was instructed to keep calm for 2 days and then slowly try to exercise. In the meantime, I keep my fingers crossed.