On the 18th, everything is going to change. It’s the day I’m scheduled for knee surgery. Every day I think about all the things I do other than just biking/running and how I won’t be able to do them for quite awhile. Just getting up to go to the bathroom makes me think: this is going to be a major chore with crutches. So, I’m walking around as much as I can because in a short while, I won’t be able to do it anymore.
At this point I’m not entirely sure how I’ll get around at school to get food and get to the office. I’ll have to find out during the pre-surgery doctor visit if I’ll be able to bend my knee to sit down or get into a car. I won’t even be able to drive my car since it’s a stick and the left knee is the problem. In fact, other than running, I feel the knee the most when I put in the clutch. I may be able to trade with my parents for awhile, but I still might not even be able to drive right off the bat.
As much as I really don’t want to do this, there isn’t really a choice. If I don’t get this done, I’ll never be able to run again. From the sounds of it, even if I don’t try to run again and don’t have the surgery, the wear on the bone will get worse and I’ll have to get a complete knee replacement. I don’t want that. So for the past few weeks and probably for the next couple, I’ll be biking. Biking doesn’t seem to hurt it much, and when it does, it only happens for a few seconds at the beginning of the ride. My bike isn’t in that great of shape, and really I could use a whole new bike, helmet, and shoes, but in a few weeks I won’t be able to use any of them, at least not for a long while. I could try saving up for some new stuff and wait until the late fall/winter when I’ll be able to use it again (hopefully).
I really don’t get that much pain right now, my knee is more of an annoyance if anything, so it seems that the cure is worse than the disease. At least for the moment. Reading other people’s experience with microfracture surgery tells of really long recoveries, with some people having more pain than before they were operated on. It seems that a lot of people went in thinking they were having a meniscus tear removal which has a very quick recovery time — some people are allowed to walk out of the hospital from that one. Instead, some people wake up and find that they had microfracture and then won’t be able to walk for 4-8 weeks. At least I can go in knowing that already.
It seems quite a few people are able to return to running with their knee better than before. One guy has a website that chronicles his whole experience. He has run several marathons since and says he never felt better. Hopefully I can use that as motivation. From the sounds of it, I won’t be able to do much of anything until the crutches come off, and then I can do some stuff in the pool along with whatever the PT people tell me to do. After about 3 months or so it looks like I’ll be able to use the road bike again, and then a month or two after that maybe running. It just depends on how everything turns out. The doctor/surgeon seemed very optimistic and seemed to think that I would be able to run again with no problem. I hope so. It’s just going to be extremely frustrating between now and then, especially since I will get completely out of shape. Even the guy who has ran six marathons since his surgery said he lost a ton of muscle mass in his legs and never got it back.
With all that’s going on (or not going on), I feel so disconnected from the world I live in. Everyone I really was good friends with has moved on, yet I am still here in Williamsburg. The bad thing is that it’s so dead here in the summer, especially on the weekends. I’ve gone home nearly every weekend just to escape this place. A lot of the excitement in my life has ended with my time on the xc/track team. There were always races and workouts that loomed in the near future, but were great when you had a good one. There’s just been a huge void ever since that has ended, and I’ll never be able to go back to it. Even if I am able to run again, running workouts with the team (if I could) wouldn’t be the same since everyone is different and much younger.
That said, I still enjoy the work I do. It isn’t too hard, but not too easy, either. It will give me good opportunities for the future. In the past, I made a few big decisions based on stuff that was happening in the present instead of thinking ahead. For the most part they turned out okay, but sometimes I wonder What If. There isn’t any going back in time so I have to do the best with what I’ve got, and sometimes it wouldn’t have mattered anyways. Like my knee, for example. I don’t think I could have changed anything even if I went back in time to early January and told my past self that within a few weeks it would blow up and it would lead to this whole mess. If I had not run that day or gone later or something, it still probably would have given out sooner or later. The previous two years of twisting my ankle and other punishment just gradually took its toll and caught up with me. I guess it would have been possible to go back even further and tell myself to take it easy on the trails, but even that I’m not sure about. What’s done is done and now it’s time to face the future. Here’s to hoping it will turn out well.
Recent Comments