The Diagnosis

In February 1999, I decided that I needed to have the knees checked. I called an old friend, Dr. Vic Farralli, with whom I had had discussions about my knees since the first accident. He encouraged me to get into his office, as he was anxious to finally examine these knees.

I did not disappoint him. An exam and x-ray were inconclusive, although I had a lot of ‘lateral’ movement in my knees. An MRI would be necessary. Now, I don’t have a lot of fears -- really, just two: bugs and confined spaces. So, off to the MRI center I went. Within minutes, I was asleep listening to the oldie station.

The next week, Dr. Farralli gave me the good news: Bilateral ACL tears. Complete tears. Complete tears on both knees. He said that given the amount of trouble I was having with normal, everyday life, he suggested ACL reconstruction. I asked when he could you operate and he said he wanted to refer me to his new, young sports medicine guy, Dr. Richard Slagle, who was doing all of their ACL replacements.

I meet Dr. Slagle in March. We made a decision to operate on the right knee first. My idea was that this was the worst knee and, if I chickened out on number two, at least my right knee would work well.

A word about choosing your Doctor: I had lots of advice on this. I am only 15 miles from Hershey Medical Center, part of the Geisinger Health System and the teaching Hospital for Penn State University. I have a dear friend, Ted Bollard, a dentist turned physician. He is very much in-tune with sports medicine issues. Some of the leading ACL Doctors are in Hershey, including the some of the ACL Surgery pioneers.

My decision to use Dr. Slagle was simple. First, a friend who has been in orthopedics for 20+ years recommended him. Second, he was doing all of his practice ACL surgeries (between 2 and 5 per week). Many of these surgeries were on more elderly patients. So, my surgery would be much simpler then theirs. Finally, I would rather be one of several surgeries for a good solid doctor, than one of dozens for a great doctor.

We picked a date in June for surgery. The next week, I was informed that myself and one of my partners at I-SYS had been selected as finalists for the Entrepreneur of the Year Award in Central PA. The awards banquet, a lovely black-tie affair, was five days after my elective surgery date.

There was no way I wanted to go black-tie on crutches, so I looked for a new date. Between vacations and business trips, we moved the surgery to Thursday, August 5, 1999. I wanted to get the second one done before the end of October, because we have big family trip scheduled to Disney for the Spring of 2000.

CONTINUE...