The first of five knee surgeries left Steve Grogan with nausea for days, crutches for a month, and a lengthy recovery. After the second surgery, the former Patriots quarterback got up off the operating table, drove home, and resumed workouts a week later. The third, fourth, and fifth operations followed essentially the same quick routine, though each one was to repair a relatively minor injury, from cartilage damage to bone chips.
The difference? Timing. The first surgery took place after the 1978 season. The second was performed in 1981, and the rest followed over the next several years. After that initial surgery, Grogan reaped the benefits of arthroscopic surgery.
With arthroscopic surgical techniques developed during the 1970s and brought into more common usage during the '80s, Grogan's 16-year career (1975-90) with the Patriots spanned one of the most significant advancement periods in sports medicine. Today, arthroscopic surgery is one of the most common procedures performed on knees, ankles, hips, and shoulders.
Longtime Patriots team physician Bert Zarins helped pioneer the technique and put Grogan at the forefront of sports medicine. The quarterback has no doubt arthroscopic surgery extended his career.
"I think I knew that the arthroscopic surgery was a fairly new, innovative technique that only a few people in the country were doing," said Grogan. "It was just a natural thing to use it on athletes.
"It was big for a lot of guys that I played with that had knee problems. It kept them around the game longer. There's no question about it.
"With bone chips and cartilage tears and that kind of stuff, guys used to have to be opened up to get at those little particles in there that would catch and cause problems. With arthroscopy, it could be done through a quarter-of-an-inch hole and you were back on your feet immediately. If the two or three times I had chips taken out or small pieces of cartilage removed, if I had been opened up and all that, it would have been [tough to play as long as I did]."
In arthroscopic procedures, surgeons access the body through small incisions with instruments that allow for the lighting, magnifying, and viewing of joints on a video monitor. Using the enlarged images, surgeons can avoid more invasive techniques that would necessitate longer recovery times and could cause more trauma.
"Historically, football was the catalyst that led to the development of sports medicine," said Zarins. "A key component in the development of sports medicine was the development of arthroscopy. All of a sudden we had the tools and we could do things better. The people taking care of athletes were pushed to do it because [less-invasive techniques] were needed."
Experience and improved equipment help doctors continually refine arthroscopic techniques. For example, since the first days of arthroscopy, miniature light bulbs mounted on the end of scopes have been replaced with fiber optics. The miniature light bulbs often broke inside the body, forcing surgeons to retrieve the pieces through larger incisions. This defeated the purpose of arthroscopy.
When Zarins informed Grogan that bone chips in his left knee could be removed with arthroscopic techniques far better than those used in the '70s, the quarterback was eager to have the surgery, and pleasantly surprised by his quick recovery.
"[Zarins] told me they could do it and I could stay awake," said Grogan. "To me, that was the greatest part of it. I went in and I could see the blade come in. When we got done, he said, 'Come on down to the office and I'll show you exactly what I did.' I was looking around for a chair or a table or whatever they were going to roll me in. There was nothing there.
"I said, 'How do I get down there?' He said, 'You can walk.' It was amazing. I got off the table and walked down to the office.
"The next day it ballooned up and throbbed a lot, but compared to the first time around, it was a miracle."
Calling arthroscopic surgery a medical miracle is no exaggeration from a football player who continued competing despite also suffering a broken left hand, two separated shoulders, a reattached tendon in his throwing elbow, three concussions that caused memory loss, a herniated disk in his neck, and screws inserted into his tibia.
Eventually, Grogan will probably need his left knee replaced. When that time comes, he figures advances in sports medicine will translate into a replacement knee that is as good as new, if not better.
Shira Springer can be reached at springer@globe.com.
