February Focus: Day Twenty-One
a) Sick and tired
Whatever cold I picked up in Vermont is gone. It stuck with me for days, clogging up my nose and just making me miserable. With each reach for the tissue and a hearty blow of my nose, I wondered if this stupid cold would ever leave my system. These illnesses we’re getting these days are no longer twenty-four hour bugs. They linger and last. I was just thankful I wasn’t experiencing any other flu-like symptoms as I let the umpteenth pair of Sambucols dissolve under my tongue.
Still, being stuck in that sick rut can feel like a never-ending punishment sometimes. There are moments where you feel nothing working, and you somehow accept your nose will forever remain stuffed. You even forget what it’s like to feel healthy. But somehow, someway, things do get better, if you believe in the cycle that allows it to happen.
b) Houston, ‘re hab’ a problem
Back in 2009, I had the last of my four current knee surgeries (I foresee more in my future), and this one was the worst of all. In 2006, when I had a lateral release surgery on both my knees, I had a Novocain drip going directly into each respective knee. My 2009 doctor thinks that’s what caused my cartilage to severely deteriorate. The MRI scans showed what looked like a shattered lightbulb rustling around my joints. My cartilage was ruined. I wasn’t bone on bone, but I was getting there. So the surgeon suggested a microfracture surgery, where he’d drill holes in my femur, allowing more blood flow to heal around my joint and act as a sort of faux cartilage buffer. I was using a cane and taking major pain pills to help, so I was willing to go under the knife to alleviate this pain in the patella.
The surgery was a success. And because I was only a year out of college and incurred all my injuries while I was a student athlete, the school paid for it all. But it was a long recovery ahead. And while three months out of commission seems like a drop in the bucket in the long run, at the time it felt like eternity. Less than a week after this major surgery they had me start physical therapy, first with this weird machine I put my leg into that would slowly bend my knee for me. A few days after that I was at the actual physical therapist two times a week, who simply had me do stretches and exercises a little at a time.
In my second week, I was defeated. “What’s the point of this?” I’d ask him, “I don’t feel any better, I’m still in pain.” I just wanted to pop the Vicodin they gave me and watch Seinfeld. But he persisted and pushed me, telling me it doesn’t feel like anything is happening, but the more I rehabbed it, the more I’d feel it working. Sure enough, over the next two weeks, enlightenment. I was scooting myself across the room, using my heels to walk forward in my rolling chair. I could bend my knee more and the pain was lessening. I could even lift a two pound ankle weight. All because I persisted and wanted my knee to get better.
Fifteen years later, my knee is not 100%, but I’m wearing heels no problem. I can’t jump very high, but I can still bend and squat when I feel up to it. I did it. I fixed it. Looking back, I can’t believe how ready I was to roll over and let the hurt consume me. And if it weren’t for a persistent specialist who wouldn’t let me fail and my openness to the process, I may have let it win.
c) You can do it too
It’s very easy to look around and think things will never get better. It’s how I feel sometimes when I walk around the city, or when we get a new statistic featuring all the illegal crossings we’re allowing to happen. It’s bleak. My knee operation was bleak. But I got better. Even in the most dire of situations, things tend to work out for the better, even if that journey comes with immeasurable pain.
The thing that worries me the most is “when all this is over,” people won’t be interested in making things better. They’ll instead want to whine and complain how things didn’t ultimately go their way. Maybe they’ll never be able to cope with the fact that they’re wrong. But as the old adage goes, you can’t help anyone who doesn’t want to help themselves first.
That’s why I hope “when all this is over,” those who saw it coming can act as guides and rehab specialists all their own. The man who helped me all those years ago wasn’t a better person than me, he just knew more than I did about what would make me feel better. And with a little trust and faith, I was healed. We can get there too if we just believe. Pray we have the benefit of anesthesia so we can simply wake up to a working world.
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