About 10 years ago, I had a conversation with a well-respected orthopedic surgeon known as “the knee guy” in the Greater Toronto Area. He was about to see a patient who had undergone 10 knee surgeries and was seeking yet another one.
In the surgeon’s words:
The buck stops here. Each surgery performed complicates the issue and takes you further away from the original condition. If this patient had the option to go back to the very first surgery and stop after that procedure, he would do it in a heartbeat!
There are times when surgery is necessary after an injury, but how do you truly know if the procedure was a success?
A Simple Test for Success
You don’t need fancy diagnostics—just listen to yourself. If you ever catch yourself saying:
Oh yeah, I forgot I even had that done!
Then your surgery was a success.
Pain and Memory
Leonardo da Vinci once said:
All injury leaves pain in the memory.
Even if you’re no longer in pain following an injury, it will always be in the back of your mind especially if you had surgery. But if you get to a point where you forget that the whole thing even happened, well then in the back of your mind is where it will remain.
