I Swear I Can Write

Two Knees in A Boat: Part Two

Week 4: I didn't gather much from searching the forums, unfortunately! I'm starting to take treatment more seriously now, so I'm trying therapeutic massage and some light physiotherapy. Still limping. I don't know if it's from the driving, but the pain just flares sometimes when I'm not careful. Other times there's nothing--what's really frustrating about that is that the change doesn't happen all at once, so I don't know what induces it. But! I can sit on chairs better now.
I guess my frustration's been visible cos I think I'm getting an MRI appointment sooner, at another hospital. I feel bad for worrying mom but, honestly, I'm paranoid. What if my knee never heals correctly? And it'll pain every time I exert it?
At the risk of sounding like a broken infirmary now, I have had complications with my coccyx in the past. It never healed properly. I can't do sit ups, and I have to be very careful of resting on it. But that was the coccyx, this is my knee--much more consequential. Of course I'm paranoid!

Week 5: I think my range of movement is improving. Probably not on account of either the physio or massage, and more likely that my body is just healing. Man, I love my body, I'm so grateful that it can take care of itself (unlike some other entities residing inside of it)!
In other news, I have the MRI appointment this week. Also in other news, guess who has taken influence of right knee? Left knee! Left knee has joined the club, welcome left knee! Screw you.
No, no, I'm kidding. Yes, left knee hurts, but not nearly as badly as right knee. Left knee is just strained; she's always been a bit wobbly and lacking in good coordination. It's only natural she's stressed.

Week 6: MRI results are in! Drumroll please: We have a damaged miniscus, and affected MCL ligament!

Me: 0.5
My Doctor of a Sister: -1

What physio did the doctor recommend? What treatment plan did he offer? You might wonder. Well, the answer to both is this: None.

He did tell me this though, I should heal in two weeks. I wish I'd recorded it, so if I didn't [I didn't] maybe I could sue him and get the MRI money back.
Sister jokes aside, she is actually pretty knowledgeable in her field. She tells me that all knee problems have really the same treatment: RICE and steady physiotherapy.
Now, I expected that given the MRI results, the doctor would give me some specific treatment plan or something. All he told me was to get a physiotherapy appointment. Well, screw that. Not cos I think physiotherapy is useless, but because, at this point, I highly doubt they're going to tell me anything I don't already know. I don't want to waste my time nor money.

Week 7: I just realized, over this last week and a half, I've been walking without a limp! Alahmdulillah, it's great to see I'm recovering. I'm trying to level up on physio. I did some very slow cycling (on a gym bike, obviously), and knee felt alright but the thigh really hurt? I'm not sure what to make of that. Maybe it grew stiff over the past few weeks so that exercise feels awkward? I'll have to try again and check in. Honestly, I wish I could give my knees more due attention. But I'm busy studying and trying to live life productively!

Week 8: Sometimes I feel like I've gotten a lot better then I try using my knee a bit more and that ends up making things worse, unfortunately.
I've been driving using both feet since I got injured (acceleration with the right foot, and braking with the left) which sounds like an outrageous breach of proper driving standards, and, well, I guess it is. But we do what we can, lads! I've gotten pretty good at it now.

But anyway, I thought I got well enough to go back to driving with only the right foot. I did that. Now all of my right leg hurts, woohoo! I donno how that works but! The body does what the body wills. I've been resting it and massaging it more, it seems to be doing some good. But I don't think I should suddenly try new stuff with the leg anymore; graduality is key.

***

And here we are now. Writing the above was not the most interesting piece I've ever written, and I'm sure it wasn't even one of the more interesting things you've read all day. But I wrote it anyway because, if you ever get a dubious swelling in your knee and you don't know what to do, you'll at least have an idea of what to expect.

Time keeps moving, and heals most things. I'm (hopefully) no exception. But when unexpected inconveniences come my way, I always try to look for something I can take away from them. The way I see it, if I am going to experience a new thing, even if it's not that great a thing, I might as well learn from it. I think I learned a few things, here I'll write about three of them:

You know how everyone says you should push yourself out of your comfort zone? You should. But I learned that when you're pushing, exerting, and challenging yourself to do big, new things, it's extremely important to make sure you're taking care of yourself. When you're doing big things, don't forget the small things.

Remember how I said I played badminton a lot? Badminton is a quick sport and involves twisting your knees a lot. Couple that with HIT workouts and jogging: In retrospect, I was literally setting myself up for disaster. I was doing no strengthening exercise (bare in mind, I didn't workout much before and am prolly quite unfit), and I was just doing the stuff I liked. Don't forget the small things, and for God's sake, take care of yourself!

On a slight tangent here: I watched a video of Félix Auger-Aliassime's (ATP tennis player) off season training routine, and I remember just being shocked to see the amount of physiotherapy he does, as an injury-free, healthy athlete, just to stay injury free. And a while before that, I watched a video Ash Barty (WTA tennis player, current world number one) talk about her rapid rise in the rankings where she says, 'It really is just doing the small things right'.
At the time, I thought she, like every other athlete, was just giving some standard response to annoying journalists. But now, I wonder if maybe she was being honest.

It just drills home the role of the seemingly small things that you deal with behind the scenes to do the bigger things; at the center of which is taking care of yourself.

Another thing I learned: When you're absolutely sure about something but nobody seems to believe you, trust yourself and don't worry about what others say and think. When I first got injured, I was sure that I shouldn't be putting weight on my injured leg. But my sister assessed my knee and didn't caution me against that and said that it didn't look like anything serious. So I ignored my hunch and tried to use my knee normally. I made it worse. I shouldn't have done that but, oh well, I didn't know any better. Or rather, I did, but I wasn't told any better.

And you know what, you can be wrong sometimes. And that's ok. I think it's more worthwhile to learn to trust yourself along with accepting your mistakes, than to never trust yourself and forever live in fear of being wrong.

And lastly, look out for yourself; nobody can do for you what you can do for yourself. I didn't take correct care of my knee at first cos I was waiting for someone to tell me what to do. When I started physiotherapy, I didn't take it very seriously. Again, I was waiting for someone to show me how to do it.

Truth is, a lot of doctors are unreliable clowns. Do your own research, see your doctor and ASK your questions. Don't be afraid to ask for a second opinion. What I mean by this more generally is that when you need help, ask for it and don't just expect it.

Another tangent: Always ask your doctor these four:
Doctor, is this really necessary?
What are the risks?
Are there other options?
What happens if I don't do anything?
(I took these questions from this really great TED Talk: 4 questions you should always ask your doctor | Christer Mjåset)

And that's it for the knees. Throughout this whole (on-going) experience I'd really like to thank one frequently overlooked entity. And that is... left knee! As mentioned earlier, left knee has always been a very wobbly little joint, but after right knee's injury, left knee held out for a very long time before complaining. If nothing else, I hope I'll come out of this fiasco with a much stronger left knee.

In a strange sense of the word, I also feel very grateful. I'm so grateful that the only thing worrying me right now is my injured knee. Of course, it's no walk in the park, but oh man, I've had it so much worse before, and I certainly could've had it so, so much worse now. But alhamdulillah, innit?

I hope you didn't find these two posts too boring, and, um, maybe that you learned something, too! Thank you so much for reading.
Picture: Rosicky and Wilsh. I was looking for a picture of Ros in recovery, but I found this and thought 'Wow that's a lot of injuries in one picture!'