MRI Follow Up

So the knee is feeling a lot better today and I'm thinking I might have gotten away with a strain of some kind or a small tear that will heal itself. With a bit of physio and better stretching I should be OK in a week or two I'm sure.

The doctor walks in, I shake his hand and I'm quietly confident.

"So Nick, it's as we though. You've torn your ACL..... and your Meniscus."

Boom.

The doc walks me through the MRI and it's not even close. The whole ACL is not even visible on the MRI, it's completely disintegrated. The meniscus also has a tear in it (turns out about 70% of all ACL tears have some meniscus damage because of the twisting motion needed to tear the ACL).

The doctor tells me I don't have to have surgery right away, and in fact he says I don't ever need to have it. "With physiotherapy you could live an active lifestyle, but a return to "cutting sports" is unlikely."

It's a no brainer, I decide right there and then to go for the surgery because:
1) I want to play any sport I damn well please;
2) I don't want to risk further injury to my meniscus which may lead to arthritis; and
3) Physiotherapy to compensate for not having an ACL will probably take as long as rehab from surgery anyway.

The last thing the doctor tells me is that if I choose surgery I get to choose my own surgeon and that I'm not restricted to the ones at Beth Israel Medical Center. Interesting...