Member of the Club and Sadness

In the past two days, I've met four people who have torn their ACL. Two people I mentioned in my previous post. The third was a guy carrying out my groceries at Trader Joe's. The fourth is a friend who tore her ACL a few weeks ago. Hers is more complicated than mine. She doesn't have a complete tear, which puts her in limbo as to whether or not to have surgery. We talked on the phone this week about the challenges of recovering from the surgery. It was interesting to ponder--especially at this stage of not being fully recovered--if I would recommend to someone else to have the surgery. I guess the best answer is "I don't know yet." On the other hand, this club is pretty large as I am discovering. Everyone I've me seems to have come out of this fine, or at least close enough to where they were to start. I have one friend who said her knee is not the same, but it is good enough.

I was at PT yesterday and was talking to another patient next to me with an ankle injury. At the end of my appointment, I saw him laying there with his foot propped up and his ankle bagged in ice. Yesterday was a day of super fit people working out, probably working on the end of the physical therapy term of treatment instead of being in the acute phase like me. Seeing someone iced up really stood out to me. I felt sorry for him, wondering what happened to him, thinking How unfortunate. Then I realized I was in the same spot only with ice on my knee. 

He hurt his ankle plain basketball. He was probably in his thirties, and would get back to playing basketball again. This made me think about my mom, and I became the Debbie Downer of the PT room.

Sadness from the Pixar movie "Inside Out."

My dad told me my mom was recently moved to a wheelchair in her Memory Care Unit where she gets treatment for her Alzheimer's. She has a difficult time walking due to spinal stenosis, which is problem with spine. She did go through physical therapy, and they did evaluations. My mom can walk when she takes bigger strides, but she can't remember that how she is supposed to walk, making this not very effective. My dad is glad she is in a wheelchair so she doesn't fall. If she fell, I could see that being a disaster, especially if she broke her hip. She would have a difficult time coping with injury. My biggest fear is that her legs will atrophy and then walking would be completely out of the question. I thought of how atrophied my left leg became after I didn't use it for three weeks, and how hard I had to work to get it to function again. I hesitate to say back into shape, because it wasn't even close to being able to go downstairs on my bad leg, walk for long distances, or jog.

Oy. I at least feel glad that the goal of my therapy is to get me back to skiing again eventually. I feel bad for my mom, whose condition right now doesn't permit her to recover back to a point where she previously was.

Maybe I am wrong about my mom's decline. Maybe it won't be as bad as I think it might be. Maybe the reason my leg atrophied so fast was because of the injury more than the lack of use. Evan said my quads stopped firing in part of protect my wounded knee. I asked my dad if my mom will need someone to push her or if she could get around in the wheel chair by herself.

"The people in wheelchairs move around like ducks," he said. "They paddle along with their feet and slowly move their wheelchairs forward." He laughed. There is one part near the dining room that has a low wall. "You can see their heads gliding along."