In early March 2018, at age 54, I was attempting a tire jump at my boot camp fitness class on a Saturday morning. My left foot missed the top of the tire and I felt a sharp pain in my knee and then stiffness and immobility.

I took it easy over the next month or so, but every time I tried increasing activity, my knee immediately became very stiff and sore. It also felt very unstable with lateral movement.

An MRI after a visit to Dr. Lawhorn showed a catastrophic injury – a medial meniscus root tear. Dr. Lawhorn advised doing the repair well before the 1 year mark so that arthritis would not set in. He explained that he was patenting a new technology to make my type of repair easier for surgeons to do since accessing the root of the medial meniscus was challenging in the tiny knee space.

Not wanting to be on crutches during the summer, I scheduled surgery for September. Keeping my leg completely straight with no weight bearing for 6 weeks after surgery was the most difficult part of the recovery.

With regular physical therapy, recovery moved along and I was able to return to a barre class 4 months post-surgery and boot camp class after 5 months in March 2019. At the 1 year mark (September 2019) I could run up to 3 miles and my knee felt 90-95% like the other knee. I was happy with this result, but Dr. Lawhorn said that I could expect even more improvement over the next year. He was right.

When COVID hit in March 2020, I left boot camp and a friend and I began daily walking. We started adding in running and by fall, it became a daily run. By winter, we were running 5-7 miles a day and my knee improved even more, now feeling 100% like the other knee. Thank you Dr. Lawhorn!

– as told by Mary, Dr. Lawhorn’s patient