Minor Setback Before a Major Comeback

A friend of mine in law school used to say that as a joke pretty often, but it’s actually something I’ve tried to associate with my knee.  This injury really has opened my eyes to a lot, more than I could ever explain in a blog.  I've had a few ups and downs since the last entry, and it’s hard to talk about your progress when you aren't certain if everything is going as it should.  Tomorrow marks 12 weeks since surgery, which is a pretty big milestone.  The ligaments are still healing and scarring, but there has been enough healing that I am allowed to do most natural movements, even if not 100%.  I was making extraordinary progress for a while.  I am told I was ahead of schedule on the “accelerated” ACL recovery timeline – which is exactly what I wanted.  I progressed to doing single leg, rotational, and jumping exercises.  Then, around week 10, I had a lapse in judgment.

Well, less of a lapse in judgment, more poor planning.  I moved into a new apartment, and I didn't think to scale back my therapy/workouts that week.  I didn't lift anything exceptionally heavy, or do anything specific that hurt my knee.  In fact, I didn't move any of the heavy stuff, and everything I lifted weighed significantly less than the weights I was using in therapy.  But I was in and out of the apartment with boxes, up and down stairs, and I think I overdid it a little bit.

So for the past two weeks I've been taking it really easy, without much relief.  A lot of my exercises were hurting, so I wasn't doing them.  I figured rest was my best bet.  I found a nice silver lining in that I took the opportunity to get back into working out my upper body.  Initially, I couldn't do this because (A) I was advised not to hold that much weight while standing or needing to plant my legs, and (B) I was spending any available workout time on my knee.  For the past 3-4 weeks, I've just been a combination of lazy and nervous to start doing upper body stuff for fear of seeing how far I had fallen.  Burying my head in the sand definitely didn't help, but I recognized the “problem” was all mental and have started taking steps to address it.  Better late than never!

I saw my surgeon today – I was going in for the 12 week post operative consultation.  This is the first time I would be evaluated to consider starting a jogging program.  I was certain that with the knee pain I've been experiencing and the swelling I still have (small amounts, but it’s there) that his advice would be a hard “no running yet, wait a few more weeks.”  Much to my surprise, that was not the case.

The short story is that everything I am experiencing is normal, and probably not even related to anything I did.  I had become very nervous that I would need a second surgery to tighten up my MCL.  He was adamantly against that idea.  He said it is healing great and will continue to gain stability for 3-4 more months.  Most of the issues I am experiencing are related to the fact that my leg muscles are still so weak compared to “normal.”  They have improved dramatically over the last 3 months, but the road ahead is still very long.   He gave me some ways to modify my workouts to strengthen everything while taking it a bit easier on the knee.  I got the go ahead to get back into therapy full force.  This “injury within an injury,” as much sleep as I lost over it, was just a minor setback before a major comeback.

He said I could be back to full jiu jitsu classes by 5 months.  I don’t think this means I’ll be back to advanced classes, but drilling most everything, maybe light rolling.  I’m still going back to class some time in March, even if my participation is limited, and even if it’s just a few classes per week.

Oh, he also said I get to start jogging tomorrow too.  Watch out world!