Scar tissue. Arthrofibrosis. a natural compensation of the immune system. the body trying to protect itself, fight off infection, heal a wound and going a bit, a lot, in some cases way overboard. The phyical therapist is worried about the scar tissue in my knee coming back after this last surgery, and since the last two scopes i had were to remove scar tissue, i suppose there is a reason to be concerned. I checked the online knee message boards for info and tales of scar tissue causing problems, and i kinda wished i hadn't. tons of people, mostly women it seemed, have had terrible trials with scar tissue. several posters were on their 7th scar tissue related scope. fuck that. i thought 3 knee surgeries in four years was bad, but these people often had surgeries within 6 months. they had some good advice regarding range of motion exercises and how to discuss this sometimes overlooked problem with your doctor, but it seems that most of them end up seeing a knee surgeon specialist, a scar tissue specialist, and a pain specialist, they often take huge leave of abscences from work and devote 100% of their energy to fucking knee rehab.
no for me. i'll do whatever i can to avoid that. at first i started writting down advice and thinking about how to incorporate some things into my rehab protocol, but then i started thinking...how fucking stupid do i have to be to take knee rehab advice from someone whose had 7 surgeries in 4 years. i need to find the message board for the one and done sons of bitches, find out what they were doing, what was in their Cd player.

Still, the whole concept of scar tissue is messing w me right now. could i be prone to scar tissue in other non-physical areas of my life? no. no way. that doesn't sound like me at all.

perhaps i should look for an emotion scar tissue range of motion rehab protocol? definitely have to keep jumping out of that comfort zone trench. Only real advice on knee scar tissue that everyone seems to agree upon and that has research to back it up is getting active ASAP and ICE lots and lots of ICE. time for a beer.

I see the doctor tomorrow morning for the first time since surgery. My innate pessimism has started to erode my initial dreams of soccer balls and long runs and fast break lay-ups. I'm still hooked to my Polar Care 300 ice machine whenever possible, and my purple, swollen, scared, stretched, shaven knee still looks like those pictures of Uday and Qusay after the Marines got to them.
I have to admit I'm a little depressed. I know its a long road, but the sneaky dread that this surgery might have been unsuccessful is too much to keep at bay. I read a Newsweek column today from the enigmatic conservative George Will in which he said, "But before rejecting pessimism, consider its pleasures. Pessimists are right more often than not, and when they are wrong they are pleased to be so."
I agree wholeheartedly with that philosophy and outlook on life, eventhough it hasn't served me too well. Still, in this case, I will try to buck up and force feed the optimism omelet inside me. Must think positive about the recovery. Must dream of turn around jumpers and one-touch goals.

snakes alive! Carson is dead carson is dead carson is dead! at 9:13am thursday april 15th 2004, carson was destroyed by an arthroscopic shaver (the arthroscopic equivalednt of a woodchipper). The docs are fairly optimistic that they got everything fixed and that "there is no reason that after rehab, i shouldn't be able to do whatever i want in terms of sports or physical activity". When the doctor said this i reflexively tried to get out of my bed and hug him, but i still had the hospital seatbelt on, so i just kinda lunged at him real slow and it was really awkward. but i think he sensed my joy.
I got to watch the whole thing. Since i have some nerve damage thanks to extreme swelling and such, they didn't want to do a nerve block on my leg, and i sure as hell didn't want to go under w general anesthesia and have some machine breath for me. So, they just gave me some good times juice and injected a metric ass load of lydocaine in my knee. They even set up a video monitor for me in the OR. There was an intern or something w the good doctor, so he explained everything he was doing to his sidekick and i got to hear all the juicy details. It was so much fun and i really feel more in tune with the whole procedure and in tune with how absolutely amazing the human body is and what black magicians these doctors are. In all honesty the sounds during surgery were pretty gross, and without the happy juice i probably would have freaked out. All in all it was like being the star in my own private Michel Gondry video.
Now, I'm back at my apartment with my PolarCare 300 on, listening to the new Wilco stream and re-reading
Neuromancer. Life is good.

it's game time. hungry and tired, but feeling excited. carson is on his way to the gallows. hope the docs didn't get too drunk last night.

Carson has about 16 hours left. Pain and numbness are getting a bit hairy. here are a few things friends sent to cheer me up. God bless you all. god bless falco, god bless usher, and god bless playing soccer(hopefully), and god bless filmmakers w balls.

Falco&Usher
MirrorMirror
nutmeg

No form of music can murder someone like Country. Not tattoo'ed stunt bike riding Columbine rock, not killer tape rap, and not windowlicking phreak electric. If you want to murder someone and watch the way their eyes roll back in their head and smell their last breath, you'd better bring a guitar, a cowboy hat, and a .45.

Carson's name is on the sinister roll call tomorrow, and i hope the doc (who could easily be a wise county judge in a John Grisham movie) rolls up his sleeves and puts an old school bullet in Carson's head. terminate with extreme prejudice.

This cold vengeful Chris Knight ballad is one of my favorites:

so one night i floated down
right above wilson's shack
i hid in the woods
till i saw him walk out back
i put a bullet in his head
and dropped him in his tracks
and we went down the river

down below the trestle
where the water runs slow
i chained him to an anvil
and then i let him go
and five years later
i ain't told a soul

Got up at 4. couldn't sleep. knee feels crappy. ate some salad and some pineapple and drank a lot of water. thought i might get a jump on some editing or stuff. then i saw a buzz clip on MTV2 for YELLOWCARD .
why? (cue
Terrence Malick(1999) style lyric camera work and soft voice over) Are you righteous? why does my knee hurt? why does no ever follow through? why do my faults bother me so much in other people? why does this band exist? what possible reason could god have for giving instruments to these ventura based polyps? is yellowcard loved by all? will their suffering will be any less because they love their fans? when they realize how much giant green dick they suck will anything make the pain go away?
errr. so much bitter melon in me right now. yellowcard does suck, and they are now the proud owners of one of the most stillborn idiotic videos i have seen in a while (and probably a $250k bill against earnings for it), but i watched the whole thing when i could have easily changed to something less depressing like say the replay of the Bush press conference. i like wallowing too much. i'm going back to sleep if i can.
Private Witt: Do you ever feel lonely?
First Sgt. Edward Welsh: Only when I'm around people.

Instant Messanger poetry from my beautiful&wise sister:

its your time
carson is about to go into retirement
and then the knee can be referred to as something that makes you feel warm inside
like a pet that has recovered for being hit by a car
i saw on animal planet a little dog that had had its jaw bitten off and then they did surgery and it was fine and really cute
i will try to find out what its name was
cause that would be a good one

about 38 hours until surgery. doc said i shouldn't have any anti-inflammatories (advil, aleeve, tylenol, etc.) in the 48 hours before surgery. this sucks. My whole leg feels like burning. I told myself that i was going to eat nothing but fruits and vegetables in the 48 hours before, but i have already failed miserably at that. in fact i don't think i've had any fruits or vegetables (unless you count olives on pizza) today. oh well, i have a long road of recovery on which to deprive myself of pizza and such. i should enjoy it now, as soon as i'm back up on the gimp leg, its hard training rehab 18wheeler lean mean diesel warrior for me, and diesel warriors do not eat anything on the alfredo's menu. They also don't stumble and wince as they walk down the hall. god i hope this sht works.

In the summer of 2000, I tore my ACL and meniscus during a girls vs. boys soccer game. I was trying to juke this woman and i went left-right-left-down. They carried me off the field and I drank beer from a sideline keg and got a lot of sympathy. Everyone but me knew my leg had done something really bad. It was a beautiful day. My sister graduated from High School the next evening, which made me feel "old". I was 21.
After a few months of hobbling and various tests, they cut me open and recruited part of my patella tendon to become my new right ACL. They also put 7 stitches in my meniscus. In the hospital and later at my parents house I passed the bed ridden initial recovery time reading William Gibson's
Neuromancer. I'm not a big Sci-Fi reader, but with the painkillers, tubes, stitches, bandages, and the knowledge that two metal screws were now a part of me forever, it was perfect, and I remember those couple of days fondly.

Now its April 2004. I'm 25, and i'm having my third knee surgery in a few days. My knee hurts constantly, especially when sitting. I stand up at movies and I stand up or put my feet on my desk at work. I had to fly on a packed southwest flight for 5 hours in the center seat. I attempted old school Dr. Strange style astral projection to escape the sharp pain. My leg from the knee down will frequently go numb and i will trip over my own foot. Apparently this condition is usually found in stroke victims and elderly. This makes me feel "old".

So, now in a few days, the top knee docs in the South East will be arthroscopicly removing scar tissue, rotten cartiledge, and anything else suspect in my knee. Upon the recommendation of my wise and beautiful sister Anna, I have named my troublesome knee "Carson", after MTV's annoying Carson Daily. This way a can direct my anger at a third-party instead of myself.