On a Friday afternoon last October, I put my fate in the capable hands of an orthopedic surgeon. After a skiing accident, I needed a new ligament in my left knee, and he assured me that a graft from a donor cadaver would soon have me up and running again.
Back home after the operation, I stretched out on a big chair in my living room and promptly upchucked the two bites of bread I had eaten to break my 17-hour fast. I couldn't keep down the painkillers or the anti-inflammatory pills, either.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Thursday, March 20, 2008 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 2 inches; 73 words Type of Material: Correction
Knee diagram: A drawing of the anatomy of the knee that accompanied a Section A article Saturday about a reporter's knee surgery was incorrectly labeled. The diagram, which showed the front view of the left knee, labeled the lateral meniscus as the medial meniscus ("medial" refers to structures on the inside of the knee). This error also occurred in a graphic with a Jan. 15 article in Sports about Andrew Bynum's knee injury.
In a world of hurt, with a dead man's tendon in my leg, I could barely move, let alone do the straight-leg lifts and knee bends that nurses had told me to begin as soon as possible. Ahead lay months of torturous rehabilitation, presided over by a woman I came to call Connie the Barbarian.
A baby boomer accustomed to exercising, hiking and playing tennis, I now faced a battle just relearning how to walk without a limp. A red disabled placard became my most prized auto accessory. To my chagrin, I needed a cane to get around.
I felt I had suddenly, way ahead of schedule, begun a reluctant march into what Henry James called the enemy's country -- the enemy being old age and decrepitude.
The experience provided a disturbing preview of the loss of mobility and independence that comes with advancing years. It gave me greater empathy for my once active parents, now slowed by a battery of aches and pains.
I was heading down a road that tens of thousands of my peers have traveled or will travel. We are collectively . . . well, falling apart. We have ripped our rotator cuffs, slipped our discs, pinched our nerves and felt arthritis invade our knees and hips. We are having joints replaced and ligaments repaired in record numbers.
We are entering the vestibule of geezerhood.
My journey began on a mountaintop in Chile.
You know your South American ski adventure is headed downhill when you are descending the mountain head-first in a rescue toboggan.
On a beautiful afternoon last August in Portillo, Chile, 9,300 feet up in the Andes, I was about to start an intermediate run when I spied a skier zooming my way from above. Distracted, I glided into some powder, tumbled and landed hard. My skis spiked the snow, my bindings failed to release, and I felt a twisting in my left knee.
A clinic doctor at the lodge took an X-ray, declared that nothing was broken and gingerly manipulated my knee. He concluded that I had sprained my medial collateral ligament, or MCL. He fitted me with a knee brace and a crutch.
I wept -- not so much from the pain, which was considerable, as from the realization that I would not be able to exercise, something I have done almost daily for decades to relieve stress, stay healthy and control my weight.
Back in Los Angeles, an MRI, or magnetic resonance imaging, brought worse news: In addition to spraining my MCL, I had torn my anterior cruciate ligament, a ribbon of tissue that connects the thighbone to the shinbone at the center of the knee.
The ACL is the knee's most important stabilizer for activities involving sudden, pivoting movements. It is one of the most commonly injured parts of the knee, and tears have sidelined many a professional and collegiate football, soccer and basketball player.
I called a friend whose teenage daughter had ruptured an ACL playing soccer. It took a year of dedicated post-surgery therapy for that fit young athlete to return to competitive play.
I met a New York investment manager in his mid-40s who had an ACL reconstructed. Seven months after the operation, he felt stronger than before the injury, thanks to therapy and lots of cycling. But the recovery, he warned me, involved "pain and agony."
A female heli-skier and cyclist told me to prepare for 18 months of rehab before I would feel secure enough with my new ACL to play tennis. My surgeon, Michael Gerhardt, of Santa Monica Orthopedic and Sports Medicine Group, predicted that it would be more like six months. Even that sounded like a very long time.
Then there was the former colleague who sobered me by describing her "disastrous" ACL reconstruction. Years later, she must still grip the railing to walk up or down stairs. Sports are out of the question. Her surgeon calls her an "outlier" who had an extremely unusual outcome. Please, I prayed, don't let me be an outlier.
Before I could have ACL reconstruction, I had to undergo physical therapy to reduce the swelling in my knee and improve my range of motion.
Two months after the injury, I was finally ready. Because I was under general anesthesia, the two-hour surgery itself was a breeze. The aftermath was another story.
