Washington rookie running back Derrius Guice had his injured knee get infected and required an additional three surgeries after an ACL repair surgery in August didn’t go as smoothly as anticipated.
According to Kareem Copeland of the Washington Post, Guice developed an infection that lasted two months after the initially surgery. It required three different follow-up procedures to flush out the wound and forced Guice to be on intravenous antibiotics for a period of seven weeks. He was getting IV antibiotics up to three times a day for multiple hours at a time.
Additionally, the infection left him dealing with flu-like symptoms as well. The whole ordeal forced him to stay away from Washington for much of his recovery as he had to get constantly evaluated by doctors, including Dr. James Andrews, at his clinic in Florida.
“It really sucks, man,” Guice said. “Everywhere you go, you either have people asking how your knee is, how your rehab is going . . . or asking why you’re in Louisiana. ‘Why are you not with your team?’”
Guice said the complications are now behind him and his recovery is back on the correct path. However, it’s uncertain exactly when he will be fully healed and able to retake the field.
Quarterback Alex Smith recently developed complications of his own stemming from surgery to repair his broken leg sustained last month. New England Patriots tight end Rob Gronkowski has had infections in his surgically-repaired elbow. Several different NFL players through the years (J.J. Watt, Joe Jurevicius, Lawrence Tynes, Daniel Fells, etc.) have been inflicted with staph infections that were serious enough to put their playing careers in peril or end them altogether.
It seems to be a given that every sports injury and the surgery to repair it will go as planned. Sometimes it doesn’t and the trickle down effects can be extremely difficult to endure.