Drumroll Please!!!! also titled, You Idiot, What did you do now?

Hey, that looks like operation scrubs. Why is Rusty going under the knife? And who knew he had such sexy knees? Pretty shocking contrast to the pictures from Stowe taken in February, eh?
this is where the surgeon and i signed my knee to make sure we were all on the same page as far as which knee we were cutting open. But wait narrarator, why are you cutting open your knee in the first place, let alone the one that you and your surgeon signed? well grasshopper, it's a long story. It probably starts years ago in a galaxy far far away, known to many as Rusty and Doug's backyard quarterpipe in Buffalo. Dumbass here was skating with his yo-yo and paying more attention to the yo-yo than the fact that his foot was slipping off the back of his board. so my back foot stayed on the top of the ramp while my front foot(still on the skateboard) and the skateboard (with my front foot still on it) decided to head to the bottom of the quarterpipe, precipitating a most uncomfortable split which made my right leg from the knee out tweek to the outside, a position most uncomfortable. so anywhoo, this all happened at the end of the semester and i went home to my doctor who figured it was just a sprain and said ice and elevate. no x-rays, no mri, just ice and elevate. so several weeks later i'm feeling cool and back to skating, learning to snowboard and mountainbike through muckfields and over rocks and trees in the rain. Fast forward ten, twenty years of doing all those fun things and more with really no major complicatons other than an occasional stiffening and swelling when i planted it wrong (what was i doing playing basketball anyway?) brings us up to boys weekend at Stowe and the Bruce. it probably wasn't either of their faults directly, but since that weekend my knee was a bit sore, but nothing a few Advil didn't fix. We were finally getting cold enough temperatures to make snow and both places i ride down here were fully open, so i would go either sat or sun each weekend. it was always sore on monday, but with the help of vitamin A(dvil), i was ready to go the next weekend. until the last time i went. the snow was sweet, nice and soft and slushy and i found this trail with nice high banked walls on it. so i was carving all over them, it was cool, because a couple had tree trunks growing out of them and you could carve over and behind the trunks, one had almost a wallride type of thing happening but i couldn't get a good angle at it so i didn't do it, anywoo, i was having a really good day, snow was sweet, sun was out, ipod pumping Dr. Dre, not too many yahoos around, pretty much heaven. by this time it was about noon, so i stopped to eat something. Around that time my knee started swelling up and getting stiff. now this was nothing too out of the ordinary, as it had been that way for the last few weeks after each time went riding. but this time the vitamin A didn't help and it wouldn't bend much. So i figured i may as well go to the doctor. Long story short doc thinks i have torn meniscus (cushioning between the femur and tibia)so he sends me for MRI and visit to orthopedic specialist. Orthopedic specialist confirms that i have torn lateral and medial meniscus (ie. inside and outside tears on cushioning between the femur and tibia) However, also brings to light the following tidbit...

Setting:Specialists office. Rusty is wearing a gown that is open to the back because they had to x-ray his knee. why did he have to strip for a knee x-ray? Who knows.

Orthopedic specialist: yup, ya gots a torn meniscus, both inside and out (this is a paraphrase)
Rusty: So what's the next move?
OS: well, it's not so much the meniscus that i'm concerned with, it's the fact that neither the tech nor myself can find your ACL.
Rusty: Can't find it. isn't that something major?
OS: Yup. it just ain't there (paraphrase again)
Rusty: that's not good, is it?
OS: nope.

Flash forward two weeks (or a month and a half before Bryce is set to join our happy band of merry men and women) and here we are. 30 days with no driving or walking or working. but a shiny new ACL harvested from my knee. sweet.
Could they have used more bandages?
Contrary to popular opinion, crutches are really not fun. they're a pain in the underarms.