Rose: Agony of injury to joy of fatherhood
by Jeff Zillgitt, USA TODAY Sports
DEERFIELD, Ill. — Everybody, Chicago Bulls general manager Gar Forman says, wants to know when All-Star point guard Derrick Rose will return. “We would like to know the exact date,” Forman says.
The return date remains a mystery to Rose, who hasn’t played a game since tearing the anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee last April in the opener of the 2012 NBA playoffs.
“I’m not coming back until I’m 110%,” he says. “Who knows when that can be?”
It tugs on Rose, who revealed his emotions in a wide-ranging interview with USA TODAY Sports, his first since the season began. As it concluded, the new father said, “It’s great (to) get that off my chest.”
It had been confined inside him, for the most part, the impact of that devastating injury. “That’s a day I don’t want to remember,” he said.
What Rose recalls in excruciating detail is the pain after the May 12 surgery: holes drilled in the tibia and femur, replacing the torn ACL with a piece of the patellar tendon.
“My health was terrible, where I wasn’t eating,” Rose said. “They put me on medication. And when you’re not eating and taking the kind of medication they gave me, it can mess up your body. It messed me up for like a week where I was throwing up consistently every day.
“I couldn’t walk. I was in pain. My hamstrings were on fire. They had to block the nerve in my leg, so when that nerve block wore off, the pain came. It felt like someone was hitting my hamstrings with a sledgehammer.”
The humble star became even more humble and more appreciative of those around him, such as his mother, Brenda, and his brothers, Dwayne, Reggie and Allan.
“With that injury, you can’t walk. You need help,” Rose said. “Knowing that, it’s all right for someone that loves you to take care of you.
“I’m a loner. I’m used to do everything myself. For someone to help me out in a physical way, it was different. Helping me up out of the bed. That was something I could easily do. But everything … [For more on Derrick Rose: From agony of injury to joy of fatherhood, click here.]
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