Tom Brady goes under the knife again, Patriots upset

The New England Patriots thought the worst hit from Tom Brady’s injury was behind them.  After all, what could be worse than a season ending knee injury requiring surgery to your superstar quarterback?  Unfortunately, the situation has gotten worse.  Brady is reportedly suffering from an infection in his surgically repaired left knee that has the potential to be career threatening if not brought under control.

The Patriot organization is not only obviously concerned about this, but they’re also upset at Brady.  When his knee injury first occurred, the team made a big deal that it be performed by doctors’ of their choosing in Boston.  Brady instead opted for a doctor he chose in California and, presumably, the Pats are laying the groundwork for a potential malpractice lawsuit should the worst case scenario become a reality.

Brady has had several procedures to clean the wound from the surgery, and has been administered an aggressive regimen of antibiotics to help combat the infection.  Worst case scenario—if the infection can’t be brought under control the grafted tendon used to repair Brady’s anterior cruciate ligament could also become infected.  If this occurs, doctors would have to perform the surgery over again which would put Brady and the Patriots back at square one in terms of his recovery.

In assessing the situation a spokesman for Brady observed:

"Tom is looking at months, not weeks, to fix this."

Despite their objections to Brady’s choice of doctor, they’re keeping a “hands off” approach to the matter for the time being.  They’ve not made an issue about Brady’s doctor trying to mitigate the damage from the infection, and they’ve deferred all comment regarding the status of his injury to the quarterback himself.

The initial recovery timeline had Brady back in Boston by now in hopes that he could work out and rehab his knee with the team.  Obviously the infection and subsequent treatment has prevented this, and now any timeline for his return to New England is unclear.