53 and Me

This is a blog about my total knee replacement, and more importantly, the recovery. While every person is different, perhaps you can gain some insight from my experience in which I will endeavor to be as honest and specific as possible.

My knees always felt a little dodgy. I was rather tall as a teenager (6'4"), and rather slim. I played baseball and football from the age of 8 through high school. I continued to play football at a small Division III college, then transferred to Loyola Marymount University where I played rugby, and continued to do for a number of years after graduation. Always athletic and with a large frame, I still carried only an average to thin build. My leg muscles were always weak. I was a genius at devising ways to avoid doing squats in the team weight room.

After a knee injury in high school football I visited a great orthopedic surgeon, Dr. Rosenfeld who was the team doctor for the Oakland Raiders. The injury would quickly heal, but he noticed arthritis on my knee (I was only 16), and what he described as patella alta. My knee cap rode high on my joint, a little out of the grove. I should have engaged in a strong regimen to build up my quads that would in affect, as described by one physical trainer, push my patella down more into its proper grove. This I did not do. Instead, I did the minimum required exercises, if that, and relied on my large frame for leverage so I could compete. My knees got progressively worse, and more painful. My left knee was scoped twice in my teens, and twice in my 30's -- all of which amounted to scraping away the arthritis, and notes how my cartilage is deteriorating. One doctor simply referred to my knee joint as "grim." Also, I was advised by more than a few doctors that I'd need knee replacement on both knees after 50-years-old.

Here I am.

Above, a Proper Knee

My Knee (note: there is no space between the knee cap
and the bottom of the femur at the patella groove)