Ouch!

In my spare time, I am an Ironman triatlete. But, I have done almost nothing strenuous since June 27, 2004. On that day, I finished the Ironman Coeur d' Alene after a reasonably comfortable race. But that evening, I could not climb stairs to my bedroom.

My knee was shot.

It had been giving warning signs for months, but I chose to ignore them until after the Ironman race. I knew that the doctor would tell me not to race and I didn't want to hear that. And, since I was pain-free during the race, I figured that the problem was minor anyway and would respond to a little rest.

I was wrong. I had completely worn through my cartilage and bone was rubbing on bone. When I finally went to the doctor, he informed me that, untreated, I was about 3 years away from knee replacement surgery. The procedure involves punching little holes (microfractres) in the end of my femur so that blood and marrow leak into the space between the femur and the patella and form a big blood clot. This blood clot forms a matrix upon which chondrocytes (which form from marrow stem cells) will make fresh cartilage.

Before going into the surgery, my orthopedic predicted that I had an 80% chance of a full recovery and a return to Ironman training. But once he got into the knee, he found the damage was more extensive than it had appeared on the MRI and my chances are only about 70% now.

Well, that's better than 0%, which was what I was looking at before the surgery.

Well, yesterday, I had microfracture knee surgery, a procedure pioneered by Dr. Richard Steadman.

The procedure is exquisitely painful and I've been pretty well drugged up since coming out of anaethesia (I really don't see what Rush Limbaugh saw in this stuff). But, hopefully, I can return to full workouts beginning July 18.

Keep me in your prayers or at least wish me luck.