My one-year anniversary... for my knee

I can't believe it's already been one year since I tore my medial meniscus. I still remember Saturday, July 7, 2007 (or 07/07/07) like it was yesterday. It's a hard date to forget. I showed up early for my work soccer tournament to get warmed up. I was the first one to the fields and had the field to myself. I jogged, stretched and got dressed for the games. I was determined to not be sore after the tourament. I was probably in the best shape I'd been in since I was 16 and the lowest weight since I was 19. I was feeling really good about this soccer tournament.

About ten minutes before the game started, I was taking shots on goal by myself when I heard (and felt) my knee pop. I thought to myself, "that was weird." Now, ordinally when someone tears their meniscus or some other muscle or tendon in their knee, they usually writhe in agony on the ground. Mine wasn't painful, yet. I thought to myself, "I better run that off." I jogged across the field trying to forget what just happened. The only problem was, every time I landed on my left knee, it popped. So I stopped running and started walking. It didn't pop when I walked. Then I thought, "I'll just go sit on the sidelines until the game starts; a little rest before the game will be good." Surely the popping will go away if I just sit down for a bit. So when it came time for the game to start, I didn't jog on to the field, I walked. I was hoping that when I did run that the popping would be gone. The referee blew his whistle, we kicked off and I started jogging. To my surprise, the popping was... still there. I immediately called for a sub, walked off the field and didn't play soccer again for three months. Within an hour my knee swelled up and it was terribly painful to walk.

I had surgery one month and one week later. I was on crutches for about a week after surgery. The recovery time for a meniscus tear is remarkably short. The doctor simply went in and removed the torn portion of the meniscus. You can see the three holes in my knee where the different tools were inserted for surgery.

I was able to get back on the soccer field about two months after surgery, much to the shegrin of my wife. You should have seen my leg, it was extremely emaciated. I had lost a lot of muscle in my leg because I wasn't able to use it.

It was a long road to full recovery. I'm happy to say that one year later, my knee isn't perfect and it never will be, but it is as good as it is going to get and I'm able to still play soccer. I played in this year's work tournament and thankfully had no long-lasting injuries. Up until a couple weeks ago, I was playing on three soccer teams; two mens teams and one co-ed team.

Here's a picture of me in action, just to prove that I can play again. The leg I'm planting on is the same leg I had surgery on. Sweet!