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I Could Kick Myself for Not Getting a New Knee Sooner
John Maloney, then 57, knew things were bad, very bad, with his left knee. But he was upset that his son noticed just how bad they were. Worst of all for this family man who lived for his kids – triplets, now grown – was the look of distress on his son’s face.
The fact was, “I was in constant pain. I was going up stairs one step at a time. I thought I was lifting my leg high enough, but I couldn’t, and ended up tripping. When biking, I couldn’t bend my left leg enough to pedal. Just getting in and out of the car was terrible when I had to bend my leg.” Sleep provided no relief: “All night I was changing positions because I couldn’t take the pain.”
John had lived with worsening knee pain for decades. But now – boy, this was something else. “I couldn’t take it. I had no choice. I needed knee replacement surgery.”
John had known he needed a knee replacement eight years earlier. But he’d waited. And waited. “People told me to put it off as long as possible because I’d just have to get another in 15 years. People said that’s how long they lasted. Plus I’m a big guy and I figured it would wear out sooner.”
“And you know what? In 2014, in constant pain, and knowing I had no choice, I still put off the surgery for another five years.” The End of Baseball A “lumberjack” is how a friend describes John. He’s an easygoing man of 62 who lives in jeans and puts family first. Life in his 20s, back in Red Hook, Brooklyn, was packed with sports – playing organized baseball, watching the Mets at Shea Stadium (with coveted season tickets), biking, hiking, golfing, and hunting with friends from Con Ed.
But at age 23, during a baseball game in which he played catcher, “I was slid into.” John took a bad fall, tearing cartilage in his right knee. Despite three operations over the next ten years, the injury “slowed me down. I never regained full mobility. Baseball playing ended for me.”
It wasn’t the only change. Moving to semi-rural Mahopac with his wife, John felt pain in his right knee “building up.” Con Ed had him working in the electrical underground -- “up and down ladders, in and out of trucks.” When the triplets arrived in 1992, they became the center of John’s life. “I was taking all the overtime I could get. And the knee got worse and worse. It started clicking. It was giving out on me.”
John brushed aside the worsening pain. “Everything was for the kids. I worked midnights, so I was available for anything they did.” He was actively involved in his children’s football, baseball and soccer activities. He took the whole family on hikes on the forested trails near the house. They went on biking expeditions. But John paid a price: Soon, the pain in his right knee was joined by stiffness and swelling. X-rays confirmed it was arthritis – already quite advanced. However, John refused to let the pain limit him, refused to let it prevent him from sharing with his family the activities he loved. And so, over the years, the pain sharpened and the knee grew stiffer.
“My Knee Was Killing Me.” By 2018, the kids were out of college and making their way in the world. His family urged John to have a knee replacement. “‘You have to have this operated on,’ they told me. I knew they were right. I’d become depressed. There was so much I couldn’t do anymore.” And he was pained by his family’s reactions. “It was hard on the family. They hated seeing me limping, having trouble going up and down the stairs.”
But. But. But. “But for some reason, I just wasn’t ready to do it. The pain wasn’t great enough.”
In May of 2018, he and his wife were in Denver, hiking the kind of rugged trail John loved. But it was no good. “It seemed like after just an hour on the trail, I had to go back. And coming down the trail killed me. Over there, those mountains are crazy!” The steep descent had John pounding with all his considerable weight on the bad knee.
His wife said to John, “You have to do something now.”
