***WARNING - WARNING - WARNING***

DO NOT SCROLL DOWN

IF YOU ARE SQUEAMISH

GRAPHIC PICTURES TO FOLLOW

Ok, your fault. I warned you.

Exactly 6 months ago tomorrow, I took my little tumble down the stairs. That was a lot of fun. I wound up tearing my anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) completely in half as well as damaging some cartilage (meniscus). I do not recommend this. About a month after the fall, I had reconstructive surgery on my knee. The surgeon harvested from my hamstring and created a new ACL for me. This sounds super gross, but the other alternative is to harvest from a cadaver. Yup. CADAVER. NOOOOOOOO thank you. No cadaver parts for me. Uh huh. No way.

So anyway, my orthopedic surgeon - who was cool as all hell and cute as all hell for that matter - took some pictures from the inside of my knee. I don't know if he just really likes to give you all the information, really likes his job, really likes photography, or is really completely insane. In any event, while I did consider using the following pictures as our Christmas cards for the year, I managed to restrain myself. Honestly the pictures don't look like much of anything if you didn't know what they were. I think they kind of look like something you'd see at the bottom of the ocean. So if you've stayed with me thus far, here you go. The first is the torn ACL, the second is the torn meniscus, and the third is the graft. No fair giving me comments about how you had an involuntary personal protein spill after viewing these - you were warned. :)