Surgery can be a frightening ordeal, and that fear is doubled when your career could be altered if it doesn’t go well.
Gordon Hayward felt that before undergoing surgery on his dislocated ankle and fracture tibia Oct. 18, and a large part of the fear was due to the possibility that he also had suffered cartilage damage in his foot.
The Boston Celtics star forward opened up about his gruesome injury against the Cleveland Cavaliers, the surgery that followed and the immense amount of support he has received in a blog posted on his website Wednesday.
Hayward recounted the conversations with the medical team prior to undergoing surgery, noting that fixing his bone and the ligaments were relatively straightforward, but the doctors were unsure if he had damaged the cartilage in his foot.
Here Hayward’s walkthrough of that day:
As far as the plan for surgery, it had three parts. First was fixing the bone, which was the most straightforward and easy thing. Next was fixing the ligaments that I tore, and that was relatively straightforward, too. The third part was the unknown, and the only thing that concerned the medical staff.
There was a little blip on the scans that might show potential cartilage damage. If that was the case, it wouldn’t be good.
“What does that mean?” I asked.
They wouldn’t know until they opened up my foot, they said.
Not long after, the doctors were like, “All right. We’re ready to finally get you to go to surgery.” I was relieved that it was finally going to happen. I was praying that it was going to go well, and that nothing was going to be wrong with that little cartilage spot. And I just wanted it done and over with.
They prepped me and gave me the anesthesia. When I woke up, I was super groggy, and my foot was throbbing and heavy, with a huge wrap on it. It was five o’clock in the morning, and all I wanted to do was sleep, but I remember calling the nurse. When she walked in, I asked, “How did it go? What did they say? Can someone tell me what happened?” And she said, “The doctor will tell you in the morning, but from what I know, the surgery went well. You should try to get some sleep.”
A few hours later, the doctors came in. The surgery had been really successful. The cartilage from the scan wasn’t related to the injury, and wasn’t a concern. Everything had gone extremely well.
