The Third Wheel

Monday morning this week I woke up and I was in a bad mood. When I am grouchy, I try to do this exercise where I ask myself:

1. What am I feeling?
2. Why am I feeling this way? Is there a cause?
3. What am I going to do about it? How will I react?

I’ve had to adopt this strategy since I started working again as it is not acceptable or sufficient to haul off and tell people they are pissing me off. But don’t think I’m all zen or whatever. I’m not.

So Monday I am grouchy.  Did I watch too much Ali “being a stay-at-home mom is like being in solitary confinement” Wong and now I am hostile at the three people who put me there?

Yeah, possibly.

This past weekend was my daughter’s prom and Mother’s Day.

First, the boutonniere debacle. Claire-Adele ordered flowers to be delivered for the prom. For Winter Ball, her boyfriend wanted to get her a corsage and she did not see the point of spending an hour of money she earned on something that she’d wear for a night then it would shrivel and die. For prom, she got the point and ordered flowers without fuss. She failed to check her voicemail until Saturday afternoon when she heard a message from earlier in the week from the florist saying they couldn’t deliver her flowers because they were slammed with Mother’s Day orders. She learned Saturday around 1:00. She was leaving for dinner at 7:00.

She was stressed. Jack drilled her with questions: Did you get a confirmation? Did you call them? Did you get your money back? The Boy said he was going to call the florist and yell at them until they brought her a flower. She became more stressed.

I looked at the Boy and Jack and said, "You guys need to go buy some bike parts" as I shooed them out the door. Claire-Adele went to her room and cried.

"What do you need me to do?" I asked. "The roses are in bloom in front of the house. We can make something."

"Leave me alone for five minutes," she said through sobs.

I thought for three minutes. I yelled up the stairs, "I can call Met Market and see if they can get you a flower."

"I am texting Robby," she said. "Okay, call Met Market."

I did. The woman at the other end of the line was as cheerful as a florist could possibly be before Mother's Day. "I can get you something by six. Does that work?"

"Sure." I told Claire-Adele.

"Robby got flowers from the Safeway where he used to work," she said. "Can you cancel yours?"

After the crisis was narrowly averted, neither Robby or I were going to cancel our flowers. Better to have two boutonnieres than none. "Robby can wear two," I said.

When he arrived and flower time came, Eleanor pinned on Robby's lapel the flower Robby brought. Of course she should. He's the boyfriend. I'm just the mom. It is my job to stand back and let her stand on her own. She should take his flower.

But still. I decided to not let a good rose go to waste, so I unwrapped the flower and put it in a vase by my kitchen sink.

Then next day was Mother's Day. Jack and I decided to go for a bike ride, and I was delighted the Boy decided to join us. It was a warm, sunny day, prefect for a ride across the 520 bridge. When we got to the park on the Eastside, we admired the view for a bit and then I was ready to go back home.

"I'm hungry," said the Boy. Which means his hunger has slowly been building for a while and now he was ravenous. 

"Why don't we go back and got to lunch in Ballard?" Ballard is full of fun places to go for lunch on a Saturday. That suggestion was met with ridicule from Jack and the Boy.

"It is only three more miles to Bellevue," Jack said, not looking at the elevation gain. As we left, we rode down a giant hill. Which meant on the way back I'd have to ride up a giant hill. Fuck. And then there was the mile uphill climb. The ride to Ballard is along the water and is as flat as a any ride you can find in Seattle.

Jack and the Boy were consistently twenty yards ahead of me. Once in a while, Jack would turn around and yell "You can do it!" Just because I could do it, doesn't mean I wanted to. And this was Mother's Day. It was supposed to be my ride and it was turning into theirs. I was getting pissed and I was the weak link, holding them back. Plus, I was carrying the Boy's water.

Literally.

We were the sweatiest people Bellevue Square has ever seen. Truckloads of people were dressed up and at the mall on the nicest weekend day of spring so far this year. It was weird. I didn't bring my saddle bags, so I couldn't shop--for much! I did manage to get a little "treat yourself" Mother's Day goodies in my fanny pack from Lego and Lush. The boy got Jamba Juice.

I was in need of some powerful feminine energy after riding with the Boys. And lip gloss.

The ride from Bellevue Square back to the 520 bridge wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. When I got to the bottom of the steep part, I found a mantra--In two months, I'll be in London. London is flat. There are no hills in London. Magically, the hill I was terrified about wasn't nearly as killer as I thought it would be. Evan, my physical therapist, would have been proud.

At the end of the day, I had fun slogging to Bellevue Square, even though I was swearing under my breath for the second half of the ride. I had 16 miles to add to my "Bike Everywhere" log for May.

So why was I so grumpy on Monday? Did I watch too much Ali Wong over the weekend and I was deeply pondering the inequity women face in the world?

Perhaps it is the realization that for so long, my world revolved around them, and that there never will be a day where their world revolves around me--not that it should. Still--I'd like a weekend where I am not the third wheel in my family events.

(Second) Worst. Ski. Day. Ever.

Some people say that any day on the slopes is a good day. Those people probably have never been taken down the hill on the sled by the ski patrol. My worst day skiing was the day I tore my ACL. My second worst day skiing ever was yesterday.

Saturday, I took the Boy and one of his friends to Snoqualmie. It was the first day Central was open. The boys had wanted to go to Alpental, but I wanted to stay on one of the smaller hills. I started my morning on the green run, Holiday, at Central while the boys went on the blues and blacks.  Holiday was one of the steeper green hills I’ve been on since I tore my ACL.

After about fifteen runs, I was bored. I watched several new skiers head over to the steeper terrain and thought I can do that. I've done it before. After lunch, I decided to go down Alpine. Alpine is a blue run that I have done dozens of times before I tore my ACL. I was feeling good on the greens. I figured I was mostly afraid and fear was holding me back. I did fine on the main runs at Crystal two weeks earlier.

I got on Central Express, the chairlift to the top of Alpine. The chairlift was a four-seater, and it flew up the mountain. The lift to the green hills are often fixed grip and they crawl and creep up the hills. I had forgotten how fast these new lifts are. As I was riding up, I thought about the Ski Patrol guy I met on the lift last week at West. He tore his ACL twenty years ago and was now going to skin up the mountain and ride through the back country. Cool, I thought. This guy is my inspiration.

Alpine has four main parts to the run: first, a downhill curve then a second steep part, then a third part which is not that steep and then the flat run-out at the bottom. The first part is a soft gentle curve. I manage this part just fine. It was a little bit harder than I remembered but nothing impossible. The cover on the mountain was thin, so they might not have groomed this run. There were more bumps and unevenness than I would have liked. I almost lost it once, but I recovered before I hit the ground.

The second part nearly killed me. I felt like I was going down to straight vertical drop. The snow was on groomed and it had small moguls in spots. I was terrified. How am I going to get to the bottom of this hill? I thought about taking off my skis and walking down the mountain. I nixed that idea because I'd have to get to the edge of the run and to get to the edge I have to ski there and I didn't want to do that.

Fear was kicking my ass.

Fear = 1

Lauren = 0

I was in the middle of the hill and stuck. I couldn't go back to the top and beg the lift ops guys to let me download. Instead, I turned my skis perpendicular to the fall line and marched down the hill sideways. I flattened out all of the bumps in my path, as if I were a one-woman grooming machine.

When I made it down the second part, I thought I was in luck. I didn't remember the third part being hard at all.

I was wrong.

Fear = 2

Lauren = 0

The snow cover at the edges of the run was thin. Instead of being wide open with flat parts, this was a narrow chute with bushes and ice puddles on the side. I sidestepped down this part, too. Last week, the Boy told me I should ski faster and harder, so when I crash my skis will come flying off and I won't tear my ACL. He thinks I tore my ACL because I was going to slow when I crashed two years ago. This is coming from a fourteen year old who thinks he is indestructible.

As I was slowly sidestepping down the mountain, I watched old pros fly by with grace and ease. I watched elementary school aged children turn and pass me. The only people going slower than me were a dad and his five year old daughter. As I watched people of all ages and abilities ski by, I thought of my physical therapist, Evan. I love Evan. He is a great guy and I would recommend him to anyone. But I never want to see him again. Ever. Falling is part of skiing, but I don't want a fall that will cause me to struggle walking for a year.

The fourth, flat part I managed okay. Because it was flat.

It took me almost an hour from when I left the lodge after lunch to when I skied past the lodge. I was ready to hang up my skis forever after my run on Alpine. Maybe life in the lodge isn't so bad, I thought. No, the other voice in my head fought back. Sitting the lodge sucks. You need to do another run. Go back to Holiday, even if it is dull. So I went to Holiday.

Why couldn't I do the Alpine run? Did I lose that much leg strength over two years since I tore my ACL? Even with all of my physical therapy? I couldn't believe that I had the weakest legs of anyone on the mountain. That couldn't be possible, or could it? Were my legs drained like a battery after my accident, and they have never fully recharged? Will they ever fully recharge?

In the end, the greens were too easy and the blues were too hard. Where was my "just right" run? After skiing greens all day, my thighs didn't burn at all. Usually, after a good day of skiing, my quads are on fire in a good way. If I don't need a salt bath or twenty-minutes in a hot tub after skiing, I really haven't skied. Likewise, I want sore muscles, not torn ligaments or broken bones.

I wish I could design my own ski runs. The Boy has a video game where he creates his own race tracks. My neighbor designs landscapes for gold courses. Unfortunately, ski runs are harder to modify and change, otherwise, I'd make a run that got a little bit harder every time I did it until I was as good as I once was.

Explosive & Ping

I had what I thought was going to be my last physical therapy appointment on Friday. Alas, it was not. I have one more. At least. As one of my roommates from college used to say, "Heavy sigh."

Part of me wants to be done and say my knee is good enough. I can walk, run and bike. I can ski and Zumba. Shouldn't that be good enough?

At the beginning of this process, my physical therapist and surgeon asked me what my goals were for recovery. I listed a bunch of stuff, like walk my dog, ski and play tennis. All of that was fine. I didn't realize it at the time because I couldn't foresee what my knee would be like a year later, but my real goal was to be able to move without restriction, that I could do whatever I wanted whenever I wanted. I wanted a normal knee.

I went into see Evan last Friday, and I complained. In fairness, he asked me how it is going. I take this to mean "tell me what isn't good" versus "tell me it is all good." I do tell him the good news. I told him that I had been skiing and I am taking Zumba classes, which are two significant milestones. I also told him my knee isn't as jumpy and responsive as I want it to be.

"I feel like I wouldn't be able to play tennis yet," I said. "I feel like my knee is strong, but it is sluggish. I am not sure I could chase the ball and move quickly enough."

"You need to work on explosiveness," he said. I never thought explosiveness was a tangible thing. When I hear explosiveness in the context of athletics, I think of an adjective sportscasters picked up in a thesaurus to describe basketball stars. "Explosiveness" makes it sound like I want to be a future receive for the Seahawks or play tennis against Serena Williams. Which is cool. "Explosive" is a real thing which means the opposite of sluggish. I want to be explosive. It means agile and sprightly and spry, so I can bounce and dance a jig when I want to.

In prior weeks, I was focusing on building up the final bits of strength so both legs would be equally strong. I finally passed all three strength tests (barely on the one-hop test).

"You are fine on your percentages comparing left to right, but you don't look good when you jump on the left leg," Evan said. To a person who hasn't been to physical therapy as long as I have been going to Evan, this might sound like a huge insult. It is not, especially since I knew how awful I looked jumping on my left leg compared to the right. I would stick the landing on my right leg, but would often double jump on the left leg. Not only do I have a hard time sticking the landing, but I also looked like a windmill flapping my arms to keep my balance when I landed. If my legs were gymnasts competing against each other, my right leg would get a gold medal and my left leg would be in fifth place, which is remarkable since there are only two athletes in this competition.

Evan gave me some new hopping exercises to work on to help me stick my landings. This is all good, but I wonder how much is too much. Do I really need these extra exercises, or is this unnecessary polish?

I really need these exercises. It isn't a matter of having the perfect knee, it is more about having my left leg feel equal to my right. I think back to what Evan told me a few appointments ago: when your body doesn't have symmetry, it pings your brain that something is wrong. When I flail when I land my left leg, my brain doesn't need to give me a gentle ping. It screams at me at those times. Most often, it is a quiet "ping" letting me know that I am not in balance.

I want to be in balance. I want the pinging to stop. That's not polish--that is feeling back to normal.

My Left Knee: Prologue

Hello readers: I am creating a book about recovering from my ACL injury. Here is the a draft of the prologue to the book. -- Lauren

* * * * * 

It is not like my heart was broken—literally or metaphorically—but still this was tough. It wasn’t a permanent injury, either: people heal from torn ACLs all of the time. I wasn’t examining my mortality like I would with a cancer diagnosis, but I was contemplating how my lack of mobility impacted my ability to function. I felt like I had to put my brain on hold for months while I took care of my body. It was a challenge.

My initial injury from a skiing accident was bad enough that I couldn’t walk for almost a month without crutches, a knee brace, or both. After the surgery to repair my anterior cruciate ligament (ACL)—the short ligament that connects the kneecap to the thigh bone, I was back in the brace and on crutches for weeks. Even after I could technically “walk,” I wasn’t very good at it. My gait was off, I was incredibly slow, and I couldn’t walk very far without my leg revolting, begging me to slow down or stop. The trivia of my old life—making breakfast, walking down stairs, and bathing—suddenly became the main event. After my injury and during my recovery, I saw life through the eyes of a person with a disability. For months, my biggest worry was if I could cross the street before the traffic light changed. At times, it seemed like I would never get better, but I did.

This is a survival story of sorts. Unlike Bilbo Baggins in The Hobbit, I didn’t go to faraway lands for my uncomfortable journey. I mostly stayed on my couch icing and elevating my leg when I wasn’t at the gym. My enemy wasn’t an Orc, but my own body. Unlike Sir Ernest Shackleton combating the Antarctic Ocean, my hostile environment was my home. The twenty-three steps to my house were like icebergs crashing into my vessel, making it both dangerous and onerous for me to leave my house.

There are worse things that can happen to people other than not being able to move, and yet for me, there was something primally disturbing about it. In modern times, we have wheelchairs, ramps and the American with Disabilities Act (ADA). I don’t need to outrun a bear or lion or chase prey for dinner, but what if a fire broke out in my home or there was a mass shooting in a shopping mall: how would I escape? How could I dodge a car backing out in a parking lot if I couldn’t run? As long as I had limited mobility, I felt mildly unsafe, and that was not a comfortable feeling.

The month before my skiing crash, I ran for school board and lost after a year of campaigning. Every day during the campaign, my calendar was full. When I hurt my knee, I was in a post-election lull with very little to do. After I hurt my knee, I had even less to do, which I was surprised was possible. Countless people who struggle with the inability to move lead interesting and productive lives. I was not one of them. Two major unpleasant and unexpected side effects of my injury were isolation and boredom.

Before I had my skiing crash, I had imagined that life with an injury or major illness would be a time to slow down from day-to-day stress, ponder what is important in life, read great books, watch great movies, and find inner peace. If I couldn’t find inner peace, then it would be time to be pampered like a princess. When I was in elementary school, friends of mine were lucky enough to break bones, have their tonsils out or get the chicken pox. I had none of those experiences. Dee Dee had a party when she broke her arm. She sat on the couch wrapped in an afghan while we sat around her in a circle and gave her presents. When Lisa had her tonsils out, she got ice cream every meal and got to miss a week of school. While I knew it wasn’t all fun to be sick, there was certainly an upside.

I should have known better. As a parent, I know that when a child is ill, parents do everything possible to make their child comfortable and/or distracted. Instead of this being a time of ease and introspection, I was learning to walk, ride a bike, climb stairs, hop, jump, swim, and run. W. Timothy Gallwey writes in The Inner Game of Tennis about Self 1, the talking and thinking part of our minds, and Self 2, the muscle memory “doing” part of our minds. All of the actions and activities with my legs that used to be automatic now needed to be relearned. My Self 1 had to step in and guide the way because the muscles that Self 2 relied on stopped working.

Unlike the flu where you lie in bed until you feel better, I had to work to get better. My new job was to rehabilitate my knee with the help of the University of Washington’s Sports Medicine Clinic. Getting better involved twice a week physical therapy appointments plus an hour or more of exercises every day. Their goal was to return me to sport, in my case, skiing. My goal was to move without limitations. If I wanted to ski, I could ski. If I wanted to dance, I could dance. If I wanted to play tennis, hike, climb stairs or walk my dog, I could play tennis, hike, climb stairs and walk my dog. I didn’t think this was too much to ask. I was forty-six at the time—too young to permanently assign myself to be a spectator and not a participant.

You might be reading this book because you tore your ACL, or maybe your spouse or child did. Perhaps you are a physical therapist who wants to know more about your patients’ life outside of your office. My experience may be different than yours. I am a middle-aged woman with two teenage kids and aging parents. I am married to a doctor, but I am not a doctor, a nurse or anything related to medicine. You might be a young athlete or an old couch potato. You might be curious to read this book to compare your experience to mine. In some areas, I was better than average. In others, worse.

Please note that the research-based protocols and milestones may have changed since the time this was written. For example, a few years before my surgery, continuous motion machines were in vogue. Now they are not. Treatments evolve, and sometimes you will get caught in the middle of those changes. While I can’t imagine what your experience will be like, I can say ice became my new best friend during my recovery. I don’t think human anatomy will evolve that much in a few years such that ice won’t be an effective way to reduce swelling.

I have several friends who tore their ACLs before I did. I didn’t pay attention to what was going on with them before or after their surgeries, probably because they didn’t leave their homes for a few months. After I had torn my ACL, I asked them tons of questions about the recovery process. They all had massive amnesia.

“When did you get out of the brace?” I had asked Michelle before I had my surgery.

“I think it was around a month or so. Maybe six weeks. Maybe eight. I don’t remember,” she said. She didn’t understand this was the most urgent question I had.

“When were you able to walk again without crutches?” I’d ask Greta.

“Ahhh….” She couldn’t remember.

I wanted answers and information on what it was like and how they survived. They were not helpful.

My physical therapist, Evan, was also not forthcoming with information. He is a one-day-at-a-time guy, giving me information on a need-to-know basis, whereas I wanted to know everything I was going to go through in the next year right now.

This book started out as a blog where I would track the ups and downs of my recovery. I figured out that I, too, would have massive amnesia. Amnesia can be a good thing—it helps you to forget your misery so you can move on. I didn’t want to forget, so I wrote everything down. I wanted to look back and remember and say, “Look how far I’ve come!”

This book isn’t about how I found spiritual enlightenment through an injury. I was too focused on survival to achieve self-actualization. It is about how I embraced reading People magazine on the exercise bike at the gym and watching television during the day while doing leg lifts. My saving grace wasn’t an appreciation of how much my health and family meant to me. My salvation came from the endorphins I got from forty-five minutes of cardiovascular exercise every day.

As a lapsed Catholic, I welcomed the suffering. These were my forty days in the desert, minus the crucifixion at the end. Suffering gave me the motivation to do my exercises so I could escape the miserableness of limited mobility.

The ups and downs of healing were real, and a continuous part of the process. I remember years ago riding my bike on the Tour of the Mississippi River Valley, (a.k.a. The TOMRV). The ride from Davenport to Dubuque, Iowa and back had one stretch of fifteen miles of roller hills. I call them roller hills because riding them was like riding a roller coaster. I would pedal downhill as hard as I could in my highest gears, and the momentum and speed would lift me up over the next hill. This repeated itself again and again for miles. It was exhilarating. This reminded me of my recovery minus the speed, momentum, and exhilaration. As soon as I made it over one hurdle in my recovery, I would be so pleased with myself. Then I would meet the next hill and start a new climb. Before I went into surgery, my dad told me, “It is all uphill from here. But when you get to the top, you will be in really great shape.”

I hope you find this book helpful on your path to recovery. Heal well!

Underdoing It

Jack, the Boy and I went skiing Sunday with another family. The mom is recovering from an injury, as I am. Katrina and I spent all day on the green slopes where we learned to ski again while the boys went to the terrain park and practiced jumping. The husbands/dads skied black runs.

It was a good day. Katrina skis slower than me, if that is humanly possible. This was fine with me. I was glad not to be holding anyone back.

The best part of skiing again went unnoticed until Sunday: I was wearing ski boots, ski pants and a helmet in the lodge. In the handful of times I drove the Boy to ski, I sat in the lodge in my hiking boots and jeans, jealous of the other moms skiing. I don't think they noticed me, but I noticed them. How could I not notice the empty lodge in the morning filling at 11:30 with people coming in for an early lunch, staying packed until 1:30, and then having a slow flow of hot cocoa and coffee drinkers for the rest of the afternoon. 

I was happy to stay on the green runs Sunday mainly because my legs were tired from working out so much last week. I stretched myself on my weight lifting (150 pounds on the leg press) on Thursday, and paid for it on Friday and Saturday with sore and stiff legs. I am used to being flexible, and when I am stiff I feel out of place, not like myself. 

Now that I have started skiing, I am starting to take my workouts more seriously. I have a purpose, a reason to be in shape other than being in shape for its own sake. I feel like I need to workout, to lift weights, to do my home strengthening exercises regularly. Before, I had been doing my exercises, but I was underdoing it. I would stay in the safe zone, not pushing myself too hard fearing I'd get hurt or sore. Ironically, my extra workouts to get me into shape to ski have made me kind sore and weary, which makes me hesitant to ski. It keeps me conservative on the slopes, afraid to try anything too challenging, steep or bumpy. Even though I am skiing conservatively, I feel like I am on track to go on a ski vacation with the family in the future.

I've never been a slacker or an underachiever, or so I thought. I shouldn't be so hard on myself. The workouts right after my surgery were hard and I needed to go slow. It was hard to judge when I was ready to start making things harder for myself, which is why I had a physical therapy team to push me along. I could have stopped going to physical therapy months ago, but I wanted to learn to run. I needed to push myself to do that. I wanted to become more agile, so they added agility exercises for me. I wanted to ski, so they tested my strength.

I had been underdoing my workouts for the past few months. Even though I was lifting weights and gaining strength, I wasn't lifting as much as I could. It took me skiing a few times to recognize that I could push myself harder than I had been. It wasn't that I was slacking as much as reaching a plateau. I needed a nudge, a push down the mountain, to get me to advance.

My New Trainer

My friend Carla read my blog about my needing a push to exercise. After she had read it, she sent me an email saying she would be my new trainer.

"I am your trainer asking if you did your exercises today," she asked.

"I did!" I replied. I had to after I wrote that blog post about it. Yesterday, I did my exercises while the Boy watched. He put down his phone to chat with me. I told him these were exercises to get me into shape for skiing, and he tried a few himself. Today, I ran and lifted weights, in case anyone was wondering.

I heard a story about who had a writing buddy who held her accountable for put words on paper. Every Friday, the first woman would send the second woman the updated chapters of her novel that she wrote that week. The second women always wrote back, "Good job! Keep up the good work!" The first completed a novel that was eventually published. It turns out the second woman skimmed the first woman's work, and thought she writing was weak, but she never said anything except "Good job! Keep up the good work!"

Now Carla is my workout accountability partner. Yay! Hopefully having someone to report to will keep me honest and inspired.

Last Physical Therapy Appointment (Or Not)

Yesterday, I went into what I thought would be my last physical therapy appointment for my knee with Evan. God forbid I have to go back into PT in the future for a bad back or shoulder, but if I need to go, I will go. I've seen first hand the miracles of physical therapy, and I am sold on its value to humankind.*

It has been a year since my surgery, and I've skied twice. Not once--twice. I had to prove it wasn't a fluke that I skied, and that I wasn't afraid so afraid that I would do it once and then say "I'm done." In fact, I am inspired to go to Whistler. They have the best green runs. The runs are long, and there are several runs off the same lift for variety.

I digress. When I walked into my appointment, I saw the same handful of receptionists I've seen almost every week--often twice a week--since January 2016. I told them "This is my last appointment!" They cheered and shared my joy at my completion. I was so confident it was going my last appointment, I almost pre-wrote this blog post.

When I saw Evan, I told him I've skied twice since I was last at physical therapy two weeks ago. He winced a little. "Skiing is the highest risk activity of tearing your ACL. You have a big lever on your foot that can twist your knee." I know.

He had me repeat the jumping tests to test my leg strength. I passed the triple jump and the triple cross jump. For both of those tests, my injured leg was 95% and 96% of my healthy leg. The goal to return to sports is 90%. My problem was with the single jump. There, I was only 77%. While my single jump was better than my previous test a few weeks earlier, it wasn't close to 90%.

At my last appointment, Evan commented that this was an unusual set of jumping results. Most people are closest on the single jump, and further on the triple jumps.

"This tells me your balance is good because triple jumps require balance. The lower percentage on the single jumps tells me you need more strength. I wouldn't let you play soccer yet. I might let you go back to practice at a low level, but you aren't game ready."

I don't play soccer, so cool, right? I changed the subject. "What do I need to do to maintain my leg, so I'll be ready to ski?" I asked.

"I've been giving you skiing maintenance exercises all along," he said, smiling. "That was the goal." This was good news. I wouldn't have to start anything new--I would just have to maintain.

"I would like to see your strength improve, though," Evan said. "You really need to work on that."

"Do I need another appointment, or am I done?" I asked. My tone and expression showed that I hoped I was done. I don't know why I so badly wanted to be done considering I don't mind it. I figured my goal was to ski, and I skied; therefore, I should be done.

And yet... I have a friend, Daphne, who stopped physical therapy after a few months after she tore her ACL. She could walk, so she thought she was fine. She went cross country skiing a few weeks ago, and her injured leg pooped out and gave up. It was a cautionary tale for me. Not having a fully functional leg scares the crap out of me. After I started running, I started using physical therapy more as training to get me in shape for skiing, dancing, yoga, running and whatnot. The Sports Medicine clinic's goal is to return people to sports, not just walk without a limp.

"It is your choice," Evan said. "If you think you can build up the strength on your own, you are done. If you need the pressure of not disappointing me, then you probably need another appointment."

Dang. After a year of working with me, Evan knows me too well. He knows I need the push, the check-in, the reporting back to authority. While I waffled, he gave me a new printout of my exercises.

I am not a person who is naturally or intrinsically motivated to be physically fit. I don't dislike exercise, but I was never a person to stand in front of a mirror and admire my tight buns and buff legs, or likewise to dismay at my flabby arms. I don't think I'd be comfortable if I were so overweight it impacted my ability to participate in activities of daily living, but I am not uncomfortable settling into my middle-aged spread. I'd rather read a book or work on a project than exercise. I'd rather eat good food than being hungry all of the time. Would I be happier if I were in better shape? Possibly, but I am not going to sacrifice chocolate for it or spend all of my free time at the gym. I am happy living inside my head.

Which is all why I need a second physical therapy appointment. I wouldn't do it on my own. Now, I do barely enough. I can make it to the YMCA to run, bike and use the elliptical several times a week, but doing my home exercises every other day becomes once a week if that.

So I have another appointment in a month. In the meantime, I will have to adjust to keeping up with these exercises, doing it on my own without a weekly or every other week check-in, where I am the only person who knows if I am doing my exercises or not.

When I was a kid, I took ballet classes. I loved the flow that would come after a long workout. I loved moving my body to the music. I remember one dance class when I was about ten years old, where I asked myself if I could dance forever, make it my job. Did I want to pursue being a professional dancer? It was as if the Sorting Hat from Harry Potter was placed on my head. Instead of asking which house I wanted to be in, it asked did I love dance enough to do it more than anything else?

The answer was no. Even though I loved it, I wondered how I could live an intellectual life and be a dancer. I couldn't imagine my life without going to college, without having a strong life of the mind. Even though now I daydream about being a professional dancer, I don't think I would have traded away my college degree for going to ballet school.

This question I asked myself when I was ten years old is relevant to me now. I know myself well enough that I'd rather sit down and pound out a blog post before I would choose to exercise. That when I am hungry, I'd rather eat than workout beforehand. Yet, I know keeping my knee in shape is a priority. Not being able to move would also be untenable. Given the choice of exercising when my knee is "good enough" and reading a book, I'd probably pick the book nine times out of ten.

So I am going back to physical therapy in a month. I know I need to do it, but I know myself that I need someone to hold me accountable for myself until I can develop the habit to do it myself.

* I can't say mankind. I am feeling down on the patriarchy lately.

Skiing!!! Part 3

I celebrated the one year anniversary of my knee surgery by skiing yesterday.

Meh.

I am now at the point where I have returned to being a mediocre beginner. In fairness, I am better than a beginner, but I feel like one as I am barely getting off the green runs.

Yesterday, we drove to Snoqualmie. Overnight, it snowed six inches, and it was still snowing when we drove to the mountain. The Washington Department of Transportation issued a "chains required except on all-wheel drive" announcement for traveling over the pass. Traffic was slow and treacherous. Claire Adele had just gotten back from an out of town trip, and she skipped skiing to sleep in. I feared we were going to die in a collision and Claire Adele would be an orphan. I thought about texting my friend Carla with Claire Adele's contact information in case we were killed. We survived, but I was rattled when we arrived.

I started on Little Thunder. The six to eight inches of new snow had not been groomed. Instead of corduroy, this run was reasonably packed down powder. The other runs were chopped up powder. I remember my surgeon telling me to do cruisers, whatever is easiest for me. I had Jack telling me these conditions were fine, and I've skied in worse conditions. "It is better than skiing on ice," he said. True, but this was hard. I vacillated between thinking "I am perfectly capable of doing this" and "I shouldn't be doing this." It sucked.

When I got in my quagmire, I thought about how much weight I lifted on the leg press (140 pounds on top of my own weight) at the YMCA Friday. "My legs are strong" became my new mantra as I went down the mountain.

I was feeling good, and Jack suggested we try a blue run. I was feeling confident on Little Thunder and thought why not. On Pacific Crest, I slogged through the moguls that came from the ungroomed powder. "Avoid bumps," I heard my surgeon say. It wasn't like I was seeking out the moguls--they were just there. I was fine, but it took a ton of concentration.

After lunch, I did a few runs on Little Thunder. The snow was perfect, but it was getting boring. I wanted to try something harder, so we went to a different green run. Jack and I crossed half of the mountain through ungroomed powder. I can imagine the unpleasant expression on Evan's face if he were to see me plowing through the field in snow over my boots.

We made it to the other green run. The snow was choppy, and there were more advanced beginners here. I was at the top of the run when a twelve-year-old boy barreling straight down the hill in a wide parallel stance clipped the back of my skis, and I fell. Thankfully, it was not a grand crash--just a little tip over after losing my balance. While I was extremely grateful I wasn't injured, I couldn't figure out how to stand back up while wearing the brace. Jack was already at the bottom of the hill, otherwise, I wold have asked for a hand up. I took my skis off, and in the powder, I couldn't get them back on. Finally, I asked two adults to help me. After ten minutes, I made it to the bottom. I was a little rattled, but I was okay.

The hard part now is pacing myself. Normally, I don't mind challenging myself. I had to challenge myself with physical therapy. Now, I am supposed to take it easy. How easy is too easy versus easy enough?

Ski Brace

Thursday afternoon, I got a ski brace. You'd think this would have made my blog nano-seconds after I got it, with me typing on my phone in the Sports Medicine parking garage. I would post a picture of me wearing the brace, but my leg looks like an ice cream cone with a scoop of cottage cheese on top.

"Most legs have soft tissue at the top," said Brian, the brace guy, as I complained about my flabby upper thigh.

Yes, the brace was--and is--awesome. When I put it on, I felt like the bionic woman. I was a little worried I wouldn't like it because it is a brace and I wore a brace for many weeks after I initially tore my ACL and weeks after my surgery. That brace was a big clunky monster. This one is light and sleek and designed for sports.

"People complain all of the time that the post-surgical brace slides down their leg too much," said Brian. "Those braces are designed to keep your leg immobilized. This brace is designed to help you move."

I walked around with the brace in the office. For the first time in more than a year, my left did not feel inferior to my right. It was amazing. I had a friend who tore her ACL around the same time I did. She said she went cross country skiing and went downhill.

"My leg started to give out," she said. "It just gave up."

I told that story to Brian, the brace guy. "The brace will give you stability, and stability will give you strength."

That makes sense.

"The brace is really kind of a placebo," he continued. "It isn't going to make you stronger, but it will make you feel more secure."

Brain's comments made me think about what Evan said the last time I saw him. The body and the brain love symmetry. When the brain doesn't sense symmetry, it gives the body a "ping" saying something isn't right. When I wear the brace, my brain doesn't give me the "ping," the alert that says "Danger! Avoid using this leg!" This brace brings me a sense of symmetry. Even if it isn't 100% real, it is close enough, and it should work.

Before I hit the slopes, I am supposed to wear the brace walking around to break it in. I wore it out of the office Thursday and wore it Saturday and today. It does take a while to get it on and perfectly adjusted. Unlike my surgical brace, this one needs all new adjustments each time I put it on. It takes practice to get it on correctly each time.

While I was thrilled when I first wore the brace, I am growing nervous about skiing. It is one thing to wear the brace while walking the dog, it will be another to wear it while I am getting on and off the chair lift. I am considering just riding the magic carpet the first time I go out, maybe not even making it to the chair lift.

We'll see. I'll keep you posted.

Symmetry and a Brace

I met with my orthopedic surgeon yesterday morning, followed by physical therapy. I sat on the exam table, and he picked up his my foot and shook it about.

"That is a strong leg," he told the medical student while nodding at me. "It seems stable. How do you feel?"

"I feel stronger than I did before the accident," I said. This is probably the strongest my leg has been since before I had the Boy.

"I think you can ski at the end of this season," he said. I didn't even ask. He volunteered it. "Stick to the cruisers and the groomers. No moguls, no black diamonds. Easy stuff."

"What about a brace?" I asked.

"It wouldn't make you bulletproof, but it will help with stability," he said. "Stick to easy runs where you have little chance of falling."

"Should I take a lesson before I go back out?"

He looked at me funny. "How good of a skier were you before?" he asked as if I were a total hack. I paused, and he replied, "I don't think you need a lesson." I thinking a lesson would be like a different version of the physical therapy I've been to in the past year. I'll wait and see.

After my appointment, I went to see Evan for physical therapy. I told him I am feeling fine, but I can still "feel my knee," whatever that means.

"Your brain expects symmetry," Evan said. "When something is off, it sends a message, and your brain starts paying attention. Changes in symmetry alert your brain to possible injury or illness. You will probably keep feeling this until your leg gets all of its strength back."

That explains a lot. It also means I have more work to do. I need to keep lifting weights, stretching, running, and doing the elliptical.

One of the tests for me to ski is to do a jumping test and see if my left leg is close to as strong as my right leg. At home, I put tape on the floor after each jump so I can ballpark if I am close or not. Monday, I jumped further with my left than my right. It was a miracle. I was hoping I would do as well in physical therapy where it counts. Jumping in my kitchen is like saying I can run a four-minute mile while on the jogging path, and then actually doing it in front of real judges with stopwatches and an accurately measured mile. One is not real, and one is. Practice is necessary, but performance counts.

I went to lift weights while he calculated my percentages. "You are at 92% for the triple jump and 88% for the side jumps." This was very good news. It means I am within range of skiing again.

After Evan, I met with the brace guy to get measured for a skiing brace. I am freaking out as I write this. I was measured for a skiing brace.

"What if I gain or lose weight?" I asked. "Will it still fit?"

"There is a two-inch margin so you will be fine," he said. "If you build more muscle, the brace will fit better." I am assuming he meant that the brace squishes and slides against pudginess.

"When will it be ready?" I asked. I was stalling, thinking maybe I could wait a week or a month or year or two to think about if I really wanted to ski again.

"Two weeks," he said. "Come in after your next physical therapy appointment, and you can try on the brace, and we can make all of the adjustments."

Wow. As the Boy would say, the shit is getting real. Do I really want to ski again? To get back on the horse that bucked me off, kicked me to the ground and tore my ACL? Am I crazy? I can hear my dad tease me when I was a kid and had to make a decision: "Do you really really really really really want to do this?" It is one thing to think about skiing in the distant future, and another thing to think about skiing in five weeks.

I told the Boy during dinner that I can ski this season, and he gave me a high five. Later that night, he asked me again if I was really going to try to ski in March. The Boy has a teenage memory, which means he is highly annoyed if he is told anything twice.

"Really?" he said. "You'll be skiing this year?" double-checking to make sure he heard right and wasn't hallucinating.

"It depends on the snow, but I am going to try," I said. Am I going on auto-pilot, skiing just because it is a goal, something to mark off the list in my recovery so I can say that I am done, healed, finished? Do I need an ending, closure, and is getting back on the mountain it? What about cross-country skiing or snow-shoeing? Those are snow sports that could substitute for skiing like whitefish and red dye stands in from crab sometimes. I didn't ask those questions when Don measured my thigh.

This is getting real.

Horoscope, and Jealousy or Just Left Out?

I was reading Elle magazine this morning over breakfast (egg, bacon and cheese sandwich on a biscuit) when I came across my horoscope. "Zip up your puffer and hit the powder" read the first line.

Oy. Thanks, Elle. I have a few more steps to finish before I zip up my puffer and hit the powder.  As you all may know, I tore my ACL winter skiing, had surgery and can't ski until at least the end of February. The rest of my family skis once a week, more during Winter Break. I normally like Elle and have been a subscriber for years. I wanted to scream and laugh and cry as I read this. I don't blame the magazine because they don't know. It was a good thing I was eating something amazingly delicious to wash away the pain.

I was talking to my physical therapist, Evan, last week. It told him my family was skiing and I was stuck at home or in the lodge. "It sounds like you are jealous," he said, switching between physical therapist and regular therapist. I suppose physical therapists need to be somewhat like regular therapists to motivate and inspire their patients, as well as to listen to their woes. Sometimes I have a lot of woes.

Am I jealous, feeling left out, or both? I don't know if jealous is the exact word. I don't subscribe to skiing magazines or watch skiing videos. I don't aspire to ski beyond easy blacks or blues. Jack says there are people who take "bike walks" which is a leisurely bike ride where you look at houses and coast along. Jack doesn't think it is really biking until your heart rate is at 80% max and you are constantly pedaling. To make an analogy to skiing, I am a "ski walker," happy to go at my own pace and take in the scenery as I go down. I stop and smell the snowflakes. I don't need to go full blast to get the adrenaline rush. I get enough adrenaline starting at the top of the hill. I don't need to feel afraid to have fun.

Yet, given the choice between hanging out in a coffee shop or skiing, I'd ski. Given the choice between biking and skiing, I'd ski. Before my accident, I used to find a friend and we'd ski during the week when the lift lines were super short. I was totally fine skiing without my family. So maybe I am a little jealous.

I also feel left out. My kids and husband come back from skiing and I get a report on the conditions, runs, and crowds. I wish I were up there with them, to a certain extent. They are running on the black diamonds, and I would be on the blues. I'd be holding them back, making them ski at Snoqualmie Central instead of Alpental. Or I would find a blue run at Alpental that I could manage without killing myself, and do it over and over again.

It doesn't matter if Evan and I ever will get the bottom of if I feel jealous or left out. He got to the point which was starting me on skiing exercises so I'll be ready one day to zip up my puffer and hit the powder.

Strength Training and 40 pounds

I went to physical therapy yesterday and Evan talked to me about getting back to skiing. I can walk, bike and run, so in the grand scheme of life, I am pretty functional and I should be glad. The only part I don't like is when Jack and the kids go skiing every weekend and I can't. I don't want to begrudge them skiing because it is a great sport and probably the best way to spend a day in the snow. It involves all kinds of happy and healthy endorphins, which are according to Wikipedia "a morphine-like substance originating from within the body." Fresh air, going fast, great views, learning new skills and improving existing ones? Who doesn't want that?

Evan said while it is is great that I am running, I need to continue to build strength. "People think they ski on both legs, but there are times when times when you are bearing all of your weight on one leg. Your left leg really needs to be strong if you want to ski."

Hmm. Given the choice between lifting weights and running, I will chose running. I don't consciously make this decision, but instead I go to the YMCA, run first and then think "I have to..." a) get back home, b) run an errand, c) take a nap, etc. before I go to the weight room.

"How strong?" I asked Evan.

"You should be able to lift 150% of your body weight with both legs up and bad* leg down, 100% of your weight on your bad leg," said Evan.

Dang, I thought. I thought about how much I weigh now and how much I weighed before the Boy was born.

"How about if I lose forty pounds?" I said. That means I will have to lift forty pounds less on the single leg lift and sixty pounds less on the double leg lift.

Evan nodded. "That is one way to do it. Every pound you lose takes three pounds of pressure off your knee." I can't figure out the math on that, but Evan has a degree in this so I trust him.

While Evan thinks running isn't helping my strength, it actually is. Hopefully, I am losing a little pudge, which then means I will have less weight to lift. Win-win.

* He didn't say 'bad.' He used a nicer, more neutral medical term.

Triple Jumps and Dreams of Skiing

The Boy has been checking the snow reports at Stevens, Mt. Baker, Snoqualmie, and Crystal every morning when he wakes up. He checks again after school. The snow is falling and he is excited. He outgrew his old skis and got new skis a few weeks ago, and he is ready to give them a run.

I can't ski yet. I just passed the nine month anniversary from my ACL repair surgery (yay!) but my surgeon said to wait a year to allow the allograft repair to fully integrate and heal (boo). I wasn't sure how I would feel about ski season coming back. I mostly tried to avoid thinking about it, and now it is here. Will I ride with them in the car for hours to sit in the lodge and play solitaire, read a book or drink hot chocolate? Might I be tempted to head to the rental place while Jack and the kids are high on the mountain and try the greens? Would I be able to resist? Would it make me more or less depressed?

I went to physical therapy yesterday and I asked what tests I needed to pass before they would allow me back on the mountains. Evan, Jason and I discussed this.

"These are tests that will allow you to decide when you are ready to ski," Evan said. "A year on the calendar doesn't mean anything if you are sitting on the couch the whole time."

"What do I need to do?" I asked.

Evan stood on one leg, his other leg perched behind him and he was in the shape of a tee. He flung the back leg forward and jumped on the standing leg about six feet forward.

"You're bad leg needs to be 90% of your good leg on this jump and the triple jump," he said.

I didn't think I could do one jump on my good leg, let alone my bad leg.

"Let's give it a try," Jason said cheerfully. He had more faith in me that I had in myself. We went to the open gym area and I practiced jumping. I had to stick the landing, not take a second step or wobble and put my other leg down.

For a single jump, I went about 26 inches on my bad leg and 39 inches on my good leg which means my bad leg is 66% of my good leg. Twenty-three percent more to go! I did better with the triple hops: 84.5 inches with my bad leg and 115 with my good leg. I was at 73%!

When I finished jumping, I did agility exercises, which I love. I feel like I am dancing when I do it, or that I could dance soon after. For me, getting back to "normal" also means feeling like I can move quickly without my brain stopping my body before I take a step, processing "Is this going to be safe? Will the left leg hold?" I feel like my brain has my left leg on parole, and it has to check in for approval before it does anything new.

Last night, I dreamt I was skiing. It wasn't a fantasy dream like I was flying or racing down runs that I couldn't do before, but a practical dream of my first time back on the slopes. What would it be like? My left leg wasn't agile or strong enough to keep everything in control. Would I be able to quickly stop or maneuver moguls? I could possibly avoid moguls and steep stretches, but sometimes there are tough passages that require extra dexterity that I don't have yet. I would probably not kill myself or re-injure my knee on a green, but would it be worth the risk? Sometimes the green runs are more dangerous than the blues because beginners are going down hill with little to no control.

Jack has a colleague who is a big skier who tore his ACL years ago. Each year before ski season starts, he takes a "Back to Skiing" exercise class to get back into shape before he goes downhill. Next year I plan to take the class.

Better yet, I wish there were a machine where I could safely practice skiing indoors. Treadmills are for running, stationary bikes are for biking, and rowing machines exist so landlocked people can pretend they are on the open water. I know "real" exercise is more fun than indoor exercise, but I'd love to try a skiing machine...

Dancing, Falling and Not Moving in Straight Lines

Today was probably the first day I was glad I had ACL surgery. There are times when I wonder if this was worth all of the effort. Last night, my daughter had a cultural event with exchange students from South Africa at her school and everyone was expected to dance. We did a rendition of the "How Funky is Your Chicken" with a call and response. There were several verses I never learned as a kid, and in some we were expected to squat to the ground. In another dance, we had to twist and shake. I wasn't awesome, but I could do it without needing a cane, crutch or walker. Mission Accomplished.

Today, I went to the YMCA and there were no spaces in the parking lot. I had to park several blocks away and walk, which I could do just fine. It turns out there was an event at the YMCA; hence, the lack of parking. This wasn't too big of a deal as I could walk just fine.

Famous Last Words.

For the past nine months, I've been looking at the ground when I walk to make sure I don't trip or fall. As I was walking to the Y from my parked car, I saw an empty parking spot on my left and I turned my head to study it: was it there before I drove by and I missed it? Would my car have fit? As I was pondering, I hit a patch of uneven concrete in the sidewalk. There were leaves on the ground and it was a little slippery from the rain this morning, and I tripped. I fell and my right hand scraped the ground and two of my knuckles bled, but the rest of me was fine. I didn't hit the ground like I thought I might. For the most part, I was able to stay upright. I think the only reason my right hand hit the ground was because my purse was filled with two books and a water bottle, and the weight of the bag shifted and caused my arm to fall. My ankle was tweaked, but it was fine by time I walked the extra half block to the YMCA.

That's what did happen. Let's talk about what didn't: My knee didn't slip. I didn't crash to the ground, land on my hands and knees, and break my wrist. I can't prove this hypothesis because I can't take out my ACL and go back and trip over the sidewalk in that same spot to see what would have happened. My knee held. It didn't buckle. In fact, I noticed how stable it was. Maybe my strong hamstrings and quads were holding me up. Maybe I have good balance that kept me upright. Before the surgery, I felt my knee slip when I was walking upstairs. Before the surgery, I never would have tried the chicken dance.

I think back to when Dr. Tex and Dr. Backer were discussing surgical options with me. They didn't care either way if I had the surgery or not. The question was did I want to ski or play tennis. While I am not eager to hop back on the ski slopes, I am not ready to say "No, never."

Today I realized life doesn't move in straight lines. Sometimes we zig, sometimes we zag. I want to be ready for whatever comes my way.

After I rode the stationary bike and lifted weights, I found the BOSU disc and stood on top of it while I bent my legs. I wobbled back and forth, but not as bad as I did the first two times I tried standing on the disk. I imagined this is what it would be like to ski--bend down on a wobbly uneven surface where I'd have to hold my balance as the ground underneath me squished and squashed. Maybe, just maybe, I could see myself skiing again. I survived a tumble on the sidewalk, and I was fine. Maybe I am getting strong enough to ski.

"Are you Limping?" and the Big D

I ran into a friend of mine who tore her ACL a few years ago. My favorite quote from her was "One day, my knee was fine and I forgot anything had ever happened to it." I am longing for that day.

Today, the two of us were meeting at a friend's house for coffee and we walked up the stairs together.

"Are you limping?" she asked me. I was mortified. In the past few weeks, other friends forgot I had had surgery and thought my gait was perfectly normal. Those friends didn't have ACL surgery themselves, nor did they see me walking upstairs. My gait isn't perfect on stairs yet. My post-surgical leg has less hop than my good leg.

"Yes," I said. "I have been lifting lots of weights and my legs are sore." That was true. The night before I was doing my three time a week routine of a dozen exercises. I am getting to the point where I sweat doing these exercises. I never sweat before when lifting weights or doing squats. Am I doing something right? Should I have been sweating before? Will I ever not be stiff and sore? Why can't I touch my toes anymore? I am now seven months post-surgery in a nine month recovery. Shouldn't I be coasting to the finish line? Instead, the exercises are getting harder.

My former project manager self thinks that if you plan things out and execute the plan, things should progress just fine. Often when I scheduled programs, I'd add in some slack in case a task took longer to complete or there was more work than expected. In those cases, work should finish sooner than expected.

This is not the case with my knee. I have been practicing standing on the BOSU disc, which is a large, round plastic disk with a squashy pillow on the other side. I put the squashy side on the ground and stand on the disk in a squat. My legs shake like I am having a seizure, but it didn't hurt. Evan explained that my nerves are trying to fire to help me keep my balance. This is part of the healing process that can't be rushed: I can't make my nerves grow faster, no matter how hard I try.

While I have stepped up my exercises these past few days, I have skipped biking to walk Green Lake with friends. I've also been gardening and doing other things around the house. Since I haven't been biking, the Black Dog has started to move in. I did and didn't realize how much forty-five minutes of cardio each day was keeping depression away. I made jokes about how mellow I was after exercising. I could feel myself relax, almost to the point of not wanting to be that relaxed. I've always had a little bit of an edge, and I was sad when it would get dissipated or blunted from too much exercise. The little voice that would tell me to make changes in my life would be a little too chill to tell me to do something different.

I need to get back on the bike. I need my exercise therapy.

"I Forgot"

Last week, I made my first trek around Green Lake since my skiing accident and surgery. I probably could have it around sooner than last week, but I was busy with the family over the summer.

I ran into two people last week--one at the YMCA and one while walking Green Lake. Holly at the Y asked how I was doing and I told her I was going to lift weights as part of my physical therapy.

"I forgot about your knee!" she said. I have been at the YMCA so many times since my accident, and Holly was one of the regular people around the front when I walked in. In the beginning of January, Holly saw me walk in on crutches and wearing a leg brace, back when I was lucky if I could ride the stationary bike for five minutes. She saw me after my surgery when I was lucky if I could turn the crank around once. I would rock my legs back and forth until I could get my legs around.

While walking around Green Lake, I ran into my friend Zoe.

"This is my first time around Green Lake since my surgery," I told her.

"I forgot about your knee," said Zoe. "Your gait is normal."

Zoe drove the Boy home from Rocket Club for a few months in the winter when I couldn't drive, and even drove when I could drive. She was one of the people who helped me out when I was down and out.

I was excited that Holly and Zoe forgot about my knee. It means I am moving forward and the end of this recovery phase is within sight.

I still remember. While my recovery is still near the front of my mind, it isn't the only thing I think about anymore. My knee doesn't need constant attention or worry. I can go a day with too much exercise (not very often) or too little (more often than is good) and I am not paying for it the next day. Even though my gait is normal, I still have exercises to do and weights to lift reminds me, even when everyone else has forgotten.

Activities of Daily Living v. Return to Sport

I feel like I am fully competent in the "Activities of Daily Living" category after my ACL surgery. I hadn't seen this list until today, and I am still short on one or two of the categories: home maintenance and emergency responses. I could call 911 in an emergency, but I am not sure I could run out of my house if it were on fire. Anita and I did paint several rooms in my house this summer, but my garden is a mess. When I look at my plants, I think "What happened here? Why is everything either overgrown or mostly dead?"

The list of activities is long, and I can see how far I've come since the surgery. It took awhile before I felt comfortable going to the grocery store by myself. Cooking meals left me wiped out and it was months before I could walk my dog for the hour a day he needs to be walked.

The good news is that I am pretty close to being achieving all activities of daily living, which leave the next phase of my physical therapy: returning to sport. I go to a sports medicine clinic, which is good, so the goal should be to get me back to playing tennis and skiing.

Last Friday, I asked Evan what I needed to accomplish before I returned to skiing. He kind of laughed and said, "We aren't even close to that! You don't need to worry about that yet."

He saw the deflated/sad/frustrated expression on my face and took a deep breath, "Okay," he said. He rattled off a bunch of things I will need to be able to do so fast I couldn't keep track of it all: "Hop on one leg in a diagonal direction for about ten yards, hop on one foot on your injured leg as high as you can hop on your good leg..." and a bunch of other stuff that went by in a blur.

Now I am going to physical therapy every other week with a list of about ten exercises I am supposed to do every other day at home, in addition to my forty-five minutes of daily cardio.

This is hard. I don't think I was ever been in that good of shape in my forties as I am expected to be when I return to sports. I don't know if I can hop in a diagonal on my good leg, let alone my bad leg.

Which brings me to another point: should I have had the surgery if getting back to sport is going to be super hard, as in harder than I've ever worked before? Even if I work hard, will I get to a point of being successful, or will I plateau and never reach the desired objectives?Am I willing to push myself to the point of being uncomfortable just so I can ski and play tennis? Should I have left my ACL disconnected and done physical therapy to get back into a space where I could function doing activities of daily living, just as I am now?

I've been able to push myself intellectually and in working with teams in work settings, but I've had limited experiences pushing myself physically. I've biked more than one hundred miles in a day -- that was hard. I've climbed the Grouse Grind and Mt. Ellinor. I've never been a full blown couch potato, but nor have I ever had any desire to run a marathon or climb Mt. Everest. Am I willing to work super hard to be a moderate, middle aged athlete? Are these goals realistic, or am I just comparing myself to Armando, the twenty-something soccer player I see every day at physical therapy? Clearly, it will be impossible for me to ever be in as good as shape as he is in. I don't need to be that good, but can I be good enough for tennis?

This is a fork in the physical therapy road, and I have to decide if I am going to take it.

Doubling My Weight, Normal and "Sacred Hoops"

In less than a week, my family and I will be leaving on vacation, and where we will be going will not have ellipticals, stationary bikes or weight lifting machines.* I am slightly starting to panic on how I will maintain my physical therapy exercises while I am gone. Will my leg get better or worse? I am also trying to cram in exercise before I leave to I am in top shape before I go.

I was at the Y today and saw my friend Mark who had a brain tumor removed several weeks ago.

"I rode my bike and I started exercising again," he told me.

"Are you feeling normal yet? Like you did before the surgery?" I asked.

"I can't go backwards, only forwards," he said.

"I mean do you every forget that you had surgery? Like, you are in the shower or listening to music and you are not thinking about your surgery?"

"You mean like when it isn't present in your thoughts all of the time?" he asked.

"Yeah," I said. I was thinking of normal more like a circle that goes around, not like a line where we move back and forth. I was raised Catholic, and I think of it in terms of Ordinary Time. There are time of suffering (Good Friday and Lent), times of celebration (Easter and Christmas) and then Ordinary Time which is neither. I didn't think of this while I was speaking to him, but I think of it now.

"When I look down and to the side, I have double vision still," he said. "How are you?"

"I am doing better, but my physical therapist said the more I try new things, my knee will react and get stiff," I said. "It isn't bad, but I have to think about it. Am I working too hard? Am I not working hard enough? How often should I ice my leg? That kind if thing." He nodded. The front desk at the Y is a busy place on Saturday morning, so I left him to his work.

On the recumbent bike, I was reading Phil Jackson's Sacred Hoops. I got it for the Boy to read. I thought it might help him to calm his mind. I decided to read it first, and maybe highlight the more interesting and practical passages for him. I wonder about this mindfulness and what all of it means. Jackson had an accident early in his basketball career where he ruptured two vertebrae and he was out for almost two years. I thought about my situation with my knee, and the mindfulness of recovery.

When I finished my cardio, I went to lift weights. I started on the leg press and didn't check the weight before I decided to push. Normally, I start with a low weight and work up. Today, I decided to start with a heavy weight and work down. In one move, I doubled what I could lift before. All it took was a change in direction.

* ...that I can access easily. I am sure there are such machines in France, but probably not at the hotels where we are staying.

Michelle & Hillary, and LinkedIn

Many people have seen the Michelle Obama speech at the Democratic National Convention. It went viral on my Facebook feed. I caught her speech online, and I had to stop watching at one point and watched the rest of the next day. Here is where I stopped:

"And when she didn't win the nomination eight years ago, she didn't get angry or disillusioned. Hillary did not pack up and go home. Because as a true public servant, Hillary knows that this is much bigger than her own desires and disappointments. So she proudly stepped up to serve our country once again as Secretary of State..."

This passage haunted me because I lost an election for school board last fall, and I decided to get out of volunteer work in public education. Michelle's comments stung me--it was as if she were calling me a quitter, even though she wasn't. First, Michelle doesn't know me. Second, Hillary was getting paid to be Secretary of State whereas I was a volunteer. Third, if John McCain had won, Hillary would not have been Secretary of State.

In the meantime, I am in the process of figuring out what I want to do next with my life. This is a challenge. Yesterday, I got an email from LinkedIn telling me people were looking at my profile. One of the people was my friend's father whom I got to know fairly well a few years ago. It was then I realized I haven't updated my LinkedIn page since I ran for School Board, and my last entry was School Board candidate. What should I update it with next?

November 5 to December 18, 2015 -- Recovering School Board Candidate

Chilled: Went from gas pedal firmly pressed to the floor for nine months to dead stop

• Did not manage any emails
• Did not take any phone calls
• Did not do any public speaking
• Did not raise any money
• Did not manage campaign staff
• Did laundry, quilting and cooked dinner.

December 19, 2015 -- Recreational Skier, Summit at Snoqualmie

• Effectively utilized Ski Patrol services to escort me from top of Outback to bottom of hill.
• Effectively tore ACL, MCL and meniscus in one fall.

December 20, 2015 to January 7, 2016 -- Injured person in denial.

• Learned how to use crutches
• Learned how to ascend and descend stairs using the "up with the good, down with the bad" method. As a self-learner, I discovered this on a YouTube video.

January 8, 2016 to present: Physical Therapy and Orthopedic Surgery Patient

• Learned to reactive left quadricep muscles.
• Learned to walk using "heel-toe" method. 
• Successfully completed "pre-hab;" stopped using brace and crutches prior to surgery.
• Learned the importance of icing and elevating knee three times a day.
• Didn't swear at children/spouse too much when they weren't being helpful; showed much appreciation when they did.
• Managed to limit use of prescription painkillers after surgery. Used ice, elevation and ibuprofen for discomfort as alternative synthetic opiates.
• Normalized gait.
• Increased extension in leg left from from +5 to -7 degrees in five months.
• Increased flexion from 75 to 145 degrees in four months.
• Continuing to get 45 minutes of cardio-vascular exercise a day.
• Can walk up and downstairs consistently.
• Weened self from use of disabled parking permit except when parking is a real bitch.
• Current Goal: Jogging and running.

Treadmill

I am riding the bike at the Y

The treadmill in front of me

sounds like an untuned violin.

After complaining for months about riding the stationary bike, I was back in the saddle at the Y and I enjoyed it. I read half of this week's New Yorker. Most of the articles are about the evils of Trump. I saw Mark who is recovering quite well from his brain tumor surgery. I know brain surgery has a great psychic cost than knee surgery, but the recovery and bounce back is way faster than knee surgery.