Former Sydney defender Alex Johnson has opened up about the battles he faced when recovering from numerous knee surgeries.
Johnson was a key asset in the Swans' 2012 premiership win before he did his first ACL in the 2013 pre-season. This knee injury would spark a number of complications as well as three other ACL injuries that would keep Johnson out of the game until 2018.
Ultimately the comeback would last just the five quarters of football, with Johnson suffering yet another ACL injury in the first quarter of his second game back.
Johnson's career would end on that day at the MCG. He has opened up on how the battles he faced with his knee when in rehab over the years.
Speaking on the Johnson said that the option to get the LARS surgery after the traditional operation failed didn't take as well as he had hoped.
"I had my first operation in March 2013. I started running at three months but my knee just didn't respond," Johnson told the Real Talk With Beno podcast.
"You're meant to have 2ml of fluid in your knee, I had 100ml. We had another operation and the surgeon said 'it doesn't look like it's taken.'
"I then had LARS and was able to do things, like I got through a full pre-season but it was never right."
Numerous complications became the source of Johnson's issues- with the defender having 12 surgeries in four years. He said that medically it was something his doctors didn't know how to handle.
"The biggest thing with the medical space is that it's based on what's happened before," Johnson said.
"This was presenting like something these people had never seen before. I went and saw multiple infection specialists because that's what we thought was wrong. I went into hospital and I was on antibiotics for 18 months, 12 pills a day.
"I was in and out of hospital getting IV antibiotics. So in hospital for two it three weeks at a time so they could administer strong doses straight through the veins.
Johnson said while he loved being a Sydney Swan, there were times he couldn't cope with being at the club due to the long recovery.
He said that while people at the club did their best to sympathise, they just weren't able to relate to and understand what he was going through.
"There are times where you really just don't want to go into the club," Johnson admitted.
"Purely because you don't want to be asked the question. Before I did an ACL I didn't really understand it or the process. These guys (teammates) didn't really get it (either).
"They'd ask how I'm going and I'd say good, but I wasn't. I was in a holding pattern for months.
Johnson went on to detail just how bad things got when another reconstruction didn't work and had immediate ramifications that went far beyond his football career.
"The end of 2015 was probably the worst. That was after the fourth reconstruction didn't work. It was in there for six days and my knee blew up and I couldn't walk," Johnson said.
"I was living on my own in Sydney at that point and rang Mum down in Melbourne. She jumped on a plane straight away and I went to the doctor. They rushed me to hospital because it was the angriest it had ever looked. my knee was the size of a footy, it was unbelievably big.
"They rushed me in and they thought it (the infection) was going to take over the whole body.
"That's when conversations happened with the club where they said 'clearly this isn't working for you, maybe you should think about something else.'
"Those thoughts had entered my mind but I never really entertained them too much."
