Celebrity Knee Surgery

Man, it’s been way too long since my last update. To make up for my absence, I was working on a mega-blog post. Ultimately, I decided to break things up. Hopefully, the next post won’t take 3 weeks.

Ok, let’s start with some celebrity knee surgery news. And no, I haven’t spent the past few weeks playing paparazzi. Or stalking Brittney Spears or Lindsay Lohan. Nor do I plan on turning this blog into some sort of National Enquirer meets knees. But this is relevant to my postings, and it's the first time the specifics of a knee operation have made major news.

Olympic Swimmer and Buffest 40+-year old Mom in the World, Dara Torres, is having knee surgery, possibly ACI (Hey Dara, if you’re reading this, leave me a comment). The press release announcing her surgery was a bit confusing. It’s almost like her press team purposely picked the least knowledgeable person on their staff to issue the release. Is she having ACI or some sort of OATS procedure?

Here’s the release (I’ve deleted the non-pertinent parts):

Dara Torres overcame staggering odds to make the U.S. Olympic swim team in her 40s. Now, an even bigger challenge awaits.

Torres' arthritic left knee is damaged worse than she thought, requiring a radical, reconstructive procedure that will leave her with a recovery of 12 to 18 months. But she told The Associated Press on Thursday she's not giving up on the London Games.

The operation -- tibial tubercle osteotomy -- will be performed Oct. 20 in Boston. Torres' shin will be broken and shifted to create more room for cartilage to grow around her kneecap.

She already had the first step in the procedure a couple of weeks ago, when cartilage was removed from a nonweight-bearing area around her anterior cruciate ligament so it can be transplanted to the area around her kneecap during the next operation.

"This is really going be new experience for me," Torres said. "It's a little unnerving. I was seriously freaked out when I read the literature."

Torres had shoulder surgery after the games and looked forward to competing fully healthy, only to suffer from increasing pain in her left knee. She made the team for the world championships but was clearly not at full strength. She was unable to do much lower-body training in the months leading to Rome because all the cartilage around her knee had worn out, leaving her with bone rubbing against bone.

"There are times when my knee just swells up like a balloon," she said. "When I'm going up and down stairs, I have to hold on to the railing. It's very tough."

After the surgery, Torres won't be able to return to her home in Florida for about five days. Then, she'll be on crutches for six to eight weeks. The first tentative steps in her rehab will be hooked to a special machine that limits the range of motion in her knee.

While she already was looking forward to a break from swimming, she's concerned that other forms of training -- such as biking -- will be off limits until her knee gets stronger.

"I don't know what freaks me out more: having my knee fixed like this or the actual recovery time where I won't be able to train," Torres said.

"I'm ready to get it done and move on," she said. "I just want to have some normality in my life. I want to be able to walk up and down the stairs without being in pain."

While the release mentions a transplant of cartilage, thus suggesting OATS and not ACI, it also pegs the recovery time at 12-18 months, which sounds more like ACI. Indeed, recovery from OATS procedures usually is much quicker, more like 6-9 months.

Anyway, a couple things about this release caught my attention. First, it describes the procedure as “radical.” I realize ACI or OATS-type knee surgeries are a big deal. Believe me, I do. I’ve been living with it for 9+ months. But it’s not like they’re growing a second head here, or trying to install gills on Dara. Hmm. Actually, that might work out to her advantage. Maybe they’ll stick in some extra white blood cells to help her swimming, just like Lance Armstrong used to do in the Pyrenees Mountains to win all those Tour de Frances. (I know, I know. Lance is great. LiveStrong! He never doped. And neither did Roger Clemens or Barry Bonds. And OJ couldn’t have killed those people since the glove didn’t fit. Riiiggghht). Calling this surgery, “radical,” doesn’t exactly inspire confidence in my ability as a mere mortal to recover. I realize Torres's PR team needs to set the bar high in case she's not able to return 100%. But still. Radical? That’s the knee surgery equivalent of fear mongering.

Next, the press release makes it seem like the “tibial tubercle osteotomy” is the main course. It’s not. The osteotomy is a side dish. An important one, sure, like the mash potatoes at Thanksgiving. But the ACI or OATS transfer is the turkey here. Yet there’s no real focus on the actual cartilage transfer (if it’s OATS) or cloning (if it’s ACI), only a brief mention of the transplant and some vague reference to creating more room for the knee cartilage to grow.

Since the release says her surgery is in Boston, I assume her surgeon is Tom Minas. I’m sure Minas performs all sorts of knee operations, but he’s widely considered the top US ACI surgeon, suggesting she’s having ACI. And Torres is spending 5 days either at the hospital or near the actual surgery site, something ACI patients do. Not me, of course. I was home in time for Oprah.

The release does nail her initial recovery period. She’ll spend the first 2 months or so on crutches and hooked up to my old friend, the CPM. But the most shocking omission? The release doesn’t mention the type of toiler seat riser Dara bought. Maybe she’s planning on announcing her choice on Twitter.

Anyway, Torres, like most rich athletes, will have many advantages. The best surgeon. The best rehab facilities. The best trainers. Plus, she’s a world-class athlete in amazing shape. And she’s a swimmer, which just happens to be the best possible recovery activity. I’m rooting for her to fully recover. Or pose for Playboy after getting a boob job. Call it the Girls of Failed Knee Surgeries. Ok, that's tacky. But I needed an ending to this post, and that's all I could think of. (Ed. note -- I just realized why the Playboy comment popped into my head. The last swimmer who "crossed over" to a certain degree, like Torres has, was Amanda Beard, and she posed for Playboy. Um, not that I ever saw her photos...)