December 6, 2007

Stupid is as Stupid does

In the interest of needing to know everything there is to know before my appointment with my surgeon tomorrow, I was doing a little "research" on the internet.  I’ve read countless ACL surgery journals, warnings about not having the surgery, warnings to have the surgery, and have seen plenty of pictures that made me feel like I was going to pass out, come to, and go right back out again.

Do you recognize me?  I’m the patient who comes to the appointment with 15 print-outs from the internet, medical studies, photos, personal accounts, and 138 questions, all of which I want answered in explicit detail.  I’m the Need-To-Know-EVERYTHING girl, even when knowing everything will probably only makes me stress out worse.

In the interest of convincing myself that I don’t need to have surgery, I spent all day yesterday convincing myself that I could live with the irritation and discomfort.  "Hey, look at that! I just turned and my knee didn’t give out. I’m still getting better.  I don’t need the surgery." 

It was then that I did something really dumb.

I was standing in the kitchen and I thought that I would slowly, carefully walk through a kata or two to see how it went.  Would my knee feel stable?  Would it hurt?  I had to find out. 

I made it through Nai Hanchi Shodan and Nidan just fine.  Wansu was even o.k., if you keep in mind that I kept my stances short and didn’t have all the right angles in my legs.  I thought I’d try Seisan.  I was over confident, c-stepped and when I pulled my back foot up into stance, it felt like I left the lower part of my leg a foot behind me.  It hurt so badly that I couldn’t even scream.  My kids just stared at me as I stood there willing myself not to cry.  The pain was excruciating. 

There is absolutely no way I can return to the martial arts without having something done.  If I can’t c-step, I can’t do kata.  It’s just that simple.  Would a brace be able to completely prevent that from happening?  I just don’t see it.

Genius that I am, I did something else really dumb later in the night.  Mr. BBM went to bed early and I was left alone with my computer and worry.  When Project Runway was no longer on to distract me, I started googling again. 

When I was newly pregnant with Big I, TLC’s Birth Story became my favorite show.  I wanted to watch c-sections, natural deliveries, epidurals, and any possible complications.  I wanted to be prepared for anything.  Watching all those births made me realize that I wanted a natural delivery, and that’s just what I had, twice. 

However, nothing could have prepared me for what I saw when I searched on YouTube for "ACL surgery."  I made it through about 30 seconds before my stomach started reeling against the offending video.  The surgeon was poking holes into a seemingly lifeless knee that made me equate it to carelessly punching holes in paper.  The way they were moving his knee, how rough it looked, all the equipment and some poor guy with tubes sticking out of his mouth. . .I had to turn my head away and turn it off.  I put my head in my hands and willed myself not to cry. 

Seeing that disturbing footage put out there by a surgeon as he explained the surgery made me think about a line I heard while watching "Grey’s Anatomy." The residents were discussing Orthopedic surgery and equated it to carpentry. The person that wrote that line is so right.  Knee surgery is like carpentry, and my leg is probably going to be the "wood."

When I was trying to think of a name for my blog, almost two years ago now, I contemplated "Green Belt Mama" because that’s what I was at the time.  I thought about "Brown Belt Mama" because that’s where I was heading.  Both of those titles though, were only a stop along the way for me.  They didn’t have long-term go power.  I kicked around the idea of "Karate Mama" as well, but settled on "Black Belt Mama" because that was my destination; and it had a catchiness that I liked and thought people would remember. 

Lately I’ve been thinking that renaming my blog to "1st Kyu Forever" would be more fitting.  This is going to be more than a dreaded layover at a crowded airport, or a temporary detour that gets you home 10 minutes later than usual. For now though, I’m going to try not to worry about all of that.  Instead I’m just going to continue to stress about tomorrow.  One hurdle at a time. 

***The latest post is up at The BBM Review.  If you’re looking for a good family movie to watch, go and check it out. Make sure you enter the Baby Jamz contest too. 

  • Print
  • email
  • RSS
  • Digg
  • del.icio.us
  • Technorati
  • StumbleUpon
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn

Comments