Dear Dr. FixMyKnee:

I cannot thank you enough for your kind attention and fast interest in “doctoring me up” the day after my accident.

As I bounced, then cart-wheeled off a rock on my first ever attempt at a backcountry tour, I prayed for my ski to release.

A hefty din setting and a self promise to never dig for buried skis again counteracted my mid-air pleas and I’ve since found myself at your mercy. I felt lucky, actually, as I was able to ski down from my small tragedy, slowly at best, and a small candle remained lit inside with hopes that it was only tweaked.

Alas, stepping out of my skis an hour later and upon inching up the never ending steps to the Bridger Clinic, the pain smacked me somewhere right around my knee cap. I felt defeat and a fair amount of pain, but it was the impending doom felt to the effect of a death statement when “Doctor One” delivered a shaky pre-MRI diagnosis “Carolyn, I’m so sorry. The way your knee is responding leads me to believe that you have an ACL injury.”

I wanted to kick and scream, but had to settle for the latter for an immediate release.

Monday morning found me at your office. Eyes puffy, knee puffy and the start to my first ski season in Jackson deflated. I made eye contact with two other unfortunate newly crutch-wielding souls and we silently grieved together as we waited for our ultimate diagnoses.

“Caroline, Caroline Gorski?” My turn to see the Wizard and indeed, it was judgement day. Was I wrong in thinking that I was ready for the big burly Jackson backcountry my first year out? (Accident occured less than 50 yards out the gates.) Was I undeserving of the lifestyle I so avidly sought? Was it my destiny to be spending my weekends among the masses at suburban shopping malls resisting the temptations of a Mrs.Fields cookie rather than enjoying the mountains?

As I tried to over-think the grander scheme of my ill-fate, your spanky bow-tie and immediate reaction- “looks like an MCL tear, probably no surgery,” vaporized the dark cloud looming over my trampled body.

Efficient, cheery staff and an astronomically expensive MRI made me a believer. It was only a tear, an MCL tear, and in a month, I could be back up and ready for a re-match.

You fitted me with the fanciest of braces and sent me home with a smile. I was ready to pound out four weekends of starting social life après ski and with a prescription of rest and low-impact strength building. You encouraged that my recovery looked as promising as our perpetual storm cycles.

Dr. FixMyKnee, it is after my first weekend back on skis that I must truly thank you. Though we will be meeting in a couple days for the official send-off, I interpreted the “beginning of February” go get ‘em date to the closest meaning of the phrase.

Fifteen inches on Friday, February 1 and an office- wide field trip to The Village took me from the Teewinot “try it out, feel it out” run to the chutes of Sublette and mushroom dreams off of Thunder in mere hours.

Your friends in Iceland who have so carefully constructed my mini-fortune of plastic protecting my boo-boo must have known how much I love to sink deep and bounce back- the apparatus never failed to keep me stable. I have missed an entire January of skiing the deepest snow ever recorded for Jackson Hole Mountain Resort but because of you, have a restored faith that plenty is still waiting for me now that I’ve returned.

Dr. FixMyKnee, you have re-delivered me my dream and though I hope to never see you again in a professional setting, I’d like to thank you for giving me the most precious gift of all.

Eternally Grateful,
Carolyn Gorski

Editor’s Note: Dr. FixMyKnee also goes by Peter Rork and has done about a billion knee assessments and surgeries on athletes from US Ski Team members to commoners like me. Over the past two winters, I’d had two surgeries from him and after skiing powder several times a week over the past two months must second Carolyn’s thanks. Dr. Rork Rocks!