- Earlier this year I voluntarily got knee surgery.
They gave me this drug that makes me feel
like I had five shots of whiskey.
Flash a casual tit.
(groans)
It's a story of risk and pain and suffering,
but in the end, there's a baby.
So it's all gonna be okay.
(energetic music)
Welcome to Storytime, Storytime.
It's your boy, Ned, here.
Now this is only a fraction of my experience.
For the entire novel,
be sure to check out our Try Guys' new book.
What are we talking about today?
Well in the fall of 2012 I broke my knee so bad
that it was cut down to the bone
and my friends said this the day that we saw Ned's kneecap.
It was playing paintball in the woods
in rural New Hampshire, don't ask me how I got there.
(gun firing)
These are the type of friends I have.
(cheering)
That cut was so bad that it got infected
and I was in the hospital for three weeks.
It's something called a septic knee.
I cut my knee down to the bone,
and then it got infected.
They say that 50 years ago, I would have died.
I had multiple surgeries to clean it out
and my knee was completely destroyed.
I was off work for months playing video games all day.
My Halo friends would be like oh man,
you're just at home on disability leave?
That's (bleep) awesome, man.
I was like, first of all, you're not my real friend,
I just met you playing a stupid alien shoot 'em up game,
and also, it's not cool.
And it got to the point where I just,
taking painkillers was like the best part of my day.
And it was a really, really scary time.
Oxycodone is an opioid drug
and it's one of the main factors
that's contributing to the current opioid crisis.
A typical situation could be like what happened to me.
You have a horrible injury, you're off work,
start taking pain medication
because you're actually in pain,
but then you get addicted to it,
so you continue taking pain medications.
This isn't about the opioid crisis in the United States,
it's about me.
Most people stop taking them within six weeks of surgery,
but here I am three months later
still taking high doses of oxycodone every single day.
My physical therapist kind of was like
how much are you taking a day?
10, 20 grams couple times a day.
And he's like most people are not taking them anymore.
I can see exactly how someone
can be addicted to a painkiller.
Honestly, if it wasn't for the support of family and Ariel,
it could've been me as well.
That time in 2012 was probably
some of the worst times of my life.
Hey, I really wanna move to LA.
(energetic humming)
That was such a devastating injury,
it led me to quit all of my activities in Chicago,
take time off from work.
So it is what led me to LA,
but left me physically wrecked.
Over the last six years I've still had lingering effects.
(Ned groans)
- [Female] You good? (laughs)
(Ned groans)
- Anytime I would bend over, my knee would pop
and it would be painful.
My tendon just like (popping),
just like pops over my kneecap.
Your finger on my tendon right about there,
and I squat down.
- (squeals) It popped.
Oh, that's so gross.
- There was a big lump of scar tissue.
It was the type of thing where it wasn't crazy pain,
but every single time you squat down,
that gets old real quick.
Here I am after soccer icing my knee
and it makes me think that I'm not
gonna be able to jump around and play with my kids.
Is it worth it to willingly go back and get a surgery?
And it's just the potential,
just the possibility of having no pain.
- So Ned is coming home from Alaska
and I have a little surprise to tell him.
- What is this? - It's for you.
- Bean, stay over here, stay.
(laughing)
- I knew it, I knew it, I knew, I knew it.
So finally, after consulting doctors for years
and being told surgery was my only option,
on the eve of the birth of my first child, Wesley,
I finally decided to take action.
I was getting knee surgery so I could bend down
and play with toys, play with the baby,
and be an active parent that I wanna be.
On the morning of the surgery, I was nervous.
It's the morning of the surgery, can't wait.
So their plan was to go in,
take a fancy surgical knife and go (hums),
shave it down so that the lump
was more of like a fine tendon again.
We're on our way to the hospital,
Ariel's driving, we're taking her car
because I'm not gonna be able to drive back.
Where we're going, I won't need a car. (laughs)
- [Female] Tell me your name.
- Now it's like every video ever.
I'm already getting strange flashbacks
to the first time I got injured.
- [Ariel] Your heart rate, it's going up there.
- [Ned] I'm nervous.
Doing this for you little baby.
- Oh, this one? - Yes.
- [Male] You be careful, okay?
- [Ariel] He better.
- Bye.
(laughing)
- [Ariel] Bye honey, love you.
Give me a kiss.
(kissing)
Have fun.
(dramatic music)
- This is a message to The Try Guys, I am post-operation.
It went fine.
- [Ariel] He said that everything went really well,
they cleaned out all the scar tissue,
he also found a minor meniscus tear, which he fixed.
- No shit.
- [Ariel] And that's probably why it was hurting so much.
- Just leading an active life over here.
- I'm a little drunk right now, but that's just the drugs.
Just like talking like a crazy person.
I love you so much, Ariel.
I really wanna ride a pony home.
I don't even know what I was saying.
Anyways, I'm gonna go home
and watch Queer Eye for the Straight Guy
for like 10 hours straight while I ice my knee.
(laughing)
Got to do wifi.
I look down and my knee is swelling up
the size of a cantaloupe.
My thing is green, my leg is green.
So here's the normal leg, here's a green leg.
Do you guys wanna be in the video?
- [Male] No.
- So we leave the hospital, I'm super loopy.
It's a, I'm post-op right now.
Getting wheeled in a wheelchair.
It was very important in those first
couple of days to just ice my knee.
They said ice the (bleep) out of it.
So all I did for a period of five or six days
was to sit on the couch and ice my knee.
Wow, video games are so cool.
I bought myself a PS4,
'cause daddy needs to treat himself sometimes. (laughs)
My knee, my knee broke though.
Oh my god, look at that,
I have little tiny holes in my knee.
Also, my knee is huge.
It's like the hulk, knee smash.
You guys ready to see pictures of the inside of my knee?
- Yeah. - You betchya.
- [Ned] This is like the inside of knee cavity.
These are my ACLs and stuff,
and this is a giant lump
of scar tissue that they shaved away.
- You could've told me that these
were photos of your unborn child
and I'd been like oh my gosh, she's beautiful.
(laughing)
Why's your leg green?
- That's like an antiseptic scrub,
I haven't showered since Monday.
(laughing)
The doctor told me it'll be a week of being off your feet
and then I'll be back to normal,
I can help Ariel out 'cause she's still pregnant,
and it'll be great.
As the weeks go on, my knee doesn't get a ton better.
Today I'm going to get my sutures taken out.
They kept them in for an extra couple of weeks.
It got to be a week after the surgery,
two weeks, three weeks, four weeks,
and still, I couldn't play soccer.
- [Ariel] Are you comfy?
- No.
And I'm kinda starting to get a little worried.
(toy squeaking)
You're so helpful, Bean.
During this time they gave me a prescription to painkillers.
So here I am exactly in a place that I didn't want to be
doing all the things that I didn't wanna do,
kinda depressed about it,
looking forward to taking painkillers,
and realizing that I have a baby due in nearly a month.
So now we come to our present situation
which is I have been prescribed
a whole bunch of hydrocodone,
it's not even oxycodone, but still,
I see this and I get afraid of it.
I get afraid of where it could take me.
Don't even get close to that place that I was before,
I don't even know why I filled this.
These sort of painkillers can be really helpful.
Through taking the painkiller
I was able to stretch my muscles further
than I would've otherwise been able to do,
which helps you recover faster.
I have a prescription full of painkillers
and I am saying to them not today.
Don't need them, don't want them, get rid of them,
throw they away, throw them away.
Flush it down.
Goodbye.
Well, we still got a straggler.
Get down there.
One more time.
(cheers)
Feels good.
I'm not even touching that.
Wish I didn't have pain in my knee,
maybe I always will.
Accidents happen sometimes,
how you bounce back and try and dig yourself
out of that hole is what makes you
the type of person you are.
And now it's time for physical therapy.
(energetic music)
I do a lot of physical therapy not wearing many clothing.
You could just see everything move a little better.
I kept at it, luckily Ariel was there.
Yeah, I honestly couldn't have done it without Ariel.
I had the support of a great physical therapist,
kept working, kept icing, it slowly got better.
And just when I'm in a great groove,
a really good rhythm, the baby comes early.
Oh god.
(baby cries)
The days have all blended together,
there is no day and night,
there is only sleep, eat, poop,
for both me and the baby.
So now all of this time that I'm spending
like really working on my body
is taken up by the magical wonder
that is caring for a newborn life.
- Oh, he's making little noises.
- [Male] Oh my god.
- Baby. - Hi, hey.
- Hi, guys.
- And as I saw my baby, Wes, playing around on the floor,
I could crouch down, play around with him.
And yeah, you know what,
there's still a little bit of pain there,
there's still a little bit of swelling,
but it's not as bad as it once was.
And I know that even though if it's not perfect,
I did everything I could to try
and lead the mot active life with my baby possible.
What's that, Wes?
What you got there?
I continued doing physical therapy, I continued icing,
it got to the point where I could even ride a bike again.
Finally, several months after the recovery process,
when Wes was growing up before our very eyes,
I got to play my first soccer game.
(gentle music)
I was able to run full-speed on the field,
cut back and forth, kick the ball.
Yes, sure, my knee buckled a couple times,
yes, sure, I wasn't perfect,
but I was back to doing the things I enjoy the most.
Wes, I got you an avocado.
Thanks.
Oh, yes, right in the mouth.
For more of this story,
please check out The Try Guys' new book.
You can pre-order it right now in the link below.
Our book is 300 pages of pure comedy gold
and gets pretty heavy at times.
Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow.
(energetic upbeat music)
(whimsical music)
- [Ariel] The ice cream man.
- Girl, you know I put the pop in popsicle.
- [Ariel] (chuckles) All right.