According to the Boston Herald’s Karen Guregian New England Patriots QB and reigning NFL MVP Tom Brady has had two additional procedures on his surgically repaired knee to combat the infection that set in after his October 6th surgery to reconstruct his torn ACL and MCL.
According to a source on the West Coast who is close to Brady, the quarterback had a second surgery last Wednesday, which Brady confirmed on his website, then has had the two additional procedures since then.
Guregian writes, “According to the source, the fear is the patellar tendon graft used to replace Brady’s anterior cruciate ligament is in danger of becoming compromised. Should that occur, the entire ACL reconstruction would have to be removed and redone from scratch.”
If that were the case it would push the All-Pro’s rehab schedule back further. Brady is reportedly on an IV antibiotic for the next six weeks.
According to Dr. Arun Ramappa, chief of sports medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, “In all likelihood, they’ll be able to eradicate the infection, and be able to maintain the original surgery. What it sounds like, is they’re doing everything they can to try to preserve his knee, preserve the graft, so they don’t have to do another surgery. If he’s had three surgeries, they must be quite concerned about there being an infection.”
“The less knee surgery you have, the better, but he’s a tremendous athlete,” Ramappa said. “As long as the graft is OK and the infection is gone, he should be able to come back just fine. This will just be a blip on the screen.”
