God I hope this picture shows up when people do a Google image search for DAN BLEWETT

The story is, Dan recently challenged me to a contest to see who could reach those ambitious numbers first. However, we agreed that we didn’t want to hurt ourselves trying to reach those goals by Christmas, so we’re just making it a straight up, mano a mano competition in the vertical jump and broad jump.

It’s going to be me and my two zombie knees versus him and his factory installed knees. I have historically been able to outjump Dan without a problem, but I haven’t really been the same since my surgeries. This is in part due to the fact that I no longer have any reason to train as hard as I was before, since I’m no longer playing college baseball. Now, however, I am motivated by my spirit of competition to destroy my friend and then rub his face in it. I have the utmost confidence that I can not only return to my former leaping ability, but surpass it. You can follow the competition on Dan’s website at www.danblewett.com, starting with this post by me

This should be a thrilling competition filled with trash talk and insults. May the better man (me) win. I’ll also post updates on my site with wittier writing than you’ll find on Dan’s trash heap of a website.

This is gonna be a cakewalk

My main reason for starting this blog was to kill time while recovering from surgery, since I can only watch the entire South Park series so many times before losing my mind. I decided early on that I actually wanted other people to read this thing, and it’s such an uninteresting topic that I had better try to make it funny. Nobody wants to read a bunch of bitching and complaining; there’s enough of that nonsense on Facebook. I, personally, would prefer to read things that make me chuckle, so I assume everybody else shares that preference. Also, I don’t want to be a negativity spreader. The fact is, it’s easy to sit there in your recliner and whine about how much you hate being infirm while healing up. And there’s a time and place for that too, since nobody likes a relentless Pollyanna either. But you’ll find very quickly that people aren’t going to want to hang around with you if you’re just complaining all the time.

No bueno

The truth is, recovering from surgery sucks. But 90% of the things you’ll experience are of the “I’ll look back at this and laugh” variety. I vividly remember my first sitting-down shower after surgery, when I went to so much trouble to set up my chair in the shower, climb into the shower, sit down, carefully take off my brace, then turn on the water which hit me in the face at a temperature of roughly 33 degrees. I was pretty pissed, but at the same time I thought, “That probably would have looked hilarious to somebody else.”

"He got in the shower before the water got warm! What a stupid asshole! Just look at him sitting in that dumb shower chair!"

I’m not saying you should go around just laughing your head off at every negative thing that happens to you, but it helps to put things in perspective from time to time. Is it really that big a deal that you can’t play golf for a few months? No, probably not. In the cosmic sense, does it matter that you have to sleep with a knee brace? No way. The best way to deal with these little inconveniences is to realize that 1) it’s not that big of a deal, 2) everything will soon be back to normal, and 3) it’s probably funnier than you think at the time.

Case in point: the guy on the left probably didn't find this funny at the time. I, on the other hand, find it to be hilarious

Despite these unreliable surgical techniques, Sayers somehow returned to the NFL the next season after his injury and led the league in rushing yards. Sayers recently had a total knee replacement, and when the doctors opened him up they discovered that not only was his ACL gone, his PCL was “stretched and frayed”, his MCL was in a similar state of disrepair, and the joint itself was filled with dust and bone fragments due to his utter lack of menisci to prevent his bones from rubbing against one another. How this man was able to play football, I have no idea. My theory is that his surgeon in 1968 took one look at his destroyed knee, said “fuck it”, and just removed the part of his brain that feels pain instead.

Gale Sayers: A man whose body was held together entirely by bandaids and prayers

In addition to reading about athletes who had successfully returned to their sports after knee surgery, I went on Youtube and watched videos of their injuries just to get some perspective on how severe their injuries actually were. The injuries I saw ranged from “gruesome” to “dainty”, which is pretty much what I expected. However, these 5 videos stood out as being the most noteworthy.

Note: As I’m sure you know, critics of various things typically use a “star” system to rate whatever it is they’re criticizing (1 star = bad, 5 stars = bonerific, whatever.) Well, I find that boring and pedestrian, so I’m going to rate these videos not in stars but in Shaun Livingstons. This is because Shaun Livingston’s knee injury is easily the most horrific thing I’ve ever seen, and should forever be the golden standard against which knee injuries are measured. Needless to say, it’s #1 on this list, and that should surprise nobody since the video of Livingston’s injury is like The Passion of the Christ for knees.

This man's knee has endured more suffering than you or I will ever be able to comprehend

The Shaun Livingston rating system will operate thusly:

1 Shaun – Weak. My grandmother tears her ACLs harder than you.

2 Shauns- Looks painful, but still watchable.

3 Shauns- “Whoa, that’s definitely gonna require surgery.”

4 Shauns – Fairly gruesome, bordering on full Sean Livingston status

5 Shauns – “JESUS CHRIST DID THAT GUY’S LEG GET CAUGHT UNDERNEATH A TILT-A-WHIRL!!?”

#5: Willis McGahee

Before being drafted by the Buffalo Bills in 2003, Willis McGahee was a star running back for the University of Miami. He broke several school records during his time at Miami, and was considered a top-5 talent in the draft. His draft stock fell, however, following his injury against Ohio State in the 2003 Fiesta Bowl. In the 4th quarter, McGahee caught a screen pass from Ken Dorsey and looked to turn upfield with the ball. Unfortunately for him, Buckeyes safety Will Allen decided right then and there that Willis McGahee’s left knee was an enemy that absolutely had to be dealt with immediately. Allen’s hit on McGahee could be described as a “tackle” in the same way a punch in the face from Mike Tyson could be described as a “poke.” Will Allen hit McGahee’s knee like an out of control train hitting a popsicle stick. McGahee’s ACL, PCL, and MCL all immediately became things of the past. The highlight of this video is the announcer’s completely unfazed, matter-of-fact “yep” when his clearly-shaken partner points out that McGahee has just suffered a serious injury.

Rating: 4 Sean Livingstons

#4: Mary Pierce

Mary Pierce is a French-American tennis player who has won 18 World Tennis Association singles titles, and most recently reached the singles finals in the US Open and French Open in 2005. The reason why she last reached the finals in 2005 is that in October of 2006 she tore her ACL in a match against Vera Zvonareva and has never fully recovered. This video is not notable for its knee-related carnage, but more for Mary Pierce’s seemingly disproportionately over-the-top reaction to what looks like little more than a slight stumble. At first glance, you can’t even tell that she’s hurt. That is, until she flops to the ground and unleashes a bloodcurdling shriek that scientists didn’t know human vocal cords could produce until that day. The sound that came out of Mary Pierce after she tore her ACL caused every dog within a 50 mile radius to frantically run into a wall at full speed in an attempt to knock itself unconscious. If you’ve seen Lord of the Rings, you already know what Mary Pierce sounded like because they used a recording of her scream as the sound the Nazgul make.

Rating: 3 Shaun Livingstons (2 Bonus Shauns awarded for spot-on Nazgul impression)

#3: Bill Gramatica

NFL kickers aren’t known for being particularly tough. Unless you’re talking about Sebastian Janikowski, who looks like the only kicker in NFL history who could (or would) choke a man to death while converting a 50-yard field goal. But we’re not talking about him, we’re talking about Bill Gramatica, who is best known for tearing his own ACL while performing a celebratory leap in the 1st quarter of a game against the New York Giants. With the score knotted at 0-0 with a little less than 8 minutes to play in the first quarter, Gramatica kicked a fairly unimpressive 43 yard field goal to give the Cardinals an early lead. Gramatica, however, thought that he’d somehow won the Super Bowl in overtime and launched into a celebration that could conservatively be described as “excessive.” Having completely lost his grip on reality, Gramatica launched himself into the air and and threw a hefty uppercut at one of the imaginary fans rushing the field in his Super Bowl fantasy. After following through on his air punch and executing a graceful 90 degree turn in midair, Bill came down awkwardly on his right leg and ruptured his ACL, which shattered his fantastical daydream and quickly brought him back to reality. Bill Gramatica brings new meaning to the term “non-contact injury.”

Rating: 1 Shaun Livingston

#2: Tony Allen

This entry falls under the category of “Foolish Decisions That Are Immediately Regretted.” On January 10th, 2007, the Boston Celtics were playing the Indiana Pacers in a tight game. With about 3 minutes to play in the third quarter, the Pacers led by a score of 68-63. This was roughly the time that Celtics swingman Tony Allen decided to take matters into his own hands and inject some life into the game. With the ball at the top of the key, Allen drove strong to the paint and was fouled by a Pacer in the process. Despite the whistle having been blown while he was still in 3-point range, Allen decided that he would finish off the sick-nasty dunk he had planned anyway. Everybody else on the floor had stopped playing long ago, but Allen was determined to finish strong. Unfortunately for Allen, he graduated with a double doctorate from the Bill Gramatica School for Future ACL Patients. Not only did he perform an unnecessary jump that ultimately resulted in his own injury, he smashed the ball off the rim and missed a completely uncontested dunk, literally adding insult to injury. Here’s my best guess as to what was going through his mind during this series of events.

“Ok Number 1, let’s see… how you like… THIS MOVE! STUTTER STEP BIOTCH! Oh shit, here I go to the rack. Tony Allen is gonna dunk this ball so hard. What’s that? A whistle? Shit. Well, this ball is definitely getting dunked anyway. That is god damn happening. Here I go… TOMAHAWK JAM MOTHERFU- oh damn it! Well, it didn’t go in, but at least I looked gooOOOOOWWWWW!!”

Rating: 4 Shaun Livingstons

#1: Shaun Livingston

Well here it is, the moment we’ve all been waiting for. This is without a doubt the single most horrific injury I have ever seen. I’m sure worse things have happened in the world, but Shaun Livingston’s knee injury is what my nightmares are made of. Shaun Livingston was a highly-touted high school basketball player who opted to skip college and declare himself eligible for the NBA draft following his senior year of high school. The Los Angeles Clippers drafted him with the 4th overall pick in the draft, unknowingly setting in motion a series of events that would eventually lead to Shaun’s knee being completely obliterated. While playing against the Charlotte Bobcats on February 26, 2007, Livingston took off on a fast break, juked a Bobcats defender and missed a layup. Unfortunately for Shaun, that missed layup was to be the least of his worries on that day. I would say that Livingston landed awkwardly, but that would be demeaning to both Shaun Livingston and the word “awkwardly.” Saying that Shaun Livingston landed awkwardly is like calling the Battle of Antietam a pillowfight. Livingston landed horrendously on his left leg, causing the following injuries to his knee:

-Torn ACL

-Torn PCL

-Torn lateral meniscus

-Badly sprained MCL

-Dislocated kneecap

-Dislocated tibia-femoral joint

That’s the kind of injury list that most groups of people don’t accumulate in a lifetime. Shaun Livingston had the bad fortune to suffer each of those injuries simultaneously. I can’t really think of anything funny to say about this one, but I can honestly say that I am beyond amazed that he was able to return to the NBA in 2008. He is currently playing for the Charlotte Bobcats which, in case you weren’t paying attention, is the team he was playing against when the laws of physics got together and took a dump on his knee. Maybe they felt sorry for playing a part in his injury and felt they owed it to him to give him a shot. Either way, here it is:

Warning: This video is pretty graphic, so if you have a weak stomach, maybe it’s just better to imagine what happened to Shaun Livingston. Because frankly, this is awful. This video makes the writers of the Saw movies cringe. If a group of anti-basketball lobbyists wanted to scare an auditorium full of schoolchildren out of playing basketball forever, this is the video they would show. You’ve been warned.

Rating: 1 million Shaun Livingstons

"Ouch! My ASS!!"

But if you do some simple math, you can figure out that 3 months is roughly equal to 12 weeks (3 months x ~4 weeks/month = ~12 weeks.)  The reason why 12 weeks is significant is because that is how long it takes for graft-to-bone healing. Basically, at 12 weeks you now have a real ligament, not just a piece of random sinew screwed into your bones. The reason why that is significant is because your rehab will change immensely after this 12 week milestone. For one thing, you will get to run again. This is both good and bad; on the one hand, you’ll be absolutely tickled pink to be able to get off that goddamn uncomfortable bike seat and onto a treadmill.

...and your perineum will thank you

For some, however, your joy will quickly turn to apprehension as you realize that your running mechanics are not exactly how you remember them. Actually, there’s a very good chance that you will feel like an uncoordinated loser your first time up on the treadmill. I was able to regain some semblance of a normal gait after a few jogging sessions, but that first day was pretty awkward.

The 12-week milestone comes with a lot of awkward firsts, including various agility drills and plyometrics. I had heard of people recovering from surgery having mental blocks about performing certain movements during their rehabilitation, and I thought that I probably wouldn’t be one of those people due to my perceived mental toughness. But it turns out I absolutely am one of those people, and landing after jumping is now a terrifying experience for me. One of the exercises that I do now is one where I jump from the floor onto a mini trampoline, then jump from the mini tramp back to the floor. Sticking the landing after jumping off the trampoline for the first time is one of the more nerve-wracking moments I’ve had since the beginning of rehab. I couldn’t see myself when I landed that first jump, but I know that I was cringing big-time, and I imagine that my facial expression greatly resembled Stevie Ray Vaughan’s “guitar face.”

He can't even bear to look at how hard he's rocking

While these new agility drills bring an elevated level of peril to my workouts, it feels great to finally be making athletic moves again after an 11-month layoff. And not only making those moves, but actually feeling confident in my body’s ability to pull off those moves without crumpling awkwardly to the ground. I’m still a little apprehensive at times, but I’m starting to grow more and more comfortable with things like jumping and running every day, and I’m getting to the point where I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. The period between 3-4 months post-op is where many athletes make their largest strength gains, so I’m excited to see how far I can progress between now and January. Really the only limiting factor I have right now is some patellofemoral pain that I’m suffering, which leads me to my next point: don’t use a patellar graft.

The one piece of advice that I would give to those who are planning on having ACL surgery in the near future is to not use a patellar tendon graft. Why? Because it’s flat-out painful. Kneeling is near-impossible for me, and I experience pain right over top of my kneecap when doing most exercises (jogging is especially inflammatory.)

Pictured: my own personal hell

Not only is it painful, but it’s actually affecting my strength gains. For example, I can’t kick out as hard as my muscles will allow during knee extensions due the pain in my kneecap. Everything inside the knee is fine, but the graft site on the outside of the kneecap is so tender that it flares up every time I contract my quadriceps. Eccentric exercise, for some reason, is when it acts up the most. It will get better with time, but it’s certainly frustrating to be limited by it during the time when I’m supposed to be making the biggest strides strength-wise.

So to summarize: doing athletic stuff again is cool, patellofemoral pain sucks, and this:

Might as well be this:

Pitchfork : bike seat :: Tomato : tomahto

*I’ve never seen another YouTube video where a heavy metal soundtrack was so poorly-chosen and unfitting.

Here’s my right leg after ACL/PCL reconstruction:

Pretty gnarly, for sure. But that’s nothing compared to what greeted me when my surgeon changed my bandage today:

Fantastic!

Looks great!

Totally rad!

Apparently I bleed a lot. Ironically, this hurts way less than my other knee did.

I have this picture to thank for that search result

I thought that nothing would ever top “pictures of men on the toilet” as my favorite search term, but I was proved wrong today when I logged on and discovered that somebody found my site by searching for “how to poop after knee surgery.” After I stopped laughing and cleaned up the chocolate milk that I shot out my nose, I got to thinking about the poor bastard who actually resorted to using a Google search to figure out how to deal with the problem of pooping after knee surgery. Having had similar problems after my ACL/PCL surgery, I can relate to this person’s struggles. And as a seasoned veteran of the action in question, I feel it is my duty to teach the rookies how to make their post-surgical bathroom experiences as tolerable as possible. So I’m now going to sit down and write the single most unprofessional thing I will ever write. I hope it shows up every time a potential employer Googles my name in the future. Without further ado, I give you the S.A.C.K.S. Postoperative Pooping System:

1. Set the stage

Like many things in life, pooping after knee surgery requires some level of preparation. For one thing, you’re going to need to do a little visual recon of the bathroom to determine if it is suitable for your needs. You’ll need a bathroom that’s big enough to accommodate your new unorthodox stance, so make sure there’s roughly two to three feet of open space in front of the bowl, because you’ll be going to the bathroom like a total moron with one leg sticking straight out in front of you thanks to your immobilizer brace.

This is going to make things a little difficult

You’ll also want to make note of any towel bars or sinks that you can grab on to after you’re finished to help you stand up. (Note: be sure to check the sturdiness of any towel bars before you use them to try to pull yourself up. If you’re not careful, you could yank it straight out of the wall and wind up on your ass.)

This can be your best friend, or a treacherous enemy

You also may want to incorporate a footstool or edge of a bathtub to prop your foot up while doing your business. This approach doesn’t work for me, personally, but I guess it’s possible that some people might enjoy pooping in a reclined position. It’s all about finding your comfort zone.

2. Approach the bowl

This one’s pretty self-explanatory, and it’s also the hardest step to mess up. All you have to do is shuffle your crippled ass up to the toilet, turn around, and slowly lower yourself onto the porcelain. This is a good time to use that towel bar so you don’t have to put your hands all over the toilet seat, because God knows how many people have pissed all over that thing. Really, the only way you can mess this up is if you forget to put the toilet seat down and end up slowly lowering yourself into the toilet bowl. But you should have already addressed the toilet seat situation as part of your visual recon in Step 1, so it should be a non-issue.

If it looks like this, don't sit down. You'll be going for a very unpleasant swim.

3. Crap as hard as you can

If you’re on pain meds, there’s a good chance that you’re going to be constipated. But you can’t just give up and throw up the white flag at the first sign of resistance. This is where champions are made, damn it! What you need to do is crap as hard as you possibly can and show your colon just who is running the show around here. It’s hard enough to take a constipated poop even when you’re at 100%, but now you’re going to have to do it in a completely unfamiliar, uncomfortable position, which makes it even tougher. It’s kind of like if the NBA passed a new rule that required all 3 point shots to be taken Granny style.

...which would be hilarious

Basically, you’re going to have to push like you’re birthing a baby that’s coming out sideways.

4. Keep it quiet

While you’re going through this process, you will inevitably experience times when you just want to scream obscenities at the top of your lungs. You are going to want to fight that urge. Nothing is more unnerving for family members, friends, etc. than to hear a loved one shrieking in the bathroom. Some concerned parties may even knock on the door to ask if you’re all right. Then you’ll be forced to answer “Yes, I was just so frustrated by the difficulty of this bowel movement that I felt the need to scream obscenities.” If you want to avoid weird exchanges like that, you’ll want to severely limit your verbal outbursts.

I just made somebody's day by finding their site with a google search for "screaming on toilet"

5. Stand up and wipe

OK, I know what you’re thinking: standing up to wipe is absolutely retarded. Normally, I would agree 100%. But let me assure you, it is the only possible way that you are going to be able to effectively remove the dingleberries from your butt while one of your legs is fully extended. This is just another little-known fringe benefit of wearing an immobilizer brace. It ruins literally every single thing about your previous pooping mechanics. But the good thing about this step is that it is the last one. If you’ve made it through and followed these steps, then you are now victorious in your fight to poop after knee surgery. Congratulations.

Strangely enough, this came up during my search for "toilet scream"

Well there you have it. The S.A.C.K.S. Postoperative Pooping System. I hope the one guy on Earth that needs it finds his way back to my site. As for everybody else, keep my system in mind if you ever find yourself in a similar situation, and happy pooping!!

Fine, socks. Be like that. I don't need you anyway.

Actually, this first week hasn’t been too bad so far. At least, not compared to my last surgery. Last time, I was completely useless for a full three days after surgery. I didn’t do a goddamn thing except scarf down pain pills and drag myself to the bathroom in between naps on the recliner. I’m not 100% sure why, but this time around is completely different. For one thing, I can get around without crutches. I started walking the second I got home from the surgery center, in fact. Even going up and down the steps is a piece of cake. I did almost trip and fall in a parking lot yesterday, but that was just because I was all loopy on Percocet at the time.

,

Apparently I was kind of acting like this kid

The one thing that’s worse about recovery this time around is that I keep forgetting that I can’t drive anywhere. Last time, I was too out of it to even think about doing anything that required leaving the house. This time, though, I’m ready to get up and start living my life again. However, this is difficult to do when you can’t drive. There have been several times where I’ve been laying in bed, thought of something to do, gotten up, fully intending to go do the thing I was thinking of, then realized that I can’t drive myself to do it before laying back down again feeling like a complete idiot. I guess the combination of Percocet and being tired is making my brane not werk goodly. Some of the things I’ve planned to do today in my delusional fantasy world are: go to Sonic, go to Burger King, go to the gym, and my personal favorite: go to the batting cages. That’s right, at one point today I legitimately thought for a few seconds that I should grab my bat, hop in the car, drive to the cages, and take some hacks. Then I came to my senses and realized that was absolutely not going to happen. I actually came up with the batting cage idea just as I was waking up from a nap, so I guess that’s kind of excusable, since nobody’s really on top of things right after they’ve woken up. But still, you’d think I would have a little more self-awareness than that.

All in all, this first week has been pretty tolerable so far. As long as I can find things to do to curb my boredom, I should be OK until I go to see the doctor for my one week followup on Tuesday, when hopefully he will tell me I can lose the brace.

I also want to see what this bruised-up bastard looks like underneath those bandages

The last time I had surgery my right ACL and PCL were both replaced, and a piece of my lateral meniscus was removed. To give you an idea of how serious an injury that is, I’ve taken a diagram of a healthy knee and used my formidable Photoshop skills to alter it to resemble my right knee before surgery.

Not a pretty picture...

All tomfoolery aside, it really is bad news to be missing both cruciate ligaments in your knee. I mean, look at that diagram. Without those little pieces of sinew, there isn’t a damn thing to stop your leg bones from sliding all over the place like Tom Cruise in Risky Business.

Fortunately for me, tomorrow’s surgery will only consist of ACL replacement, which should be a walk in the park for both me and my surgeon compared to the last procedure. I’m going to be receiving an “autograft”, which is when part of a tendon (usually the patellar or hamstrings tendon for an ACL graft) is harvested from your own body and is used to replace your old ligament. My new ACL is going to be made of a strip of my patellar tendon, which doesn’t need to be fully intact to function well.

So no zombie knee this time, but I think having tissue from one complete stranger is enough for me. I also don’t want to become a walking example of the Ship of Theseus Paradox, but then again I guess I already am to an extent. The Ship of Theseus Paradox is a really interesting philosophical idea, and I would like to write more about it, but I need to rest up for tomorrow, since it’s already 12:21 and my surgery is supposed to start at 7:15 sharp. Maybe I’ll write about it tomorrow when I’m completed zonked out on Percocet. That should make for interesting reading…

Still tougher than the average soccer star, though

See, physical therapy after ACL surgery is really separated into two parts. Part 1 involves strengthening the atrophied muscles in your leg so that you can eventually get back to doing things like playing sports. Part 2 involves having your stiff, swollen knee bent to the point where the pain becomes so overwhelming that you begin to long for the sweet respite of death. Seriously, it HURTS. Bad. And, unfortunately, the only way to improve is to make it hurt more. Now every PT session ends with me begging for mercy while my therapist inflicts horrific pain upon me. On days when I have PT, I become more and more anxious as I progress through each session because I know what’s in store for me at the end. (Hint: It’s the exact same thing Clubber Lang predicted for Rocky Balboa moments before beating him within an inch of his life in Rocky 3).

Come to think of it, I’d almost rather be in Rocky’s place. Taking 10,000 overhand rights to the face from a severely pissed off Mr. T would be a walk in the park after suffering through a knee-bending session with my physical therapist.

On the bright side, I have increased my bending ability from 45° to 125° over the past 9 weeks since surgery, so I’m well on my way to having full range of motion in the near future. My therapist also called my ROM “amazing” the other day, so that’s pretty encouraging. Normal ROM at the knee joint is around 140°, so I should be able to achieve that before long. Also, I’m getting close to the 12-week mark since surgery, which is significant because 12 weeks is how long it takes for bone-to-graft healing. At this point my body will have fully assimilated the zombie tendon in my knee and it will have become “my” tissue for all intents and purposes, which is kind of weird to think about.  It is also at this point that I will also be able to start doing some light running and legitimate weightlifting with something other than 3 pound ankle weights. In the meantime, though, I’ll just have to keep being a trouper and try to get my full ROM back.

If this brace were a person, I'm 100% sure its personality could be accurately described as "douchey"

During my visit to the doctor we also set the date for my next knee surgery, which is going to be August 30th. Unfortunately, I’m going to basically have to start all over again at that point because my left knee needs an ACL too. So it looks like it’s back to sitting down in the shower in a percocet-induced haze come August.

Back to my Ocean City story; my zombie knee held up extremely well, though I got pretty tired walking 30 blocks home from a bar at 2:30 am, and my dancing that night could probably be best described as “wooden.” Now, I’m no Michael Jackson to begin with, but when you take away my ability to bend at the knee, my dancing ability immediately goes from “sub-standard” to “atrocious.” This led to an awkward moment where I felt I owed an explanation/apology to a girl I was “dancing” with. The music was eardrum-burstingly loud, so I had to scream in her face “I JUST HAD SURGERY!!” which, of course, she couldn’t hear. So then I pointed at my nasty purple scar and I saw her mouth the words “that’s gross.”

She must have meant to say "that's sexy as all getout"

After a while she scurried off with her friends, who I’m sure were happy to see her escape from the creepy guy on the dance floor barely moving and showing off his gross scar to everyone. And that’s not an exaggeration; I show my scar to literally everybody I know. This is partly because I’ve taken the expression “chicks dig scars” way too much to heart, and also because I actually think mine are pretty badass. I mean, my leg was sliced open, tissue was ripped out of it and replaced with a dead guy’s zombie tissue, and now I’m walking around with it. I’m sorry, but I think that’s pretty amazing.

Speaking of amazing things, I’ve been receiving bills and explanations of benefits from the hospital, my doctor, and my insurance company. After adding up all the bills associated with this surgery, I have calculated that my new knee is worth roughly $25,000. For reference, you can buy a middle-of-the-line automobile for less than that.

Or several gas-efficient clown cars

In a way, this makes my knee the single most valuable thing that I own. Actually, I doubt all of my other worldly possessions put together are worth 25 grand. Thankfully, I have pretty good healthcare coverage so I’m only paying a very small percentage of those 25 G’s, which is lucky for me because I would have to rob at least 3 banks and several convenience stores to be able to pay off that kind of a hospital bill. And my getaway from those robberies surely wouldn’t be speedy since my current top hobbling velocity is only slightly faster than that of an average nursing home resident.

Compared to me, this guy is like Usain Bolt with rockets strapped to his feet

Actually, I’m progressing pretty quickly with physical therapy and I honestly think that I can get back to playing sports in about 5 more months, as opposed to the 7 more months that my doctor originally predicted for me. Rehab is really just a matter of how hard you’re willing to work and how much pain you can tolerate while doing said hard work. There are obviously other factors to consider, but work ethic and pain tolerance are probably the most important. Knowing that, I think I’ll be just fine after a few more months.