DOOHAN UPDATE: UNDER THE KNIFE
BY MICK DOOHANI've been back in (the) hospital again over here in San Francisco. I tell you, you don't get used to this kind of thing, you just get sick of it.
This has been a weird kind of year for me - I've been down and out too often! Lying in hospitals and hotel rooms isn't my idea of a tremendous season, I'd much rather be out there on the bike, but I guess I've got no choice.
The surgeons did the operation on Friday and I got out of hospital, back to my hotel room, on Sunday. They operated on both my legs, taking the hardware out of the right leg I broke at Jerez and adding a bone graft around the break site to help along the healing process.
The guys reckoned there was too much metal in there around both sides of the bone, they thought that was causing a few problems, so they pulled it out. The other knee needed fixing for some ligament problems. I did my cruciate ligament a few years ago and then I did the posterior ligament when I crashed at Jerez, so the whole knee was pretty unstable, it had got to a point where they had to fix them.
The knee was the main reason I've been limping so much. The surgeons had been planning to do the ligament work when they took the metal out of my wrist a month back but they decided to postpone it. They fixed me up with some donor ligaments, I guess it was pretty major surgery.
I can't imagine that I'm going to be fit enough to ride at the last two GPs in Brazil and Argentina. I wasn't strong enough to hang onto the handlebars for those couple of laps I rode at Phillip Island last week, let alone 30 laps at race speed.
You never know what's going to happen about next year - I don't yet either. But I guess I've got to make a decision about whether I'm going to be riding or doing something else some time over the next few weeks. When I do make the decision, you'll be the first to know.
ENDSfive time world champion mick doohan writes an exclusive on-line column for amasuperbike.com. he is sponsored by honda, hrc, arai helmets, repsol and nankai leathers and boots.
