Spring 2000

Scary Thoughts.

My many years of high impact sports finally caught up with me. A totally fried ACL (a knee thing), needed to be traded in for a new tendon. Not just any tendon though. An allograph; sterile word for 'dead guy parts'. This was a scary thought. Should I want to know my donors past and thank their family? What if my donor was an aging jock and my new part was nearly worn out? I was also hoping to have only girl parts-is it ethical to ask the sex of my donor?

These critical ponderances became secondary when I was distracted by the sight of the operating room. For the twenty seconds before I babbled in hyper-sleep, I filled my eyes with the stuff of nightmares. A huge air compressor, a bright yellow self coiling hose, a guy with an optivisor on and...I swear I saw a Ryobi screw gun with a drill the size of a bowling ball hole. For a breif comforting moment I thought I was at work in my studio until someone asked me to count backwards. I really wish I wouldn't have watched that ACL operation on cable last week. More scary thoughts.

The recovery hasn't been bad. My surgeon showed me x-rays of the new tendon which is screwed down to the bone. This new hardware looked like pretty serious heavy metal. Would it increase my odds at setting off the metal detectors at the airport like my jewelry used to?? Now my jewelry travels by Brinks but what about my other new metal? I seem to be stuck with it for life...scary,scary thought.