Knee deep

I received a letter in the mail the other day setting a date (29 January 2007) for surgery to reconstruct my torn anterior cruciate ligament (ACL). This has seemed like a long time coming, with the surgery to fall almost exactly a year after I hurt my knee for the first time.

So here's a timeline of knee-related events from the past year.

End of January 2006: Hurt my knee playing ultimate. Extended, guy falls on leg, hurts a bit (not a lot).

End February 2006: Knee feels OK, play another ultimate game, hurt again (making a turn, no contact). Hurts a lot.

A week later: Go to the doctor (Pan Am Clinic) for the first time. Schedule an MRI.

Every few weeks, March-April 2006: Appointments with doctor at clinic. Each time, told: "Come back in 2-3 weeks and see if anything has changed". Took off my pants a lot.

First week of May, 2006: Had MRI. I'd highly recommend it. You enter into a sterile room (not sure why it needs to be so clean), get partially inserted into a large tube wearing borrowed hospital shorts, receive earplugs to shield yourself from the aural symphony of pulses and hums that I wouldn't be surprised to hear at the New Music Festival, and 20-minutes later you're out. done.

Two weeks later: Get MRI results. Knee messed up. Schedule appointment with surgeon

Late June 2006: Appointment with surgeon. Book surgery. Expected wait 6-7 months.

June-present: Wait.

November 30, 2006: Receive information package scheduling surgery.

Future dates

January 29, 2007: Surgery.

Two weeks following: On crutches.

3 months after surgery: Allowed to resume cycling, running on level surfaces, other such activities. Basically same condition as I've been since about March.

6 months after surgery: More or less recovered. Allowed to re-start "start/stop" activities, that is, most sports.

All in all, it has felt like a lot of waiting, which would be more problematic if I was waiting for something like a new hip or heart surgery. But given that I'm relatively young and my problem relatively minor, it's not such a long time.

What have I learned?

1. Ultimate (frisbee, a disc sport) isn't that great. This isn't entirely a conclusion based on pent-up bitterness from injuring myself playing such a low-impact, non-contact, friendly sport. Instead, I make the call because I don't miss it. I miss playing soccer, even though I haven't played since early 2004. Why isn't it great? Forced co-ed meaning a wide gap in speed and size between players. No referees meaning constant bickering about rules which few players completely understand. Cult ethic which I never really got into. Lack of running, fluidity, compared to soccer.

2. Having a major knee injury isn't that bad. Apart from being prevented from playing sports I may or may not have played anyway, it didn't change my life much, aside from having a convenient excuse to skip out on some activities I might not want to do. I walked, canoe-tripped, and cycled more than I have at most any other points in my life, and hauled Christmas trees around in the last few weeks without noticing it much. I missed out on running the half-marathon this year, which will probably have to wait until 2008 unless I can find an event somewhere in the region in fall.

3. MRIs are cool (see above). I especially liked when I was shown the images on a set of fancy wide-screen monitors, as the doctor rotated the image this way and that.

So now you know.