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.
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The State of the Knee
The state of the knee is not good.
I had my last session with my physical therapist today before he writes up his assessment of me, my knee and where to go from here. At this point, he is recommending that I at least get my knee scoped, and probably have my ACL reconstructed. Despite working hard at it for the past month, it doesn’t appear that any amount of leg strength is going to stabilize this knee enough to get me back to the things I love.
It’s not just the martial arts either. Right now, I am incapable of kneeling to tie my daughter’s shoes. I can’t sit cross-legged and read my daughter a book. Getting down onto the floor and back up requires tricky maneuvering which always causes pain. Standing up for any length of time gets very uncomfortable, with lots of pressure and dull aching. Straightening my leg completely while walking is painful enough that it causes me to wince, and don’t even get me started on bending my knee. My knee continues to wobble within the joint even when I’m not putting direct pressure on it. It’s very frustrating, and annoying; and I can’t even begin to tell you how much I wish I could just take back that one second plant and kick from so many weeks ago. I’d do just about anything to go back in time and erase this huge nuisance from my life, because that’s exactly what it is right now.
My PT measured my flexion today at 140 degrees. That’s an awesome number but when you compare it to my good leg, it’s not so good for me. I was practically Gumby pre-injury and I just want my old knee back. I know that it’s probably never going to be the exact same again. I get that, but what I can’t stand is it staying the way it is now.
My PT told me that this time of year is pretty slow as far as surgeries go. Most people want to actually enjoy their holidays I guess. So hopefully, if surgery is the way we’re going to go, I’ll be able to get in quickly and get the first week of hell out of the way well before Christmas. I spent time reading online journals tonight about the surgery and I would be lying if I didn’t admit that I am scared, and that just the prospect of it is starting to keep me up at night.
I have two days until decision time. The problem is that there are just no good options Unfortunately, going back in time is off the table.
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Now there are NONE!
Today I went to physical therapy, and it was so crowded. After about 10 minutes of heat and stims, the nurse came over and reminded me that my next appointment is on Friday. I thought it was sort of odd that she was telling me this since I already scheduled it and I know. I nodded, sort of puzzled, and she went on to say, "You know, you’re not supposed to be here today. Your appointment was actually tomorrow."
I have absolutely no clue what day it is ever. Thankfully they were able to fit me in and my PT was super nice about it, saying that he was going to have a busy afternoon, but that tomorrow he’d be happy about it when he had one less patient at the end of the day.
I did all the usual exercises, added a new one in as well, got to use some tension on the bike today and bumped my time up to 12 minutes. He told me to really go for it, so I cycled as fast as I could. I broke a sweat and it felt great. I walked to the leg press machine without my crutch and asked him when I could ditch it. "You can ditch it as soon as you feel ready" he said.
Physically, I’m there. I added another 5 lbs. onto the leg press machine, completed three sets of leg curls and decided I’m done with the crutch. I’m the most stable I’ve been since the injury happened. I’m not twisting, pivoting or turning with weight on it. I’m sort of robotic as I walk in straight lines but it’s so much better than walking with crutches.
After PT, I stopped at a mini-mart. The guy who held the door for me looked at me a little strangely as I very slowly walked through the door; but I did it on my own without a crutch. For the first time in nearly five weeks, I am crutch free and despite the slow pace at which I’m moving, I am so deliriously happy to be without them. I have two more physical therapy appointments before I see the surgeon again. I feel far from perfect; but there is no doubt that I’m improving. Ten days until decision time.
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And then there was one. . .
I arrived at physical therapy today expecting to be set back again; but that didn’t happen. I increased my leg lift weight up a pound and did them without a problem. I was able to do my quad sets without a rolled up towel underneath my knee. This was the first time for that. I was excited about that alone.
When I got off the table for my weight-bearing exercises, I was able to move all of my weight onto my left leg and lift my right foot off the ground. My PT’s eyebrows went up a bit in surprise. He asked me if I could stand on my left leg and bend my right leg at a 90 degree angle, totally lifting my foot off the ground. I could and I did. I held it for 10 seconds. I did it again.
He asked me if I could do it without holding onto the table, and I did it eight more times. I wasn’t completely stable. I wobbled a bit inside the knee joint, but I concentrated on squeezing my leg muscles tightly and that seemed to help. My PT exclaimed "AWESOME!" and told me I could ditch a crutch.
One down, one to go. . .
I rode the bike for seven minutes, added five more pounds to the leg press machine, and then moved on to some new exercises. During the last set of the new exercises, that awful wobbling inside my knee happened and it shot pain throughout my knee again. I gasped.
My PT heard me and asked me if what I had been trying to describe to him had happened. It had. He told me that hopefully, those incidents will occur less and less as I get stronger and feel better. If not improved by the time I see my surgeon, my PT said my surgeon will probably scope my knee to take a look to see if it really is the torn ACL causing me the pain and problems or if I maybe tore my meniscus a bit or am just having issues with a floating foreign body or scar tissue.
He said that frequently, people go into surgery thinking they’re having their ACL reconstructed and they come out of surgery having only had their knee "cleaned out" or a small tear that didn’t show up on the MRI repaired instead. Sometimes, people wake up, and as they thought, they have had an ACL reconstruction. My PT said that if the surgeon does scope my knee, and nothing else is going on in there, he’ll probably reconstruct the ACL, but if there are other issues, he might just leave the ACL alone.
So, we’ll see. I have a little less than three weeks of physical therapy left before my appointment. I made great improvements today and only having to use one crutch is a nice little gift. I can’t wait until I can say, "and then there were none."
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Patience
Filed under: ACL Hell, Mental Strain for Mama, Tales from the dojo
Last week, I watched Big I’s karate classes from the sidelines. The desire to get back out on the floor again is so strong that I began daydreaming about whether or not I’d be able to balance by putting most of my weight on one foot in order to do drills where you don’t have to move your legs much. I thought about putting a chair out on the floor so that I could sit there and do the arm movements. I thought about what good exercise it would be to just balance on my right leg during class for all the drills. I could do cat stance, I reasoned with myself.
My daydreams were then interrupted by Big I’s one instructor. He asked me if I could work with one of the little girls on her punch from the sidelines. Her punches were not going to the solar plexus. Instead they were being thrust out there at about shoulder height in a very haphazard fashion. While the instructor continued with the other kids, this little girl sat beside me and we worked on punches.
I told her to watch herself in the mirror and aim for her belly. The punches were still going up to her shoulders and beyond. So, I showed her how her gi comes to an "x" almost right at the perfect punch spot. I told her that was her target, and to look at herself in the mirror and punch that "x" every time. It seemed to click; and I sent her back out on the floor to practice the next skill.
It was a nice little distraction from my daydreams, and it felt good to help someone else instead of having everybody help me all the time. I’m not playing the role of the injured girl very well. I’ve been trying to walk around without my crutches entirely too much, because it’s so frustrating to not be able to do things for myself. It’s impossible to carry a drink up to the living room when both hands are holding onto the crutches. Although being waited on was initially nice, it’s now very annoying to have to rely on other people all the time. For my independent thinking in the form of walking without crutches around the house sometimes, I paid for it yesterday.
My knee hurt terribly. At the end of the day, I sprawled out on the floor on my stomach to have Mr. BBM inspect the back of my knee. The back of my knee is SO sore. It’s sore to the touch and some of the exercises were really hurting it too. Mr. BBM said I was a little swollen. I asked him to get me some ice and attempted to get off the floor without asking for help. My knee shifted and that horrible pain shot through my knee. It hurt so bad that my eyes teared up. It’s moments like this that I’m very skeptical about being about to rehabilitate my knee without surgery. It just feels so wrong in there.
I have three more weeks of physical therapy, and then I see the surgeon again. He said that if we decide to do surgery he will get me in within a week or two. Let’s do the math: appointment on the 7th, surgery by the 14th or 21st. Christmas is the 25th. If that’s the case, I am going to have one incredibly miserable Christmas. Not knowing what’s going to happen is also driving me insane.
I told Mr. BBM that I feel like my life is on hold. My plans to test for Shodan, that had been so meticulously mapped out in my head, are now completely up in the air. With the way I’m feeling now, I can’t even imagine going up for testing in February; and if I do have surgery, summer is probably out of the question too.
Lil C is two years old and when Big I was this age, I used to wear holes in the knees of my jeans all the time. I spent so much time crawling around with her and playing with her; and I absolutely hate that even sitting on the floor to play with her is uncomfortable right now. I hate it even worse that carrying her around isn’t an option. She’s only little for so long; these years fly, and I don’t want her early memories to be of her Mommy on crutches.
I was feeling all sorry for myself last night after I twisted my knee, and I asked Mr. BBM why he thought this was happening. Is there a reason for this? If everything has a purpose, then what is the purpose of this? Mr. BBM said, when I first did this to my knee, that this is the perfect piece of "drama" for my eventual book. You know, the part in the book where people’s jaws drop and everyone wonders, "Will BBM get her shodan? Will she be able to do the martial arts again?" and so they keep turning the pages faster and faster to find out. I wish that I could skip to the end chapter and know how it’s all going to work out. For now, it’s just a work in progress and the ending is very uncertain.
As I was getting ready to leave the dojo the other night, one of my instructors said to me, "Injuries teach us patience." I’ve always believed that there is more to the martial arts than just the physical aspects. If the martial arts isn’t just about kicking, punching and technique, then maybe that is why this is happening. Apparently, I’m getting a very well-rounded martial arts education. Lesson #58: Patience.
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***In case you’re looking for the comments, I closed them on this entry. Just because I’m feeling sorry for myself doesn’t mean I expect you to.
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