When you’re 6-foot-11, it can be very difficult to find pants in your size. Turns out it can be very difficult to find knee tissue in your size, as well.
Portland Trail Blazers center Festus Ezeli will undergo an extremely rare surgical procedure on his left knee next week, after waiting months to find a suitable cadaver donor, according to ESPN.
We don’t have a lot of details on the procedure, but it will reportedly be similar to the one performed on NFL quarterback Carson Palmer in 2006, which also involved a donated cadaver.
Receiving a body part from a dead person is surely kind of eerie, but it’s not like the donors need their knee tissue anymore. Here’s what Palmer said about his donor, a victim of a drunk driving accident, back in 2006:
“Unfortunately, someone had to pass for my recovery to happen. If people didn’t donate, my surgery, my recovery and everything else after isn’t successful or even possible. It’s a lot to think about, just how lucky I am.”
You have to imagine Ezeli will take the knee tissue wherever he can get it at this point. The veteran big man signed a two-year contract with Portland last summer but has yet to play in a game for his new team. He’s been waiting months for a donor so he can move forward with a surgery that, according to ESPN, could require a recovery time of over a year. It’s very possible he will ride out his two-year contract without ever playing for the Blazers.
At least now Ezeli has a path forward with this surgery. Hopefully he can put the whole dead-guy’s-knee thing behind him, make a full recovery and healthy in time to show he’s still got it before his contract runs up.
[ESPN]
