On Thursday, my knee got an overhaul, and now I'm in for the long road to recovery. My surgery ended up being a pretty intense scope to clean up the cartilage under my kneecap and smooth out the movement of my patella.
It was a good move on my part to decide to get surgery since the damaged cartilage was quite severe with actual chunks missing and flaps hanging loose. It looked like someone took a pickaxe to my kneecap, and I could have kept damaging it more if I had continued skiing on it. Sometimes you just have to listen to you body and fix it, and I'm glad I did.
The good news is that my knee should be fixed and should feel much better now. The bad news is that I need to stay off my knee for the next six weeks to protect the soft cartilage that is now exposed, and give it a chance to heal. Luckily, I have the time now that my season is over. I've never gone through anything like this though, so it's going to be tough for me to deal with sitting out for so long.
The last few days have been pretty painful so I've gladly been letting it rest. I started physical therapy the day after surgery, but so far, I've been limited to mobility and some stretching to keep my knee moving, prevent scar tissue from building up, and keep it from seizing up on me.
Of course I've been following the World Cup competitions and my teammates' successes without me. I was even following live timing of the Zagreb World Cup and yelling at my phone as the nurses hooked me up to the IV, preparing me for surgery.
Ted Ligety put in another solid GS result in Adelboden, Switzerland with a fourth place, just over one tenth of a second off the win. Nolan Kasper came back to form with a great top 10 result in the Adelboden slalom. And Will Brandenburg scored his first World Cup points of the season in the slalom in Adelboden, coming into 22 position. Not quite what he was looking for I'm sure, but look for him to start punching it in there after that finish, and I have a feeling Jimmy Cochran's speed will start showing soon. Good luck to them all!
Finding ways to entertain myself while watching the boys rip up the World Cups overseas is probably the biggest challenge. It certainly helps watching my Broncos pull off an unbelievable playoff win against the Pittsburgh Steelers, although in dramatic fashion and adding a little more stress to my afternoon than I'd like. It's sets up for more guaranteed entertainment next week though!
It seems like I'm making big strides as me knee is feeling better and better every day so it will soon be time to get back to work with PT and rehab at the gym. Maybe soon I won't even have to use the motorized shopping cart at the store.