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!
