#acl surgery

When I first tore my ACL, it was agony, like I took a step to pivot, there happened to be a depression in the grass there, I hear 6-7 pops in my knee all at once, and suddenly I'm on the ground realizing I'm screaming and understanding why they shoot horses when they break their legs. I manage to collect myself after a bit, am embarrassed when a firetruck comes to me with its sirens screaming, reject their help to the hospital, and go to the ER with my friend. Waiting, xrays, immobilizer, crutches, the whole shebang. Have to stay at my partner's place because of easier access and a non-lofted bed. I take a shower alone that very night, and while it was difficult and scary, it was mostly fear and I got through it pretty easily.

I spend a day laying in bed, crutch my way to class the next (and end up having to ask some friends for rides because my campus was huge and the crutches were exhausting), and I spend a lot of time laying down, but things get better. Swelling goes down, pain goes down, I have to be super careful about straightening my leg all of the way and I can't bend it fully either, but eventually my life returns to semi-normal. I wear a fabric knee brace, don't skate to class anymore, can't go to my sports clubs, but other than that my life is, essentially, normal once I make my way off the crutches. There's pain, and hurt, but I'm getting better and I know that I'll be able to have surgery treat it in the future. In my mind, the pain and suffering has an end point of surgery, and until then my life is pretty normal. Hell, I even went on a geology trip that required a decent amount of hiking, even if I took a lot of tylenol and had to not go on one of them. Life's a little different, life's a little worse, but there's something I can see as the end of it all. Even though this is an injury that requires surgery, I have the same sort of attitude as an injury that will eventually heal on its own, because, in my mind, there's a defined end point.

Then I have surgery, and it's agony, but expected agony. Lifting my braced leg into bed hurts a lot because of the lack of support, but then I'm in bed. My mouth is incredibly dry to the point I can't eat because chewing isn't doing anything, but I just have to take a mouthful of water at the same time and then I can swallow. Going to the bathroom sucks between having to get up and sitting on the very edge of the seat because the brace goes up almost to my hip and I can't bend my knee, so if I don't sit all the way to the edge the brace lifts my foot into the air which hurts a lot, but that's more of an inconvenience with a little bit of pain, and I don't have to go to the bathroom that often. Constipation the first couple of days from the opioids was awful, but I just stop taking them and have a truly painful and awful bathroom experience, and then I'm normal and I'm relatively fine without the opioids, they were a low dose and I didn't like taking them anyway. I start PT the week after surgery, and while it's mostly stretching, I see actual progress. My suture gets infected and starts horribly draining a little more than a week after surgery, causing me to have to wear surgical dressings for the absolute fountain of ooze that slowly tapers off and my open flesh wound closes after almost a month, as well as take 2 separate courses of antibiotics, but it eventually closes. As PT goes on I get flexibility and start building strength, going from locked brace to unlocked brace to no brace at all. Washing my hair in the sink once a week to using a shower chair twice a week to showering regularly without help makes me feel normal and ok again.

Progress and progress and progress and progress but it slows down and is harder to see because now the major surgery injuries are healed and I'm dealing with just the aftereffects. I don't have blinding pain to focus on, just aches and swelling and leg weakness. And there's less distraction. And there's no end point. And everything's just a slow crawl to a hopeful normalcy that I can't see when I'll have it. I felt absolutely horrible immediately after surgery, but it's like I traded that for my worsening depression that as I slowly got better physically, I got worse mentally. Doing PT at home is so much worse than doing PT at the actual facility, even if it's more structured and easier. Because this is all supposed to make me better, and it is, but the better is not being back to being my best, and there's nothing I can do besides what I've already been doing. The treatment that makes me better also makes me hurt and ache and exhausted and feel worse, with no end in sight.

I could have lived without an ACL, with less ability, having to wear a knee brace 24/7 for the rest of my life, never able to run again, which I don't think I would have enjoyed, but I could have done it. I had already healed after tearing my ACL to almost peak ability withour an ACL. I could have been at the end point and continued on like that and survived and learned to thrive.

With surgery to replace my ACL, I'm supposed to get better. I made the choice to go through more pain and exhaustion in the hopes of a better outcome. I'm getting better, but where is the finish? Where is the end of the pain and stiffness and soreness that's more than just normal joint aches? I can straighten my leg fully and hop a short distance off the ground, but other than that I'm not yet at the point of healing where I'm any better than I was before surgery, and it feels like, right now, all I got from it was pain and an infection and having to take antibiotics and not even being able to shower afterward when I was able to immediately after tearing it and having to work so hard in PT just to be exactly where I was 3 months ago, maybe even a little worse still. It's hard to think about improving more when it looks and feels like I got treatment that gave me months of pain and discomfort to arrive at the exact same place from a worse starting position.

Metaphorically, it feels like running a race (running has been on my mind recently because I miss it so much, can you tell?) where the track is rough and difficult and harder to pass in some places compared to others, though it generally gets easier when you continue forward. Tearing my ACL was like a run where I essentially reached the finish line right before surgery. Recovering from ACL surgery was like if the starting line was a mile behind where it was for tearing it, and I'm at the same place where the finishing line was for the first race, but I had to get there in the same amount of time and there's no finish line. I can't see the finish line. I look over and see the finish line for my first race and can't help but think, "Man, I could be done right here. It wouldn't be as nice, or as easy to go through life afterward, but I could have been done and not have to do that extra mile at the beginning that was worse than the rest of the race." I have to continue forward to a finish line I can't see that might be close, in which case I'll barely get anymore function than without surgery and have gone through so much, but at least I might be close to being done; or the line might be far, in which case I'll slowly improve and improve and get way better but it'll take so long and still be so difficult.

And maybe that's just part of having a condition that could be lifelong no matter which way you swing it, treatment or no, hope for something a little better or not. And there are endless amounts of longer and better written essays and papers and posts about people going through things way more difficult than me, way more complicated than me, but I just needed to put this out here a little bit. Because even if ACL surgery is common, is done a lot, happens a lot to people who are physically fit and active, it's still scary and terrifying to go through. I went through it because I love running and sports and being active and I couldn't imagine life without it, but in my worst moments I sometimes wondered if it was worth it at all. For some people, it probably isn't worth it, to purposefully put yourself through suffering, especially if you decide that what you could gain is not good enough for the trade off, even if it's "better" than how you are now.

I really didn't plan this out, I've just been writing this all the way through on my phone, but I think what I'm trying to get at is this: injuries are accidents. There is, most of the time, nothing that could have been done to prevent it, and all you can do it heal the best you can. Mentally, this is the hand that has been dealt, and all you can do is deal with it even if you wish it could have been different. You or someone else could have made the decision that led to the injury, but in the end, you had no intention to get injured.

Surgeries are purposeful. You (or someone with medical power over you) decided to go through with medical treatment. The results and potential side effects and pain afterward were deemed acceptable risks and payment to change from the state you were in before. Even if the surgery or treatment is necessary, there was a decision to make you experience the results of it. The fault of the pain and suffering and difficulties is yours, because you chose to put yourself through it. Even if it gets better, how bad it is right now could have been avoided by just... not getting the treatment. Even if the pain or difficulties were worse before than they are now, that was unchosen and unpreventable pain. This is chosen and preventable pain, and the mental is very different when dealing with each one of those.

Maybe it's a conflation between "I chose this" and "I deserve this," I don't know. What I do know is that tearing my ACL I could marshall my strength to carry on and get through it, but recovering from ACL surgery had me thinking about how I did it to myself and it's my fault that I feel this way, why should I fight so hard when this was something I chose?