Six weeks ago, on a Thursday, I was walking down the stairs in my house when I heard a POP in my right knee. I couldn't straighten my leg. It was painful and the knee felt "wrong."
My neighbor is an Orthopedic Surgeon, and I immediately called in the neighbor favor. He cam over took a look and said it was most likely a bucket handle tear of my medial meniscus. He called his nurse, and made me an appointment with one of his partners for the next day, Friday.
That doctor said pretty much the same thing, and that he wanted me to get an MRI, but he wanted to make sure he could get me in to surgery as soon as possible, so he scheduled me for surgery on Tuesday. I got the MRI an hour later and three hours later the surgeon was calling with the confirmed diagnosis of a bucket handle tear of my medial meniscus. Complicating maters, the meniscus was caught in the notch of the knee joint that that was what was preventing my knee from straightening out.
Bright and early on Tuesday I was asleep and under his knife. During surgery, he decided to do a repair of the meniscus rather than remove it completely. An interesting choice, I am 44 years old. Normally with a guy my age, they would just remove the meniscus. But, the surgeon thought he could get a good repair. Overall, it is better to repair than remove, but my chances of having it heal properly are not as good as a younger person. If it doesn't heal correctly, I'd have to go back in to surgery and have it removed.
Here we are 6 weeks out. The surgeon is pleased with my healing and I'm doing well at PT. I have regained 135 degrees of flexion, which is what a "normal" person normally has. The problem is, I'm not a normal person. I am a BJJ black belt.
I had the therapist measure my left leg to give them a feel for what normal is for me. I had 160 degrees of flexion in my left knee unassisted. I have -3 degrees of hyper-extension. These are the numbers that I need to get to.
I am trying to calmly go through PT, knowing that the hard work is ahead. I have to wait until my meniscus is healed enough to start to begin the very painful very difficult work of sitting on my heels. I'm not looking forward to it.
The key here is that I need to take it very slow. I can't rush things. It will be at least another 4 months before I can even think about going back on the mats, and likely a year before I can be rolling hard again. Very difficult for me, because, as an aging grappler, I know my days on the mat are numbered. I have maybe 5 or 6 years of competent competitive rolling left. After that, the young guys will start to blow through me, and my wins stop being improving a technique or getting that submission I have been working on, it will be simply surviving a match.
My mantra has always been "Let it heal." Have to take my own advice.... But it is driving me insane. I won't start sitting on my heels until the surgeon gives me the green light... Hard to wait.
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