Knee Blowout

With the wide range of activities in which I have participated, I have always thought of myself as healthy. Two broken elbows and some stitches in grade school notwithstanding, major issues seemed to be avoidable. On February 10th, my good fortune had a hiccup. My brother Mark and I had joined a basketball team, and the presence of actual referees and a scoreboard was going to be an exciting deviation from the pickup runs of the last several years. Five minutes into our second game, I found myself on the floor unable to feel my right knee. After running, planting, and jumping off of my right leg, something I have done thousands of times since I was probably five years old, the ligaments in my knee had a nasty disagreement with the muscles connected to them. A truce was not reached, and by the time I came down, neither side was speaking to each other.

I'll go ahead and answer some questions to save time.
1. What happened/how did you do it? In basketball terms, I had the ball at the top of the key, a defender stole it from me and dribbled the other way for an easy layup. Determined not to make it easy, I sprinted after him with the intention of fouling or blocking his shot. I approached with great momentum, jumped off my right leg, and neither of us ended up on our feet. He was okay, and never even got the shot off--no doubt intimidated by the footsteps behind him, the guy had fumbled the ball and been whistled for traveling. My defense, let alone my injury, had been unnecessary. I spent the rest of the game lying down, watching my team lose by a lot (not that my play would have made much difference).

Can you tell which one is injured?

2. What will happen now? The Orthopedic doctor has me on a 3-part plan: three weeks of hobbling around with crutches if needed, while wearing a knee immobilizer, three weeks of physical therapy to build full range of motion with a healed MCL, then surgery two weeks after that--he will take the Achilles tendon from a dead body and put it in my knee (give it up for recycling!). He said I could be running in three months, playing basketball in a year, but I am in no hurry. The doctor recommended this plan over two others: either do nothing, let everything "heal" on its own, but never play basketball or virtually any sport again (not an option for me), OR have immediate surgery, which he deemed as "overkill surgery," and be active again in six months. So I am going the patient route, and hopefully I will be back for the NBA free agency frenzy in 2010.

3. What about work? No problem--well, not really. Besides the physical part of performing, a large part of my living is made in sales. Since this time of year is slower than others, I have been able to focus on sales for the future. But I haven't let my knee slow me down too much, because, hey, somebody's gotta keep rice on the table. Three days after the injury, I performed a Magic Show. Four days later, on Valentine's Day, I DJ'd a rockin wedding reception. For both of these, I required a lot of assistance, mostly from Michiyo. We have spent a lot of time together, and Hiroki has gotten to see me perform more than a few shows, like this one.


There are few better feelings than getting Hiroki to sleep; it feels even better when he's right next to me. My leg has kept me at home more than before, and I am loving the time with Michiyo and Hiro.

Valentine's Day was relatively low-key, but Michiyo made my night. Coming home from the wedding reception, I had two cards and a custom-made Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich. What a great night!