Dec 5 - Dec 20, 2005 - The days leading up to surgery

My knee was stiff and I was limping. This was not good, considering I had lots of tennis lined up for the next week and was hoping I would be back on the court in a day or two. Deep down, though, I knew this was not good and a big deal.

I made an appointment with my orthopedic right away, and sure enough, the xray showed nothing. He send me to get an MRI and I got in within a couple of days.

A week later, I was back in his office with the results of the MRI. Torn ACL - SURGERY - no tennis for 6 months!

[Okay, don't think about it too much. Just get the surgery and you will have the fastest recovery anyone has ever seen. You are super human and this will not stop you!]

I was like, "Let's do the surgery right away. I need to get back on the court!".

I was able to get right into surgery. Of course, we had tickets to Les Miserables, so it had to be after that! Believe it or not, but everyone in the doctor's office was laughing when I said that. Turns out, we had tickets for Tuesday, Dec 20, 2005. I was able to get scheduled for surgery the next day, Dec 21, 2005. That was great as far as I was concerned. So quick that I did not have too much time to think about the reality of the situation.
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Which graft to choose? My procedure is going to be done arthroscopically, and I had 3 choices for the type of graft they were going to use to replace my ACL. I chose the hamstring graft which was highly recommended by my doctor.

This is an animated video of the 'ACL reconstruction with hamstring' procedure that they are going to perform on my knee. I warn you though, you might not want to watch it before you have surgery. I watched it afterwards!

I found a lot of information at about.com on ACL injuries and the whole process. I found this site really helpful.

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So, back to the office for a couple of days until surgery. Everyone seems to have a story to tell or been through a surgery, so I got a lot of advice. And the funny thing is, I just really did not want to dwell on the reality of the situation, or I might just chicken out of the whole thing and change my competition of choice from tennis to bridge.