I’m pleased to say my knee feels a lot better. It’s still not back to normal, and I don’t know if it ever will be, but I’m learning to deal with it instead of expecting it to be like it was before.
Come over here and sit on my knee and finish your orange juice.
I can’t dance anymore. Total knee replacements. I can’t do anything anymore.
‘My Night at Maud’s,’ ‘Claire’s Knee,’ ‘Chloe in the Afternoon’ are grafted onto my life.
I’ve separated my shoulder and my collarbone; I’ve messed up my knee a million times. I’ve broken my foot in several places. I’ve broken my toe a bunch, broken my nose a couple of times, and had a bunch of other annoying little injuries, like turf toe and arthritis and tendonitis. It’s part of the game.
In truth, I never dreamed of being a manager. Like every other boy in Brazil who was marked by the ’70 World Cup, I dreamed of wearing the yellow shirt for the national team. Unfortunately, that was not my fate. I had to undergo seven surgeries on my knee. At 27, my career was over, and I was still a young man.
I’ve had an ACL replaced in my left knee, ACL replaced in my right knee, 50 percent of my meniscus taken out of my right knee, lower back fusion, C-6, C-7 fused in my neck, C-5, C-4 disk replacement, C-4, C-3 fused. I have 26, 27 concussions, hundreds of stitches. I’ve been through the grinder.
Dad sometimes patted me on the knee and called me his Little Schmuck.
An ideal day starts with putting on a good, smart, fun show where I learn something and ends with me fending off atomic knee drops from my two kids in our no-holds-barred pillow fight/steel cage matches. They are a ruthless tag team.
2014 was physically a tough year because I injured my knee, and you know how that goes with your emotions and the mentality.
I think, most definitely, my style has been changing throughout the years, and that’s because of the injuries that I’ve had, the multiple surgeries on my left knee.
The only time I’ve ever been knocked out in my entire life was in a rugby game when I was about 13. I used to play on the wing. The opposing winger has the ball in his hand and he’s running full speed at me. I go down to tackle him and he jumps up and his knee hits my temple.
Over the years, I’ve had two ankle operations, torn my hamstring, had my hip resurfaced, and snapped the anterior cruciate ligament in my knee.
When I was in Class II, we used to walk about 5 km. to school. I did not know of Olympics or even athletics then. One day, a friend went in a car and left me behind. I was so angry, I wanted to run and outrace the car. I ran so fast that I tripped and fractured my knee.
In my case, I played sports my whole life. I got out of college, and I didn’t bother to get health care coverage because I just figured I didn’t need it. But you know that if you blow out your knee on a basketball court or you get in a car accident, and you’re uninsured, it can bankrupt you.
I’ve had surgery on my knee and both feet and my elbow.
