When a Doctor Becomes a Patient

It started as a usual Friday morning May 27, 2011, when I got to the gym at 6:15 AM, warmed up, as the other guys came in.  Morning basketball… I love basketball. Not because I’m great at it, but it’s something that agrees with me.  It makes exercise fun.  Especially when you play with a group of guys who share a similar passion, who all feel, as you do, that starting the work day with 2 hours of pick-up basketball is a great time.

I think it was the second game, it had just begun, when going up for a rebound, there was a collision, and as I came down my trapped leg twisted underneath me, and combined weight of myself and the other player came crashing down on the lateral side of my right knee.  I felt a pop, but it was more than that; it felt as if the sensation was one of grinding, and it seemed to resonate through my bones, up my spine and into my brain which was wide awake by then.

If I could have done it all over again, maybe I should have let the opponent have the ball, was probably the first thought that crossed my mind (although that isn’t realistic, I am too competitive).  The second was that I think I dislocated my knee.  Third thought was that the ACL was definitely torn, who knows what else.

Sometimes things happen, and we want to look for someone to blame.  Was it the person who collided with me?  Was it my own fault?  The floor, etc? … In a case like this, the reality is there is no one to blame.   Unexpected things happen, and often times that’s just what it is.

The guys helped me to a bench, I tested my own knee, and sure enough there was dramatic laxity in anterior drawer testing.  We iced it, slipped a neoprene brace over it and I drove myself to the office where I wrote myself a script for an MRI of the Right knee without contrast.  Went to the local MRI facility.   MRI’s are very loud machines.  Even with the earplugs in place, the repeated blasts of noise were impressive.

An couple hours later I got the  call from the radiologist.  His first words, “Doesn’t look good”.  Confirmed my clinical judgment, I knew it was a severe injury.  Full thickness tear of the ACL, essentially full thickness MCL tear, meniscal body tear,  impaction fracture of the tibial plateau, extensive bony contusion tibial plateau, partial tear soleus muscle origin.I thought I was even prepared for the news.  But it was hard to describe it.  A feeling of regret, perhaps, knowing my best basketball days may be behind me.

A few days later I went to my first consultation with an orthopedic surgeon.  I think I’ve been pretty lucky in my life, never having had to see a surgeon prior to this event.

“You say you did this playing basketball?  In all my career I have never seen such a severe basketball knee injury. ”

Shortly after his medical assistant came in, prepped the tray, and the surgeon came back to anesthetize the skin over the superolateral corner of my right knee.  Then with a pink tray nearby, he proceeded to aspirate about 6-7 syringes of blood out of the knee.  Those tiny globules of fat floating on top of the blood signified that there was indeed impaction fractures in the knee.  Then came the bad news.

“Your injury is too severe to treat with a traditional surgery.  I recommend you go to U Penn or Temple to have it done.”

So the question became..Should I have surgery or not? Stay tuned for my next blog to find out.

When a Doctor Becomes Patient Part 4 – Initial Post-Op Days

Linsanity Continues!

When a Doctor Becomes a Patient Part 3, Prescription Pain Medication

When a Doctor Becomes a Patient, Part 2, by Dr. Kevin Hsu