Rehab

Hello everyone! It’s been a while since I have posted in here, and a lot has happened. Since my crash in the World Junior Downhill in Slovakia, I have had two surgeries. The first one was to get the ACL in my left knee fixed, from Dr. Boynton in Rutland Vermont. After this surgery, I was only on crutches for about 5 days, which seemed incredibly short to me, but the Doc assured me that my knee would be stable enough to walk. So, I started physical therapy on my knee just 10 days after my surgery, and could actually perform body weight squats at 4 weeks out. I then headed out to Utah to ramp up my physical training at the USSA Center of Excellence. I had a nice 6 week block from May into June strengthening my left leg, dong exercises such as: Leg press, single leg squats, overhead squats, front squats, and single leg biking.

In mid June, I flew back east to search for a hip surgeon to fix my hip impingement and labrum tear. The first doctor I saw was Dr. Van Flandern at the New England Baptist surgery center, in Massachusetts. He was a super nice guy, and got right to the point with me. He basically said ‘you’ve got an impingement, and a labrum tear. You won’t be able to ski with it like this. Come in next week and let’s fix it.’ I didn’t want to waste any more time, and I couldn’t have been happier with how quick Dr. Van Flandern was able to get me in for surgery. So, I just bit the bullet, didn’t meet with any other doctors, and went with him as my surgeon. It was a great choice. I am just 3 weeks out of my surgery, and I can barely feel anything in my hip. They told me it could be painful for as long as a month, but I stopped having any kind of nerve pain in just 7 days. I am now sitting on a plane, heading back out to Utah to getting my physical training started once again.

For the amount of crap I have had to deal with this off-season, I am thrilled with how smooth my surgeries have gone, and I fully intend to be back on snow in November, working harder, and skiing faster than ever!