Knee Replacement 17: Cut Loose

On December 10, 2025, I walk into the Sandy, Utah, office of Heiden Orthopedics. I’m wearing shorts because I’ve just come from physical therapy and it’s a windless, sunny day—the latest in what’s been an alarmingly mild winter in Utah so far—and also the summer garb will enable the good doctor to easily inspect his work. It’s been 89 days since he sawed the bones in my right knee and replaced the joint with titanium, 131 days since he performed the same procedure on my left knee. It’s been a long four-plus months. Pain, sleepless nights, and pervading it all, a desperate and confused malaise.

But today I feel different.

At Motion Physical Therapy in Park City, as I pushed the weight sled across the turf floor in the basement, I’d felt more like an athlete and less like a patient. This is the threshold I’ve been waiting for, hoping was still possible. Also, on the previous day, I’d skated at a stick-and-puck at the local rink. I’d had a buddy film it on my phone and though it was not exactly NHL-worthy performance it was not horrible for a guy three months after knee replacement. I was eager to show Heiden. It’s queued it up on my phone as I wait on the examination table.

The door swings open and Dr. Eric Heiden moves smoothly through it.

Hey you, he says by way of greeting. He’s smiling and offering a warm handshake, which only lasts a moment before he’s turning his attention to my knees. Placing both hands on them, he’s squeezing the patellas, moving them slightly, side-to-side.

You heal well, he says, running his fingers over the thin scars. How are you feeling.

Better, much better, I say. I brought you a video.

He glances at the screen.

Skating! He says with a smile.

He sits on the table next to me as I hold my phone out in front of us. The former Olympic gold medalist speed skater watches the small screen with rapt attention as I skate a loop away from the camera, then quicken my pace to charge right at it. It’s not terrific—I’m standing up too high and my legs, particularly the left one, are somewhat pegged—but I’m moving quickly and, most importantly, not falling. I cut in front of the camera, extend my right arm to reach with my stick and cradle a puck on its blade. Skating away from the camera, I make a few cursory dribbles, and then turn to skate right at the camera again. My hands are stoney and my stick chops the puck back and forth—silky mitts I do not possess—but I gain control of the puck and flip it. The puck seems to come right at the lens before narrowly missing, twirling over my buddy’s right shoulder, causing him to jump. On the table next to me, Eric snaps his head back, flinching.

This causes both of us to laugh.

Let me see that again, he says.

I do and he tells me that I’m doing remarkably well.

I think we’re ready to cut you loose, he says. Any questions before we do?

Just one, I say. I’d like to go skiing. Do you think that would be a good idea?

He looks from my face, to my phone, to my knees.

Will you take it easy, like, nothing past greens and blues?

Absolutely, I say. One hundred percent.

If you really do that, just slow and easy for at least a month, until you build your strength and balance back, I think that would be all right.

Excellent, I say. Thank you so much. You’ve really been great. Your whole team too. I’m just so thankful… you’ve been so great…

There’s an awkward pause.

I’ve overshared, been embarrassingly complimentary. I get whipped up about things, propelled into this effusive blabber, upshifting into a sentimental sixth gear. Dangerously bordering on earnestness, on the spectrum of cool, I’m squarely in Forest Gump territory. I do this more often than I’d like to admit, and it never fails to stop conversation.

Heiden handles it smoothly, standing from the table, laying a hand on my shoulder and moving toward the door.

It’s really great to work with people who are motivated, he says. It makes all the difference. You’re gonna do great.

And with that, he’s gone, and I’m out the door too, getting back in my truck and pulling quickly out of the parking lot. The truck does not turn north toward my house, however, but easterly toward a deep gash in the Wasatch Mountains. Little Cottonwood Canyon snakes eastward, climbing through granite slabs—clean, white, and bullet-hard—offering some of the best climbing stone in North America. But it’s not climbing I’m after. I’m looking for a different reward for my four months of suffering through bilateral torture.

Steering into Snowbird Ski Resort’s Entry 1, I am greeted by a wide expanse of asphalt, a smattering of parked cars, and up on the snow-covered hill to my right, a steady, if straggling parade of skiers and snowboarders, wending their way downhill toward the base. If you listen to the locals this year, you’d be forgiven for concluding that the end of the world is nigh. The resort has received far less snow than normal so far this year and this is cause for great consternation among Snowbird’s sliding set. But I’m not listening to their quavering chorus right about now. As I get out of my truck and walk over to the base of the Big Emma run to pause between the Wilbur and Gadzoom chairlifts, I’m listening to the low chattery sound of steel edges scraping hard snow, punctuated by a shushing sound of slush. The day is warming, turning icy surface to snow-cone consistency.

Yes, I decide, this will work. It’s too late in the day today, but the forecast is fair and if the world does not, afterall, cease to exist, I will try out my new knees the following day.

Buoyed by the prospect, I drive further up the canyon to take a look at Alta, where the first stop, the Collins Lot, is a quarter full, and mostly empty chairs rise, dangling up the lift. Further up, the Albian Lot is quiet, and I park next to the snowcat garage, as far east and as high up the hill as the paved road will take me. I walk over to the snow and up the edge of the run. Still in my workout shorts, I feel the coolness coming off the snow, and the skin on my legs forms tiny moguls. The snow here is a slightly stiffer version of spring corn, and the few people who ski by seem loose and happy to be sliding. Tomorrow, that will be me. I hope.

As I turn to leave, a man walks up next to me and lays his skis down in the snow. Affixed to their bases are climbing skins.

Going for a tour? I ask.

Just a little one, he says. It’s my first day back from knee replacement surgery.

I laugh and point to my naked knees, where the eight-inch vertical zipper-line scars have turned purple in the cool air.

Tomorrow will be my first day back, I say.

Now he laughs and we have the normal knee replacement conversation—who did yours and how long ago and how are you feeling and all the rest of it—as he clicks into his bindings. He mentions that he’s just come from a specialized massage appointment that focuses on nerve-pain reduction, and I ask him about it and he shares the contact, as well as his own, by holding his phone up to mine. When my phone also shares my contact, he recognizes my name, and we play the how-do-I-know you game. It doesn’t take long to figure out the friends we have in common and conclude that we once had a nice conversation at a dinner party at the base of the canyon. It’s a classic Little Cottonwood moment and it leaves me feeling full and happy as I drive down the hill, planning for the following day, my first day back on skis.