Sports Medicine Master System

Chapter 372 - 312: You Should Come Down from the Sky

Chen Yu flipped through Carter’s various medical reports. There were a lot of them, but none were as clear as what the Eye of All-Seeing showed.

When he looked up, Carter was watching him quietly.

Their eyes met, and Carter gave a somewhat formulaic smile.

The two had known each other for a long time, of course, but they hadn’t interacted much. In Chen Yu’s memory, he only knew that Carter was a distant relative of Tracy McGrady. He also recalled they had a falling out after McGrady went to the Magic, and that Carter was a quiet person who didn’t talk much.

’Oh, right, this guy also seems to know music.’ And not in the way many Black players were hyped up, just dropping a random rap album. He truly understood it, to the point where he could have gone pro.

Standing next to Carter was a middle-aged white man in a sharp suit, his hair neatly styled. He wore thin, gold-rimmed glasses and, seeing Chen Yu look up, asked nervously, "Doctor Chen, is Vincent’s condition serious?"

This was Carter’s agent, Kerry Stenberg, from IMG.

Chen Yu, of course, already knew what Carter’s problem was.

"Let’s run some more tests," Chen Yu said, calling for William to take Carter for an examination.

Stenberg didn’t follow them, sitting down to chat with Chen Yu instead.

After a bit of small talk, he suddenly asked if a herniated disc could be completely cured.

Chen Yu glanced at Stenberg’s spine but didn’t see any herniation.

After a moment of thought, Chen Yu said, "Kerry, what you mean by ’cured’ might be a little different from what we doctors consider a cure. Plus, herniated discs are different for everyone. The treatment depends on the specific situation."

A layman thinks a cure means a factory reset, but in a doctor’s eyes, the standard for a complete cure might be lower—simply that similar symptoms don’t reappear.

Take J Kidd, for example. He had an annulus fibrosus suture surgery. The annulus healed, but it healed with scar tissue.

Its functionality might be similar to the original annulus, but it obviously isn’t the original annulus anymore.

And again, every case is different. Some herniated discs require surgery, while others don’t. It has to be handled on a case-by-case basis.

Stenberg nodded thoughtfully, having caught the subtext. "So, you’re saying it *can* be treated."

"Of course," Chen Yu said with a nod, then asked about the patient.

"It’s her?"

Chen Yu then learned that Stenberg’s business wasn’t just limited to basketball; his main focus was golf. In fact, he was the agent for Tiger Woods and the "Queen of Golf" from Sweden, Annika Sorenstam.

Chen Yu didn’t play golf himself. He’d tried it for fun once, but he was so terrible at it that he lost interest.

People always said golf was an elegant sport for the upper-class elite, that all rich people loved to play it, but Chen Yu truly had no interest. He was rich now, but he preferred studying the limits of the human body.

But even if he didn’t like playing golf, he certainly knew of Tiger Woods and Sorenstam.

For instance, at O’Neal’s upcoming Christmas wedding, Tiger Woods was expected to attend as his good neighbor.

Stenberg said, "For the past two years, she’s had a persistent dull ache in her back. Sometimes after a match, or even just from a sneeze, it’ll hurt. It always subsides, but after getting it checked, it was confirmed to be a herniated disc."

Chen Yu nodded. Pain after standing for long periods was a common early symptom of a herniated disc.

And for a professional golfer, the powerful twisting of the waist during a swing requires rotating and compressing the intervertebral discs. Sorenstam had to be over 30 this year. She’d started playing golf in her teens, so after twenty years, a herniated disc was a high-probability event.

"If she needs it, she can come to me for a diagnosis," Chen Yu said.

Stenberg thanked him. After a bit more small talk, he suddenly lowered his voice and asked, "Doctor Chen, I saw in the news that you treated a patient with the yips. What are the early symptoms of something like that?"

His sudden mention of the yips made Chen Yu’s heart skip a beat.

’It hasn’t been that long since the Anjel incident.’

"What is it?" Chen Yu asked in return.

Anjel had been a relatively well-known rising star in Major League Baseball. His suicide had generated a lot of press, and the fact that Chen Yu had treated him was dug up by reporters. At the time, some smaller media outlets had even sneered that this was Chen Yu’s first failed case, that his "undefeated" reputation and "Miracle Doctor" halo had been shattered.

Of course, Chen Yu paid no attention to such reports. Anyone who knew anything about the yips understood it wasn’t an easily treatable condition, and Anjel’s death had nothing to do with Chen Yu.

So it wasn’t strange that Stenberg knew about it. What was strange was why he was asking.

Stenberg’s gaze flickered away. "I’m just asking for some information."

A thought struck Chen Yu. ’Don’t tell me Sorenstam has the yips?’

Otherwise, why would Stenberg suddenly ask about it?

After all, the yips were most common in the world of golf; the name itself even came from the sport.

’But I haven’t seen any news reports about it.’

If she had the yips, her performance would have plummeted, and the media would have been all over it.

’If it’s not her, then who could it be?’

’It couldn’t be Tiger Woods, could it?’

The guy was only 27, right in the prime of his career and one of the top athletes in America. If he got the yips, the media would go insane.

Seeing the look on Chen Yu’s face, Stenberg gave an awkward laugh and said evasively, "I was just asking."

Chen Yu shook his head slightly. "Don’t worry. I am a doctor, after all."

Chen Yu had always been very good about patient confidentiality.

"This patient you’re asking about, have they experienced symptoms like trembling hands, weakness, or insomnia?" Chen Yu asked after a moment’s thought.

If you were talking about early symptoms, trembling and weakness were the obvious ones. However, because he had treated Anjel and questioned him in detail, Chen Yu knew that insomnia could also be an early sign.

This further supported the theory that the yips were related to stress. After all, high stress often leads to insomnia.

Stenberg thought about it seriously. Without confirming or denying anything, he just said, "I’m just a little worried that this situation might arise."

Chen Yu mentally rolled his eyes. ’Fine, be all secretive about it. If you’re not going to say anything, you shouldn’t have asked in the first place.’

Still, thinking about it from his perspective... this was Tiger Woods. If he really got the yips and suddenly couldn’t play golf anymore, the news would be as explosive as the president waking up one morning with a severe case of runner’s knee and becoming paralyzed.

So it was understandable that Stenberg didn’t dare to say anything, or at least not in detail.

As a Black man who had broken the white-dominated monopoly in golf, becoming number one in the world at an incredible speed and the face of the sport, Tiger Woods’s influence was immense, and the financial interests involved were staggering.

"Well, you should think it over carefully then," Chen Yu said, not pressing the issue further.

Soon, Carter’s detailed examination results were placed in front of Chen Yu.

His injury was in his knee—his left knee.

And this injury had first appeared last year.

On the eve of the All-Star Game in the ’00-’01 season, he had injured his left knee and almost missed the event.

At the time, it was a strained quadriceps tendon in his left leg.

Then, last season, the injury began to plague him frequently, causing him to miss 22 games.

This was all in the league’s health reports, which Chen Yu was responsible for reviewing, so he was well aware of the details.

It’s just that Carter was far away in Canada and hadn’t sought treatment from him.

Then, after the start of this season, during a game against the Rockets, he collapsed to the ground with no warning and no contact.

Another strained quadriceps tendon in his left knee.

But it wasn’t serious, which the Raptors had also reported.

That wasn’t all. After resting for three weeks, Carter returned to the team and started practicing. But on the 1st, during a training session, he accidentally collided with a teammate.

This time, he sprained his right knee.

Now both his left and right knees were injured.

This time, the sprain wasn’t severe—a minor tear of the medial collateral ligament in his right knee.

The frequent injuries made Carter lose all patience with the Raptors’ medical staff, so he flew directly to Phoenix.

Chen Yu clipped the films onto the light box and pointed at them for Carter. "Actually, your strained tendon and sprained ligament are both fine. They aren’t serious issues."

A minor, first-degree ligament tear basically doesn’t require surgery. Just rest.

It’s the same for the tendon. It’s just that since this is a recurring problem for you, it’s worth treating properly.

Carter frowned slightly. If these weren’t considered serious, didn’t that mean there was something even worse?

"By the way, Marcos must have told you that you have patellar tendonitis in your left knee, right?" Chen Yu asked.

Carter paused for a moment, then nodded.

That had been going on since last year. Basically, his left knee would hurt occasionally, and the Raptors’ team doctor, Marcos, would just treat it with medication for the inflammation.

The medication would help, but the pain would return not long after he felt better, and he’d have to take more medication. It was a torturous cycle.

"He said it was patellar tendonitis, jumper’s knee. That there was nothing to be done but treat it with medication," Carter said.

Chen Yu said, "Marcos’s diagnosis wasn’t wrong. Your strained quadriceps tendon is actually related to your patellar tendonitis. The inflammation affects the tendon’s function, making it more prone to strains."

Doctors who become team physicians for NBA teams are rarely just for show. The diagnosis was correct, but he simply couldn’t achieve the same results as Chen Yu, failing to cure it after repeated attempts.

"But that’s also not the biggest problem. The biggest problem is your cartilage—the cartilage in both of your knees," Chen Yu said, pointing to the films.

It was similar to Hill’s situation. Microscopic cartilage damage was spread throughout both of Carter’s knees, with areas of excessive wear and bone spurs.

The left knee was more severe.

At the same time, because of the inflammation, fluid had built up, making this damage harder to detect.

And it wasn’t just his cartilage; his menisci also showed varying degrees of wear.

Compared to the ligament and tendonitis issues, the damage to his cartilage and menisci was a much more significant problem that couldn’t be ignored.

These injuries were like death by a thousand cuts. They wouldn’t take you out in the short term, but over time, they would inevitably lead to serious consequences—a major, career-threatening injury.

The color drained from Carter’s face as he subconsciously asked what he should do.

Chen Yu turned to Carter and said seriously, "The most appropriate solution is to change the way you play. To put it simply, you need to dunk less."

What is jumper’s knee? It’s caused by jumping too much and too high, by the frequent bending and extending of the knee to take off, causing the patella to rub back and forth, and by putting too much force on the knee.

And the wear on the cartilage and menisci? That’s caused by the immense impact the knees absorb upon landing.

The root cause, naturally, was that Carter jumped too much, throwing down monster dunks whenever he got the chance.