Replacing My Damaged Knee

I expect to be off-line for a couple of days this week to have surgery to replace my right knee, damaged five years ago while bicycling. Guess I had peddled too aggressively up a hill and cracked the cartilage in my right knee.  The instant and intense pain at the time made me think for a moment that I had been shot in my knee. Honestly, I remember looking down and expecting to see blood. But the damage was all internal.

I called my old friend, the late Mike Deaver, for a recommendation for an orthopedic surgeon in the Washington area. Mike always knew the best doctors, and told me that Dr. Bill Sadlack had worked on his knees. That was good enough for me. 

So, for the last five years, Bill Sadlack has treated my knee conservatively, which is his style, and I have the greatest respect for his skill. He’s also a good guy. Injections of Synvisc at first, which brought relief for more than two years. But Synvisc apparently is not effective when used a second time. I had arthroscopic surgery this past April that revealed significant knee damage. A repeat dose of Synvisc seemed only to aggravate my knee.

The real limitation for me is that knee pain has prevented bicycle riding, my favorite sport, for the last two years.

The knee replacement procedure practiced by Dr. Sadlack was developed in Germany by BrainLAB and is computer assisted. He uses joint replacement implants from a U.S. company, BIOMET.

Recovery from knee replacement is not overnight and not simple.  It takes works. No driving for a month. Physical therapy each day for about a month. Certain procedures to prevent blood clots. And, so on. But my hope is to be back on my bicycle within a few months, and even before then, consulting with clients and promoting my new book – The Media Savvy Leader – and my life back to normal, with greater activity and, hopefully, less pain.  

So, surgery on Tuesday, September 30. I expect to be back online later in the week.

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