She’s Opted for Sweat and Toil on the Road to Recovery

I knew from the start when I injured my knee that recovery would be neither easy nor pain-free.

But I never dreamed that the hardest part would be navigating the maze of conflicting medical advice, running a gantlet of physicians, each with a prescription for repair.

It’s an odyssey that’s taken me, in six weeks, through four doctors--five, if you count the one I met by the pool, who introduced himself to me by grabbing and twisting my injured leg.

And it’s taught me that medicine is still more art than science; that despite all the high-tech tools and diagnostic wizardry, there is not always one clear path from illness or injury back to good health.

*

Things started out well enough. The first doctor I saw--the day after I ripped my knee apart on the basketball court--predicted only a few short months of rehabilitation.

I’d suffered cartilage damage, he surmised, based primarily on his findings from the orthopedist’s standard exam--he tugged on my knee, and it didn’t come apart in his hands.

But the MRI tests I had later that week led to a entirely different diagnosis: blood flooding through the knee, bones bruised and broken, ligaments torn and crushed.

Or, in the highly technical medical jargon the doctor employed on my next visit: “Lady, you really tore up that knee.”

That’s about all the doctors could agree on.

The orthopedic trauma specialist suggested that lots of hard physical labor would restore “functionality”--whatever that is. The knee surgeon recommended (what else?) surgery as the only sure way to be made whole.

Ultimately, it was the doctor in swimming trunks who parted the curtain of medical mystery and accompanied me through the murky waters of treatment options and recovery predictions.

He helped me emerge with one clear vision: It is me, not the doctors, in the driver’s seat.

*

It was a rather odd consultation.

I was with my kids one afternoon at the neighborhood pool--four weeks post-injury, my first time out sans crutches or a bulky metal brace.

It took me awhile to realize that the cute guy staring at me from the chaise longue was not admiring my legs but formulating a medical diagnosis.

“What’s wrong with your knee,” he asked as I limped around, arranging towels and applying sunscreen. He reached over and grabbed my leg, running his hand from my calf to my thigh.

I must have looked a little alarmed, because he quickly volunteered his credentials: chief of orthopedics at one of California’s largest HMOs--and professional skeptic of those private practice types who tend to schedule surgery just before their boat payments are due.

Lose the brace, ditch the crutches, he told me. Take long walks, spend some time at the gym. Trust your body more, your doctors less.

There are high-tech ways to fix just about anything these days. And enough medical specialists to keep you knee-deep in advice on any physical ailment. But that information overload has a downside--making it harder to know what’s the right thing to do.

*

I’m talking to a doctor who is, by consensus, one of the best knee men in Southern California. Eleven thousand surgeries under his belt, a couple books to his credit.

“I’ve decided,” he says, “to offer you surgery.” Thanks, but no thanks.

My new doctor, whose forte is rehabilitation, has prescribed a regime of weight training and physical therapy that, if all goes well, could leave me in the best shape of my life. (The knee may always be a little gimpy, but I’ll come out of this with washboard abs.)

That’s the silver lining for a woman who has never been able to mount a workout routine involving anything other than toting groceries, laundry baskets and sleeping children.

Now, no more late evenings at work, doing chores or poring over kids’ homework.

I’ll be at the gym. Doctor’s orders.