Last word on my knee
Posted: Dec 10th, '06, 16:45
Thanks for all the encouraging words, Guys. Since this replacement is the culmination of a twelve-year battle as the results of an accident, I have been through and understand completely the need for and pain of P.T.
In 1994 while visiting my closest friend he beached a PWC, blind sided me and pinned me against a bulk head, crushing my knee and shattering my lower leg. I was transported to Norfolk General and remained there for two weeks, much of that time in an induced comma. Three days after arriving the swelling had diminished enough for surgery. Eight hours, twenty-two screws, three bone grafts and an eight inch piece of titanium put me back together. Three days after surgery I came to and saw one of the Orthopedics standing at the end of my bed holding my foot. I said, "Hey, Doc, you hands are cold". He replied, "You feel that?" When I nodded yes, tears ran down his face and he said, "You're going to keep your leg."
An aside to this, before the accident I had done an episode of Matlock. At the end of my scene the producer came to me to inform me that he had an episode for me. The casting director (an old friend) asked if I understood what had just happened. I said I thought so but was afraid to ask. They had offered me a guest-starring appearance.
Now, don't get ahead of me but you got it. They called my first week in the hospital. This and several other offers I was unable to rise to ended my film career for all practical purposes. When you're hot you're hot and when you're not . . .
Physical therapy started immediately and seemed to be working but . . .
Two years later one of the bone grafts had failed and I was back in the hospital for removal of all the hardware (which I kept) and rebreaking the leg and installation of new hardware. Time to start PT again. Much worse the second time. After second surgery the surgeon told me that eventually I would need knee replacement as there was no cartilage left. He told me that in my favor was the fact that I didn't weigh anything. I made it ten years and the pain got to me. So here we are starting over again.
This message was not a plea for sympathy. We fish where we stop the boat. The pain that I have experienced in the last ten years is nothing. The loss of career I can replace with something else. The time was the big loss and the loss of my best friend. I don't think he has ever come to grips with his actions. He certainly has never said anything to me. He covered himself in lawyers and that was that. Thirty years of friendship from childhood through college and marriages and families are all gone for a moment's laps. That hurts.
I look at what Capt Pat and Uncle Vic have brought all of us to and the friends that I have made and I can't express at this moment the emotions of knowing that if I needed something, be it advise, a pat on the head, a shoulder to cry on, a strong back and weak mind or what ever I could ask and my frens in the Bertram sandbox would respond. That's what lifes about.
PT ain't pain, it's inconvenience. Pain is losing a fren.
I'll bend and press and push and pull until I cry. It ain't nothing, cause I got frens.
Love you, mean it,
In 1994 while visiting my closest friend he beached a PWC, blind sided me and pinned me against a bulk head, crushing my knee and shattering my lower leg. I was transported to Norfolk General and remained there for two weeks, much of that time in an induced comma. Three days after arriving the swelling had diminished enough for surgery. Eight hours, twenty-two screws, three bone grafts and an eight inch piece of titanium put me back together. Three days after surgery I came to and saw one of the Orthopedics standing at the end of my bed holding my foot. I said, "Hey, Doc, you hands are cold". He replied, "You feel that?" When I nodded yes, tears ran down his face and he said, "You're going to keep your leg."
An aside to this, before the accident I had done an episode of Matlock. At the end of my scene the producer came to me to inform me that he had an episode for me. The casting director (an old friend) asked if I understood what had just happened. I said I thought so but was afraid to ask. They had offered me a guest-starring appearance.
Now, don't get ahead of me but you got it. They called my first week in the hospital. This and several other offers I was unable to rise to ended my film career for all practical purposes. When you're hot you're hot and when you're not . . .
Physical therapy started immediately and seemed to be working but . . .
Two years later one of the bone grafts had failed and I was back in the hospital for removal of all the hardware (which I kept) and rebreaking the leg and installation of new hardware. Time to start PT again. Much worse the second time. After second surgery the surgeon told me that eventually I would need knee replacement as there was no cartilage left. He told me that in my favor was the fact that I didn't weigh anything. I made it ten years and the pain got to me. So here we are starting over again.
This message was not a plea for sympathy. We fish where we stop the boat. The pain that I have experienced in the last ten years is nothing. The loss of career I can replace with something else. The time was the big loss and the loss of my best friend. I don't think he has ever come to grips with his actions. He certainly has never said anything to me. He covered himself in lawyers and that was that. Thirty years of friendship from childhood through college and marriages and families are all gone for a moment's laps. That hurts.
I look at what Capt Pat and Uncle Vic have brought all of us to and the friends that I have made and I can't express at this moment the emotions of knowing that if I needed something, be it advise, a pat on the head, a shoulder to cry on, a strong back and weak mind or what ever I could ask and my frens in the Bertram sandbox would respond. That's what lifes about.
PT ain't pain, it's inconvenience. Pain is losing a fren.
I'll bend and press and push and pull until I cry. It ain't nothing, cause I got frens.
Love you, mean it,