I gotta work out, I gotta work out, I'm going to the gym!

No play makes dull boy...

Due to the injury, I have not seen the indide of a gym for some time. I had to have a workout.

So, I went to the Equinox on Sunset Boulevard for a workout on Wednesday, March 21. I did an upper-body workout all sitting down, as to avoid putting weight on my knees. It was annoying to get around the gym, especially using the stairs between both levels.

I surmise that by the end of this process I'll have one of those bodies with a built upper body on top of skinny chicken legs.

Back in LA

I returned to Los Angeles on the 14th of March after stumbling around Lake Tahoe on my crutches. I set up an appointment at Cedars Sinai Hospital with an Orthopedic Surgeon. After he tested my knee, he sent me to an MRI that concluded the following:
I have a complete mid-substance rupture of my ACL in my right knee, and have damage done to the Meniscus in my right and left knees.

So, surgery is in order to reconstruct my ACL. As there are no fibers intact, the surgeons will have to rebuild my ACL. Option one is to use a cadaver ACL. Yet, with a cadaver ACL, my body can reject it as something foreign, so there is risk of that not working. The best option seems to be to rebuild the ACL using my own tissue from my Patella and Tibia. That way, my body will not reject it and there is no risk of blook poisoning, which could happen from the cadaver tissue.

First days as Ski Gimp

Emergency Room

My family took me to the Emergency Room at Incline Village near the house we rented out for our trip.

X-Rays were taken and fortunately my bones looked to be in great shape. Although, it was clear that I had damaged tendons and cartilage in my knees.

The ER doctor said I'd need to meet an Orthopedic surgeon and have MRI's done once back in LA.

Ski Patrol

I was taken down the hill by a lovely ski patrol girl on a snow board. I was put in her sled and had a ride down the hill. My brother was very concerned as he knew the injury was bad.

Saturday, March 10...

After the first few amazing days of the ski trip, this day started out just great. The conditions had become warmer, so the slopes had slushy parts. We went higher up the mountain to get onto better runs with more snow. The day was great. We were skiing the bowls, which were very steep slopes.

That is when it happened...

My borther and I were zooming down a steep slope of about a 70 degree angle. He went down first, like every older brother, and I trailed behind. As I was speeding down, I noticed a pack of snowboarders stopped in the middle of the slope. Quickly, I veered to the left went through some moguls and then veered back to the right to continue downward. At that point, I hit slush and totally lost controll somehow.

As I careened down the mountain, I immediately felt my right knee twist painfully. I pulled my knees into my chest to try to avoid further injury as I was tumbling downward in a cloud of snow. When I stopped I had one ski still on my left foot and my pole in my left hand.

I could tell this was not a good fall, but quickly hobbled to the side of the slope out of the way of possible oncoming skiers and snow boarders.

A kind lady brought my other ski and pole to me and I chilled out on the side of the slope to collect my thought and gague the damage done to my body.

My brother was calling out to me. He was on the chairlift heading back up the mountain. He had seen me hobbling and realized something was wrong, so he was heading back to me.

My brother arived and thought to call the ski patrol. My adrenaline was pumping, although my knees hurt, I did not think the injury was too bad. "I can ski down and then call it a day." I put my skis back on, against my brother's will, and proceeded to ski down carefully.

The shooting pain was great. Upon my second turn, a short moment after getting back on my skis, I heard a loud pop from my right knee. I felt it, too, as I colapsed like a bag of dirt.

That is when I cursed at my stupidity of continuing down the slope, as I knew I made my injury worse. Much worse.

Ski Jumps

My brother and I were skiing all out and found amazing runs in the terrain park. We went down a run with five consecutive high jumps -- we flew down that run (literally). It was amazing. So much so, that we had to do it again. This time we were ready with my digital video camera to film our jumps. The results on camera were not as good as those off camera. See for yourself by going to youtube.com and searching under "Yuval David" or just go to the following web address: http://youtube.com/watch?v=FUeNJQlHzAA