Dan M, ACL Reconstruction & Partial Knee Replacement

And I like to be really active. I work out a lot. I ride bikes, I like to jog, I like to hike, all those kinds of things. And it was starting to impact that, especially the jogging and the hiking part of it, anything where I had a lot of weight and impact on the left knee. So, after about a year and a half, I went and finally went in and got an MRI and found out that I had ruptured my ACL and I now had chronic, uh, severe, excuse me, severe arthritis in my left knee. And so the first lesson learned was don't wait so long after you have an incident, go in and get it taken care of. Immediately is what you should do. So I began doing some research and, I saw, I went, met with several doctors.

You don't talk to my primary care doctor. First he referred me and, uh, all of the doctors I talked to in the Milwaukee and Chicago area had pretty much the same response. When I would talk to them, they'd say, well, gee, you know, you're 59 again. And they said, you're too old to really repair your ACL and fix your knee. You're too young to replace your knee. So just kind of minimize your activities and anything that hurts, don't do that. You know, ride your bike, don't jog. I was interested in playing baseball again and he said, no, I don't really do that. You offered me an offload brace and cortisone shots or how your Linac assets shots. And that was kind of the same story. I heard, you know, variations of that slightly, but pretty much the same story I heard from everybody. So it wasn't a, that wasn't acceptable.

It wasn't. Okay. It's like, um, at the time I was in my, you know, mid fifties now and getting in my late fifties and that's not the life I wanted to lead for the rest of, you know, however long I've got. And so like do any research. I came upon Dr. Stone and The Stone Clinic and it was the first time that I saw that the doctors and the clinics goals were the same as my goal, returning to a fully active lifestyle. And you know, I kept asking questions, well can I run? Nope, don't do that. Don't do that. Well, when I had the consultation with Dr. Stone over the phone, cause I'm in Milwaukee and we talked about that and he said, that is our goal. That's why you would come here. And that's what we do is we help return people to their normal activities.

So that's what sold it for me. That this is the place that I need to come to, to get my knee back in the condition that I wanted. And so that was really the tipping point because that was the connection of my goals. And the, and the doctor's goals were the same. And so a little bit of convincing with, uh, my wife and family members as to why I needed to go all the way to San Francisco from Milwaukee to get my knee repaired. And that was the same, uh, you know, motivation was that this is the one place that has the same goal that I have. And so that's why I came here and my experience has been, uh, excellent. Uh, the, um, four days past surgery, uh, three days best surgery. And, uh, I feel good. I've got a long recovery yet, but it's going in the right direction and I'm this, everybody on the staff I've met has been super, they're very friendly, they're very helpful, answered all my questions.

Uh, it's really been a great experience. Uh, I get the, that they all care about my recovery and how I'm doing as a person, not just as let's get this patient in and out of the clinic today sort of thing. So it's, it's been a great experience and, uh, you know, again, don't let it, don't wait, don't put it off. Take care of it right away and keep looking and keep asking questions until you find that connection between you and the doctor where you're on the same page. Then you have the confidence that you're in the right place to get the work done.