Knee Injuries (yes, plural)

This is my 3rd knee operation. Well, actually it’s the 4th one, if you count the 2-part ACI procedure separately. You’d think I’m an NFL offensive lineman. But I’m not. In fact, I’m not even a large person. At my size (5’ 8”, 160 lbs, as of today), my best shot at professional sports was probably hockey. Unfortunately, I can’t skate, so I probably wouldn’t have done too well. Oddly, in college I played club volleyball, which isn’t exactly known to favor short people.

My first knee injury happened almost 20 years ago playing pick-up basketball. Somebody on the other team intercepted a lazy pass and streaked the other way for a breakaway lay-up. I had exactly a zero percent chance of catching them, but, damn my Midwestern pride, I tried anyway. I didn’t get very far; maybe 3 steps. I slipped on the blacktop, violently hurling my right knee inwardly to form an inverse, “L.” Because people can’t run when one of their feet is 2 feet above and parallel to the ground, my knee bounced off the pavement twice, each thud producing a sickening crack. That was my meniscus shattering. My ACL and MCL apparently got “stretched,” too. You’d think I’d know for certain what happened because those are important ligaments, right? Well, you’d be wrong.

I got stuck with a doctor who often read X-rays upside down. Dr. Smarty Pants (not his real name) “apparently” didn’t realize a person’s legs are below their torso. Try to picture how helpless I felt right before the anesthesia kicked in, as this guy hovered above me, with access to a bunch of really sharp objects and license to use them on my knee. Now I know how people felt during the Inquisition.

I awoke minus a meniscus. Dr. S. Pants told me my ACL and MCL were damaged, but he didn’t “fix” them because he thought they might heal on their own. He didn’t explain how that would happen, of course. Eventually, my knee returned to normal strength, although it would buckle at random moments, probably because my knee was still waiting to be magically healed.

Fast-forward 13 years. I grew up playing soccer. I later incorporated my soccer skills into my volleyball game, digging balls with my feet. I thought that was being innovative. My coaches and teammates disagreed. They thought I was being lazy, since, technically, I could’ve dug those balls with my arms if I dove for them. They would’ve been right, but laziness is a really hard habit to break. My soccer skills turned out to be a curse, not a blessing.

During a volleyball game, the ball deflected off the top of the tape, changing directions rapidly. Rather than diving for the falling ball like my I should’ve, I decided to dig it with my foot. After planting my right foot, I tried to change directions with the ball. That’s when my knee buckled. Somehow I was still able to kick the ball up in the air with my left foot – yay, me! – but saving the point really wasn’t worth the price of shattering my knee cartilage.

I visited Dr. Clueless (again, not his real name) at Baylor. Clueless had lots of pictures of famous athlete-patients on his walls. In hindsight, I would’ve preferred my old buddy, Dr. Smarty Pants.

Heading into the surgery, Clueless told me I’d awake as good as new. Back then, I couldn’t google his advice, or stay at a Holiday Inn, so I had no clue what he was going to do to my knee.

After the surgery, I diligently following the prescribed rehab plan – I even ran into Shawn Bradley at one therapy session; he’s really tall. My knee, however, still didn’t work like it did before the injury. I mentioned this to Dr. Clueless. He replied, “Of course your knee doesn’t work as good. You’ll have problems the rest of your life. The knee cap is unstable.” I wish I had my crutches with me during this visit. I would’ve made one of Clueless’s knees unstable.

I later learned that Clueless simply scraped away the cartilage near the defect. While smoothing out the cartilage allowed me to walk relatively pain-free, it created a gap where my knee and leg bone meet. Gaps aren’t supposed to be there. This particular gap prevented me from “exploding” off my knee – ie, no running or jumping. At age 30, I could live with that; I just wanted to make sure I could run around with my kids. Nonetheless, I wasn’t happy with Dr. Clueless.

6 years later, I injured my knee for the third time. I was helping coach a 12-year old girl’s club volleyball team. One night, I stuck around after practice to help the girls practice their spiking and blocking. Normally, I wear a neoprene knee brace whenever I do anything remotely athletic. I didn’t wear one this time. After only a handful of jumps, the back of my knee swelled up. I later learned that not only did Dr. Clueless fail to make my knee “as good as new,” his surgical genius actually made my knee more susceptible to further injury. Dr. Pants wasn't looking so bad anymore.

And now I'm getting ready for another surgery. I can only hope Dr. Pants and Dr. Clueless invested heavily in Enron; that'll comfort me during my year-long rehab.