Joining Nene in the torn ACL club...

by Andrew Feinstein on Jan 13, 2009 1:53 AM MST

The Rocky Mountain News ran a nice piece yesterday on Nuggets power forward Nene and his wife's remarkable recovery from potentially life threatening ailments in 2008. Nene's return from testicular cancer is well documented, but I don't think any of us knew that his wife underwent brain surgery to remove a benign tumor on her pituitary gland. Scary stuff indeed. And like everyone else in Nuggets Nation, I'm thrilled to hear that they're doing well.

As sports bloggers, we tend to criticize a bit too much and don't write often about the good stories happening on the teams we love and obsess over. This is probably because the mainstream sports media isn't critical enough and tends to over-cover feel good stories like Nene's amazing comeback this season. There's not much I can say about Nene that hasn't already been said hundreds of times over in the News, Post and on Nuggets telecasts except that he might have been the steal of my fantasy draft when I took him towards the end (although my first three rounds worth of picks have been utter failures).

Even before reading yesterday's News profile, Nene had been on a mind a lot lately. As we in Nuggets Nation know all too well, before being diagnosed with cancer Nene had had an injury-riddled career (as documented in our article back in October about the curse of the Nuggets' power forward position). The most severe of these injuries was when he tore his anterior cruciate ligament and meniscus in his right knee against the Spurs in the first game of the 2005-06 season. That injury pretty much sunk the season for the Nuggets as fellow power forward Kenyon Martin missed 26 games due to knee injuries himself.

Well, if you're mildly curious as to why my blogging has been spotty lately and might be a bit more spotty in the days to come, its because I, too, tore my ACL and meniscus in my right knee playing basketball. I did it right before Christmas. I was cutting across the key, caught a ball from my point guard, and turned to shoot real quick knowing my defender was right behind me. My upper body had no problem turning towards the basket, but let's just say my right foot and knee didn't come with me and instead bent the wrong way. As soon as it happened I figured I was screwed somehow, but I didn't know the severity of the injury (I was hoping it was just a hyper extension). The guys on the court said I fell right away - THUD - to the floor. And at 6'5" I can assure you, it's a long way down there.

Anyway, I'm heading in for surgery on Wednesday and will begin the necessary rehab right away. The doctor says I should be back to playing basketball in four-to-five months, but I've heard it's more like six months.

I'm not telling my readers this to get any sympathy. I'm insured, have a good support structure and, most thankfully, cancer is not the ailment that I have in common with Nene. In fact, when I told 104.3 The Fan's Sandy Clough about it on the air last Friday he chuckled and said something like: "I bet George Karl will be happy to hear about that!" As someone who spends 90% of his time making fun of others, I certainly appreciated the humor.

I just thought Denver Stiffs readers should know so you'll understand if/when it takes a little longer to get some game recap posts up. The problem with the post-ACL surgery for the first two weeks is that everything is going to take a while and I'm not supposed to sit at a computer for long hours. Moreover, as someone who already has two full-time jobs, I'll now be adding an hour of physical therapy and rehab to my schedule every day.

Given the impending surgery and rehab, I'm going to make one small change to Denver Stiffs that should have been done before I got hurt anyway. I've noticed that a lot of readers like to post comments during games or immediately thereafter. So I'm going to post mini-previews for each game before tipoff where readers can leave their comments right away, and then I'll just update the post with my recap when I get to it. This way your comments will be read and debated all in one post.

That's all for now. As always, I sincerely appreciate your loyalty to the blog and of course, Go Nuggets!!

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Comments

that's some bad luck there my friend. hope rehab goes well and a speedy recovery all the way!

out of curiosity, did you make the shot? :P

by andrew fisher on Jan 13, 2009 5:33 AM MST reply actions

hope rehab goes well and a speedy recovery

by Anonymous on Jan 13, 2009 6:45 AM MST reply actions

Even with a torn ACL, I'm guessing you would be more active than Karl on the bench.

by KarlSucks on Jan 13, 2009 8:12 AM MST reply actions

Sucky... get well soon, but hey, you didn't break any fingers!

I was going to suggest offline prior to hearing this news, to you that you could possibly offload some posts to some of us. Possibly along the lines of people can submit articles to you for your review and then you could choose the best one and post it. People would have to understand the "no hard feelings" aspect if their article is NOT posted so that could get dicey, but it'd be cool. I'd mock up some articles to post if you did something like that.

by Er on Jan 13, 2009 8:31 AM MST reply actions

supposed to say "Eric K" in the title above

by Eric K on Jan 13, 2009 8:31 AM MST reply actions

Hi Erik K -

The "guest columnist" idea is a good one and one I've explored with a few passionate readers who've emailed me offline. Yes, we'd have to have a "no hard feelings" policy and we'd have to make sure that the submissions don't sound like long comments, but rather thoughtful, creative and well-written posts on a topic not already covered on the blog. If you're interested in taking a shot at this, please email me at denverstiffs@gmail.com.

-A

by Andrew on Jan 13, 2009 9:05 AM MST reply actions

OK you want some similarities?
I'm 6'5".
I had a torn ACL in early 1977 that wasn't properly diagnosed until 1990 at which point it had caused a lot of problems with both knees as well as the cartilage been torn in half in the knee with the ACL tear.
I've been through testicular cancer, but it did me a lot worse than Nene. I had to go through the full course of chemo (Nene did much, much less chemo than Lance Armstrong or I did). In addition to the surgery that Nene had (the news says they removed a testicular tumor, but I guarantee you they removed the testicle, that's what they do. You don't want that cancerous testicle to stay in there. Relax, they don't cut the scrotum when they do that, they go in through the lower belly area just above the thigh.) I had to have a very dangerous and rare surgery to remove a tumor that was about the size of a football from my torso. It was wrapped around my ureter so one kidney had to be removed and put back in. It was also attached to my aorta so they had to make an emergency call to a heart surgeon to assist with the removal. Poor aftercare from that surgery resulted in the loss of the valves in the deep veins of my legs causing blood to pool up in my feet and ankles. That wouldn't be so bad except that the chemo caused severe nerve damage in my feet (and hands) which the oncologist expected to clear up but never did. The combination of nerve damage and circulation problem causes severe pain in my feet and has nearly crippled me. The cancer also destroyed my libido and performance and while that has been remedied after a year and a half of one doctor after another that along with the cnacer effectively cost me my marriage.
I tell this story only to show how lucky Nene is to have caught the cancer early. When I had the cancer I didn't have the swelling of the testicle typical of testicular cancer. I had a lot of internal pain and other suymptoms which usually got better with rest so that I kept thinking that I was getting better and then it would come back.
Nene is lucky he wasn't crippled like I was. He talks about having children (planning on having twins is poor planning). I wonder if he banked sperm like Lance Armstrong did or if the chemo he had was minimal enough to avoid sterility. I wasn't offered sperm banking because the doctors thought that I was too old to have any more children (oh yeah the risk ages for testicular cancer are 15 - 30 and I got it at 47 although the pathologist thought I may have had it several times in my life and had it go into remission on its own).
If I had met somebody Lauren Prothe when I was in college, I'd have wanted to marry her too. I really go for tall brunettes. She is gorgeous (what do you expect from a pro athlete wife?) and she really seems like a sweet genuine person (unlike the stereotype of a pro athlete wife).
Steve Hess said Nene was genetically engineered for basketball.
Yup, Nene is one lucky guy. Except for the cancer and the injuries.
As Spider-man once said "If I didn't have bad luck I wouldn't have any luck at all".

by Anonymous on Jan 13, 2009 9:58 AM MST reply actions

Good luck to you, man.

by JTR on Jan 14, 2009 7:58 AM MST reply actions

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3. OKLAHOMA CITY THUNDER
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4. BILLY HUNTER AND DEREK FISHER

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5. STEVE NASH AND THE PHOENIX SUNS
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