This ACL repair has a nine month recovery after surgery, and I am about three months into it. Today I realized I have six months left. Six months! I had a serious case of magical thinking that I would be special and be ready so much sooner than everyone else and the advertised length of recovery. This isn't meant to be whining or complaining. Instead, I was caught by surprise by the plateau in my progress. I can see where people just say "Forget it. This is good enough. I want to get back to my life without the hassle. Thanks." Even though I want to, I can't say forget it. This is exactly where I need to dig in if I want to walk down stairs like a normal person.
I also didn't realize that the recovery would have ups and downs. I thought it would be a steady rise in improvement. Instead, I get in good enough shape to further push my leg and knee to new levels of work, which means it get stiff and sore and needs to be iced up. I thought this phase of swelling and stiffness wouldn't come back, but it did. I long for the days when my knee is just like a regular knee that needs no more attention than any other part of my body.
There is the old expression that time heals all wounds, but in this case that isn't true. Working my leg and doing exercises will heal my leg. This work takes time, but time by itself isn't sufficent to make it better. The plan for what I thought and what my physical therapist thought would make my leg better didn't work. My body had other ideas, and here we are, my physical therapist and I, scrapping together a plan to figure out how get my leg to behave. I know I will get there, but I didn't think it would be so complicated and so time consuming.
I think this disheartenization comes from my re-igniting my quadricep this week. I realize all of the exercises I have been doing for the past several weeks were not as effective as they should have been; hence, I wasn't feeling too bad because I wasn't exerting myself enough. The closest thing I can compare this to is being pregnant before I had a miscarriage. I didn't have any morning sickness and I wasn't tired. I felt great! And that was bad. I should have been at least been uncomfortable, not feeling like a regular non-pregnant person. Now that my quad has been found, I am achy, sore and not happy about it. If I felt this miserable last month, I would have expected it and therefore would not be disappointed. Feeling crappy after feeling good is like getting a rebound flu.
There is the old expression that time heals all wounds, but in this case that isn't true. Working my leg and doing exercises will heal my leg. This work takes time, but time by itself isn't sufficent to make it better. The plan for what I thought and what my physical therapist thought would make my leg better didn't work. My body had other ideas, and here we are, my physical therapist and I, scrapping together a plan to figure out how get my leg to behave. I know I will get there, but I didn't think it would be so complicated and so time consuming.
I think this disheartenization comes from my re-igniting my quadricep this week. I realize all of the exercises I have been doing for the past several weeks were not as effective as they should have been; hence, I wasn't feeling too bad because I wasn't exerting myself enough. The closest thing I can compare this to is being pregnant before I had a miscarriage. I didn't have any morning sickness and I wasn't tired. I felt great! And that was bad. I should have been at least been uncomfortable, not feeling like a regular non-pregnant person. Now that my quad has been found, I am achy, sore and not happy about it. If I felt this miserable last month, I would have expected it and therefore would not be disappointed. Feeling crappy after feeling good is like getting a rebound flu.
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