Who am I? You can read more about me in the about section here but I’ll tell you that I’m in my late thirties, in pretty good shape, a black belt in Tae Kwon Do and prior to this happening I never had suffered from any major injury or had significant surgery of any kind—and I’m in my late thirties. Lucky so they say.

It was a beautiful day, I little humid, but I always outlasted most given my conditioning. Perfect. I went to Central Park thinking that I might want to take it a little easier than usual because I was about 8-10 pounds heavier than my prime weight and I wasn’t sure if it might affect my performance. I felt it a bit. But hey, gaining the weight is what happens when you have a sedentary work experience and sometimes have incessant lunch appointments with clients who enjoy fatty foods…

Well, I remember what happened but I can’t exactly figure out how. I was in my cleats and playing touch football in my usual “take charge” fashion, frequently being the quickest and most elusive player on the field. I had a feeling it would be a bad day because a few new faces showed and a bunch of Zog players, guys who took the game to a level that one could consider rough. But it never even got close to getting out of hand nor did it affect what happened.

I had a bad omen when this stocky but athletic guy bumped knees when I was going out for a pass. He got me right in my right shin and I got the worse of it—I hobbled around for a while but went back to play. Several plays later I intercepted a pass and started decending down the gradual decline that was our football field. I was going to just run it down slowly so not to get hurt and get tagged and start a new series. But for whatever reason, at the last minute I decided maybe I could make a run for it because I had open field.

Well, I’m not sure exactly what happened. I think I stepped in a little hole and I felt my knee just collapse. I knew something awful was happening in there but I could not explain what. I couldn’t control my leg, felt my knee just give way, felt myself go forward beyond the point of extension, and then fell flat on the ground and remember pulling my leg inwards and screaming. It felt like my leg had gone so far forward that it had become disattached and would fall off. I held my leg inwards and apparently was yelling for about 2 minutes. The pain then stopped somewhat and I got off the field, limping a bit, and stayed out for a few plays.

I didn’t know what happened but it did feel a little sore in the front bottom part of my knee. I limped my way about a quarter mile to the bathrooms and washed off my knee which had some small dirty scrapes. I hobbled my way back and eventually got some ice and iced down my knee. It felt a little sore and I had some trouble with it, psychological I thought, and just couldn’t sit on the sideline watching my team losing 2-0.

Yup, I couldn’t help myself and went in the game as the quarterback. When my players couldn’t hold on to the ball I ran out as receiver, most thought I couldn’t move, but I was able to shake free and make 2 critical receptions to keep our drive alive. I led the team downfield for our team’s first TD.

The game ended shortly thereafter and I walked another quarter mile to lunch, which was about an hour or so after the injury. I took a cab home and when I got there, I realized that I must have hurt myself pretty badly. My knee had swollen so badly that I couldn’t walk or put any pressure on it. I iced down my knee and kept it elevated. I had no clue what was going on and could only hope that it was a severe sprain. I had to call my orthopedist because the pain was so severe but I only could have the doctor on call paged. But he didn’t call back for an hour and a half so I called back.

Well, I got a call from the good doctor, my orthopedist Dr. George J. Zambetti and he told me just to do more of the same, not to go to the emergency room because it sounded like it was all soft tissue damage and all they would do is make me wait a ridiculously long time. He said stay off of it and come in to see him Monday morning—his staff would clear his schedule. As would be expected, they did… but my night wasn’t over.

I was fortunate to get a cane from a friend of mine who came over to see how I was doing. Unfortunately I could not walk and even the following day I was hobbled. I could tell that my knee was swollen only because in trying to pull my leg inwards, the swelling around the inside area of my leg where muscle was meeting the knee was so swollen that it restricted movement beyond a 90 degre angle at best. I went to sleep with a great deal of nervous tension but hoping for the best. I was also rather upset at myself thinking that all I had to do was slow down and take it easy like I planned. I kept replaying the moment in my head trying to figure out exactly what happened.