"You're going to start feeling light-headed," an orthopedic surgeon said late last month as she wheeled me toward the operating room.
No more than two seconds after she finished speaking, I was positive the gurney in which I was lying was set to go airborne – likely because of the lofty place to which my head had just begun meandering.
The next I knew, I was laying in the same gurney, awakening from anesthetized incoherence, making small-talk with recovery room nurses and my left knee was bandaged. I was set to embark on the healing process to follow a partial medial meniscectomy – better known as arthroscopic surgical repair work for torn cartilage.
One week after the outpatient procedure, I had my first physical therapy session, which entailed an assessment. One of the first tasks was to bend the knee as much as possible, which the physical therapist measured.
The woman with the physical therapy job also advised rubbing out scar tissue by massaging the five incision wounds through which surgeons' various tools entered the knee to shave down the meniscus' tear.
Perhaps the best exercise was stumbled upon en route to my office, which is located on the fifth floor. I opted to climb the stairs, and I raised the left knee as high as possible when stepping up.
The second physical therapy session, which occurred 72 hours after the first, revealed the knee's flexibility had increased 10 degrees.
-Henry Brier