In the meantime, I did some research. Two or three complete tears were a requirement for surgery. One complete tear plus two… Well, I didn’t know. But the literature was clear: If I was to have it, surgery should be completed within the first four weeks. Later, I met up with some friends, one of whom had gone through a very similar injury. She chose to not have surgery and still got back to all of her desired activities including running, though she warned me that option had taken a full year of hard work. For my decision, her husband asked me, “What do you want to be able to physically do once you rehabilitate this injury?” The answer was easy. I wanted to be able to continue hiking with my wife.

Looking for consensus with this goal in mind, I conferred with my Sports Medicine team who recommended the non-surgical route. So that’s what I‘m doing. The first two weeks were really ugly, but I began to notice enough improvement that I believed I would be able to recover with a serious commitment to rehab. My staff made time for me in their already very busy schedule and I took one of our electrical stimulators home to use twice a day. Now at one month out, I can finally walk without a limp and I am fully embracing this experience as a patient.

“Many folks in my age range may suffer an injury, illness, or surgery that knocks them down on top of a natural decline in strength and physical capacity. We CAN get all the way back to where we were physically if we work diligently though.”