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June 15, 1998
In the last month I've been so busy that I haven't had much time to
even think about this journal. At the same time, 80 hour work weeks make
it pretty tough to keep up with my therapy protocol, but I have been
squeezing in workouts as much as possible.
I've been working on forward, backward and lateral sprinting, as well
as running hills. And I'm still spending time on the basketball court,
but still on my own. I haven't been given my full release by my OS yet,
so I'm still laying off playing for real.
The sprinting is going well, but the hill running is rough. My legs
still aren't up to that. What I need to do is find the time to do more
cycling, which I haven't had the chance to do since starting this job.
(Fortunately, it only lasts two more months, so I should be able to get
back into a more serious routine by then.) I also need to find some time
to get into the weight room and work on my quads, their still pretty
small.
Anyway, the next stop is what should be my final visit to my OS in a
week and a half, and my full release. Something to look forward to, I'm
getting closer and closer.
June 27, 1998
Well, today was the day I've been looking forward to since November
11, 1997. I saw my OS for the last time today. He officially gave me my
release. He said everything looks nice and tight and strong with my knee,
and didn't have any concerns about how things are healing up.
His advice was to stick with the exercises, keep building up the
quads, stay with the shoot-around on the b-ball court and take on pick-up
games as I feel comfortable. He told me not to push things and avoid
cutting turf sports like soccer and football for about another five to six
months (not a problem since I don't really play either one). He seemed OK
with my goals of taking up skiing this winter and sailing next summer. No
warnings about avoiding either one, or even about being especially
careful.
But I really knew I was free when he didn't ask me to set up another
appointment, instead saying, "You know where to reach me if you have any
questions."
If I, an out-of-shape thirtysomething weekend warrior, can do it, so
can you.
September 4, 1998
I've come to the point in my rehab that I have to start "playing
through the pain" so to speak. While I certainly don't want ignore
anything major happening with my knee, I need to stop worrying about every
little twinge and tweak I feel. My knee is going to hurt more and more as
I challenge it more and more, especially considering I have a long way to
go to rebuild the muscles supporting it and reacclimate it to doing more
than moving straight ahead. Two recent experiences illustrate my point.
Last week, I had a minor accident on my bike. My chain seized on the
rear cassette while I was standing up on the pedals. Since I didn't have
good balance at the time, I went over and wound up landing (in part) on my
knee. It immediately started to hurt and swell, but since I could walk
fine, I wasn't worried about having damaged the graft. However, I had
landed directly on my kneecap, and was concerned that I may have factured
the patella. I called my OS and he had me come in for X-rays right away,
which ended up showing nothing wrong. In retrospect, I realized that I
hadn't fallen that hard or that fast, so the chances of doing any major
damage to the knee were probably minimal. But since it was the first time
I had banged up my knee in any serious way, I flipped out, and was on the
phone to my doctor's office within minutes of the accident.
The second incident happened earlier this week. I was at a picnic
with my co-workers. We were tossing around a frisbee, nothing hard-core
just having fun, but I was backpedalling at moderate speed to make a catch
when my left leg hyperextended unexpectedly and there was a tremendous
shooting pain up and down my leg on both sides of my knee. It felt fine
within seconds, but it scared me at first.
As I keep working on the strength of my leg and on my overall agility,
the little tweaks and twinges should get to be less of a problem. As I
begin to regain confidence in my knee, the tweaks and twinges should also
grow much less frightening.
Speaking of which, at that work picnic, I played volleyball for the
first time since I blew my knee out last September playing volleyball. It
felt pretty good, even if my skills were pretty rusty from not having been
on the court in about 11 months.
I'll just keep banging away, and before I know it I'll be back at 100%
again.
November 11, 1998
Happy Birthday To My Shiny New Knee!
Today marks a major milestone, the one year anniversary of my ACL
reconstruction. The day of my surgery, I never thought I'd reach this
day. Being in tremendous pain, being dependent upon others for the
simplest things, it's tough to imagine ever being back to normal. I
couldn't conceive of what things would be like a year later. So, where do
I stand (no pun intended)?
The knee itself is very strong. I don't experience any instablity or
buckling of any kind. Dr. Mott, my orthopaedic surgeon, kept up his end
of this whole deal pretty well.
My left leg, overall, still needs some strengthening work. The quads
are still a bit small, but the rest of the leg is at equal strength to the
right leg. Now that I have some extra free time (actually, have some free
time at all) I'll be putting in some hours in the weight room doing leg
presses and ham curls to build up overall leg strength on both sides. For
the last two months I've been busy working on a couple political
campaigns, but now that the elections are over I have a life again, and
have time to do things for myself. Here's a lesson for all of you: Never
get involved in politics, unless you want to have a one-dimensional life
for two or three months straight. And the worst part was that I didn't
get paid a dime for what I was doing, it was all volunteer hours.
My confidence in my knee is 100%. I do pretty much all of the same
things I used to do, run, jump, dance. I haven't tried climbing any rocks
yet, but then again I haven't done that in at least a decade anyway.
And that's where I'm at, one year post-op.
Jim's ACL Journal
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