Hamlin's recovery hits close to home

How did Denny Hamlin do it?

That was the first thought that occurred to me as they wheeled my wife out of the hospital, her left leg wrapped up like an overstuffed burrito, a black brace full of buttons and clasps and Velcro strips running from her thigh all the way down to her calf. She'd had pain in her knee for months, discomfort that first stopped her from running, then prevented her from riding a bicycle, and finally started to bother her on the short walk from her parking garage to her office at work. A few visits to the orthopedist's office confirmed what we already knew -- torn meniscus and anterior cruciate ligament. She needed to have them both repaired.

Which meant, of course, a procedure we began to call Denny Hamlin surgery, after the Joe Gibbs Racing driver who had the same ligament and same piece of cartilage repaired in the same knee back in April, and 10 days later was back in the race car. We all knew he was making it look easy, gritting through the pain, never complaining over the radio, even eschewing the use of crutches. It's hard to forget him limping out of his transporter that morning at Phoenix International Raceway, shuffling over to his No. 11 Toyota with a barely-disguised limp, and flinging that ramrod-straight, deadweight left leg through the window opening.

To someone who had covered various other sports in which athletes occasionally blew out ACLs, who knew it was usually the kind of injury that sidelined a competitor for months, it all seemed a somewhat superhuman effort, especially after Hamlin completed all 378 laps of the event, especially knowing that his choice of profession severely limited his use of painkillers on race weekend. How much did it hurt? "More than I can tell you." he said then. Nobody doubted him.

But to see someone close to you go through almost the exact procedure, and to view first-hand just how painful and limiting the ensuing recovery period can be, makes you wonder how Hamlin was ever able to get through it. His injury was the result of an instant, catastrophic failure, a tear during a pickup basketball game in January. My wife's was a much more gradual process, as the graft she had implanted in her left knee after an injury she suffered years ago playing college lacrosse slowly gave way. Back then an ACL repair was quite an ordeal, and she has the vertical scar running down the length of her knee to prove it. She was in the hospital for almost as many days as Hamlin was out of the race car.

Arthroscopic surgery has greatly simplified the process -- you go to the hospital in the morning, and you come home that afternoon with a couple of holes in your leg and a cadaver ligament bolted to your knee. Still, knowing full well how difficult the experience had been the first time around, she was dreading the surgery. I tried to comfort her, telling her how far sports medicine had evolved since she was a teenager, and pointing to the example of Hamlin. He was back in the car 10 days later! He did 378 miles! He never complained! He never even used crutches! Piece of cake! (Continued)