"I spent six months focused on physical therapy. Some people go back to their desk jobs and don't do any of their exercises. They don't get their knees back like they should," he said.
"I like the physical therapy, and I wish I would have started it sooner," I said. "I am jealous of pro-athletes and professional dancers who get someone looking at their injury every thirty seconds after it happens. I had to wait three weeks before I could get in to see someone."
"Billionaires have invested millions of dollars into those people. They are going to be taken care of," Carl replied.
"True, but Laura Tisserand is a ballerina," I said. "Her pictures are all over the UW sport medicine place. She probably got into therapy right away, and no one invested in her, although she does make her livelihood through dance." I am jealous for the immediate attention she probably got. Her left thigh, while significantly less flabby than mine to start, probably didn't atrophy for three weeks before she got it moving again.
Carl nodded.
"I thought the same thing when I was recovering," he said. "If I lived in the Dark Ages, my leg would have been cut off at the knee or I would have half go my leg just dangling there."
I laughed. "Your wife would have sent you out in the woods to hunt for bear and then you'd never come back. In the Middle Ages, I probably would not have been skiing, so I might not have been injured."
"You probably would have already been dead anyway. Life expectancy was thirty," he said.
"I probably would have died in childbirth," I said. Gallows humor can be helpful when looking at an injury. We laughed at our good fortune to have been born in the era of modern medicine. Even a few years can make a difference. I learned today from my physical therapist that Dr. Roger Larson, who just retired from UW, brought arthroscopic knee surgery to the US from Japan. This technique improves outcomes and recovery times.
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