Several years ago, while playing a pickup game at a park in Phoenix, I hurt my knee pretty badly. Early in the game, the other team put a weak defender on me. I didn’t care for that, so the first time I touched the ball I took a quick first step past him and went to the hoop. Another guy came around on help defense and tried to block me. I ended up scooping the ball in. I’m not going to lie, it looked fabulous. I heard a guy say, “that guy is good” in response. But I got crashed into and ended up landing on my knee and having to quit the rest of the night.
I couldn’t walk at first, but after a few minutes I recovered and limped home.
The next morning I woke up to very severe pain.
I saw a doctor and he diagnosed it as a meniscus tear. He gave me a cast, a prescription for pain pills, and some crutches, and let me go. I was on crutches for a couple of weeks, and everything seemed fine.
When I felt ready I went back out to play basketball, and reinjured it rather easily. It just twisted it the wrong way. After a night it felt better and I could run again. Every time I went out to play, it felt fine, but it was fragile. It was very easy for me to hurt it. I kept telling myself that I really just need to take a few months off to let it heal completely.
It never did. It has been years without reinjuring it and it remains fragile. It gives out unexpectedly sometimes when I walk down stairs. I looked it up on the web and this is what I found.
“Meniscal cartilage does not heal very well once it is torn. This is mainly because it does not have a good blood supply. The outer edge of each meniscus has some blood vessels, but the area in the centre has no direct blood supply. This means that although some small outer tears may heal in time, larger tears, or a tear in the middle, tend not to heal.”
It looks like it would require surgery to fix it.
I can still play basketball, run, and jump. Quick turns and aggressive play style tends to reinjure it. I’m glad that I still have some ability but I realize that I have played the best basketball that I will ever play. And that’s kind of sad for me. Basketball had been a significant and great part of my life for a long time.
But you know, it sort of fits as a transition from one stage of my life to another. As we get older we ought to focus less on the body and more on the mind. Earlier in my life I had a lot more competitive fire than I have now. I wanted to challenge myself physically, and always push myself another step further. I don’t have those same goals anymore. Instead I’d rather build a better understanding of society and life. I would like to gain some wisdom before I die.
My injury is an even that accurately represents the change from one stage of my life to another. And I think that that change is a good one.
