Athletes and Surgery

                                                             
                                                          Athletes and Surgery

        By no means am I anything more now than a Weekend Warrior with an obsession to stay in shape. All the years of training, running, weightlifting, throwing, serving, swinging a bat or tennis racquet, swimming, etc. have had there profound effect on my body. Which is why on January 20 once more I will be taking that lonely, glasses off walk down a corridor of a surgical center in a hospital gown and an IV in my left hand.

        This time it is to repair my clavicle which has bothered me from the earlier 2015 surgery on my shoulder. This will be shoulder procedure number four. I have my knees (twice); both ankles; and a hernia; the result of a lurid attempt to hit an overhead smash in a tennis match. Orthopedic surgeons must love me.

        One thing for certain--we live in a time when these kind of surgeries have become commonplace and they return all levels of athletes to their chosen sports. And that is exactly what I am shooting for. A return to normalcy. To run again. Swim laps. Play tennis. Lift weights. All pain free other than the accumulation of years of abuse resulting in arthritis which I don't yet have but can anticipate.

        As much as I marvel what arthroscopic surgery has done for me, I think of the magic of the surgeries which bring professional athletes or those who want to be highly competitive athletes from the sidelines to the games. How they are even able to come back within a season is amazing.

        In baseball, one need not look any further than the surgery for a blown out elbow, aptly named Tommy John surgery for the left-handed pitcher who had a second, highly successful career when Dr. James Andrews determined that taking a tendon from the leg and transferring it to the elbow to replace an damaged ulnar collateral ligament with sufficient time to heal would allow a pitcher to once more pitch at a high level. The fact that both John and Andrews are not in the Baseball Hall of Fame is a flat out travesty. It seems that a significant number of elite pitchers now playing in the majors have had Tommy John surgery.

        How many times have I heard of players who tear their meniscus in some manner in the knee, only to be back competing in two weeks time post-surgery? Or that when the anterior cruciate ligament, or ACL. is torn after a vicious tackle or a bad cut by a football player running at full speed, that they are back in a year after extensive rehabilitation from a reconstruction surgery similar to Tommy John surgery but this time in the knee? Abdominal tears and sports hernias are now effectively diagnosed and surgically treated, too.

        Let's not forget the physical therapists too. They toil in relative anonymity but they are critical to insuring that athletes at all levels of play can play safe and sound after their operations. PT's are unsung heroes in the realm of orthopedic surgery.

        Today arthroscopic surgery is the least invasive norm. I wish that a great player like Mickey Mantle had access to that type of surgery. He might have lasted longer (notwithstanding his rampant alcohol abuse) and hit more home runs and played center field that much more. Unfortunately he was ahead of his time--however, not in a good way.

        Doctors and athletes are now inexorably intertwined. Without advances in medical science I dare say that a sport like baseball would be still a lot like the way the game was played nearly 50 years ago.

        Absent these surgeries, I would not be dreaming of a pain-free swim or hitting a tennis ball at age 65. While I will not be under an arthroscope this time,  I will take that knowledge with me when I make that all-too-familiar trek to the cold surgery suite with the hope and promise that I will be back playing the sports I love based on the knowledge and techniques of modern medical science.