Conquering the mental fears

Physical therapy was brutal last Wednesday.  Since my leg felt tight, which means it is scarring down as expected, they had me side stepping over cones.  Just so you know, it's the sideways motion that puts all the stress on the MCL and side stepping was definitely physically painful, but even more so, it was mentally painful.

I've been experiencing some pain in my knee around the medial line, or joint between the tibia and femur.  The therapist thinks it's most likely cartilage scarring that I am feeling and not my damaged meniscus.  All I know is that I actually did work through the pain of it at therapy and was able to push ahead and complete all the exercises.

I left therapy, donning a pair of jeans and strapping on my leg brace, Marc and I ventured into Walmart.  Never in my life did I think I would celebrate walking into Walmart.  For me, yesterday was a physical and mental achievement.  It's been 7 and a half weeks since I wrecked my knee and I have reached my goal of going shopping in a store by Christmas.

To prove to  myself that Wednesday's achievement wasn't a fluke, I headed into town with 3 of the 4 kids today.  I drove as it had snowed about 2 inches and the roads were a smidge icy, otherwise I would have let Madison drive.  Anyhow, I managed to get out of the car and into the store on the icy, snowy pavement without falling and commenced with shopping.  I felt like Sheena, Queen of the Jungle after conquering this battle. 

You know, I still walk with a pronounced limp and a gimpy kind of gait, but I'm grateful for being able to ease some of the load from Marc.  He's been a Super Trooper these last 7 weeks.  Not only has he taken almost everyday off these last 49 days, but he's picked up all of the household duties.  Today when he called from work to see how things were going, he said that his work day is MUCH easier than my days and he isn't nearly as wiped out as he was doing my chores at home.  It's good to know that he now has a full appreciation for everything I do here to keep us living life as picture perfect as a Home and Garden magazine.  Sheesh, about time he lived my chaotic days!

I sure hope Marc picks something up for dinner on his way home.  I'm whipped from shopping!  I love being back to 'almost' normal!

Milestone

Well, hobbled into a store today and pushed a shopping cart.  One milestone down a gazillion more to go.  I can now walk about 50 steps without using a crutch at all.  It's not pretty, but I.CAN.DO.IT!

I tend to move very slowly and must consciously think about the mechanics of walking with the right leg, all the while holding my right arm out at my side in some freakish wing-like display.  BUT. I. CAN. DO. IT!

I might get to Wally World tomorrow, but today I ventured into Tractor Supply.  It was a small enough store for me to make it across the parking lot and the store is small enough to maneuver, so although it wasn't the store of my choosing, I've still done it. 

Just had to share that at 6 and a half weeks, I am putting 100% weight on my injured knee/leg.  YES!!!  And for any cradle Catholics that may follow this blog, I have something to share soon regarding novena's and saints!!  What can I say?  I'm a practicing Lutheran with a devout belief in asking for the intercession of saints.  HUGE believer!

F-bomb to the rescue

When I started this blog in 2008, I originally intended to vent about the frustrations involved with our adoption of the two little boys from Haiti.  It was my sounding board to express my grief, frustration and ultimate joy in the adoption process.  It served as a venue to meet new friends and to commiserate with people who were stuck in the same boat.

Over time, it has morphed into a blog about the oddities in my life.  I've addressed issues dealing with raising four black kids in rural 'white' North Dakota.  I've belly-ached and celebrated the joys of home educating the kids.  I've shared all the weirdness that is MY life.

The last 6 weeks I've done nothing but complain about my MCL knee injury.  Not that I'm counting, but it's been exactly 6 weeks today.  The first 4 weeks were relatively easy, physically and mentally.  All I did was sit around on the couch with my leg locked in the straight position and was not allowed any weight bearing.  Week 4 they began to allow me to use my leg and put about 50% of my weight on the leg.  Last week they knocked me down to one crutch and almost 100% weight.  It took me until Saturday or Sunday to really begin walking on using a normal gait and to make an effort to not lean on the one crutch.  I went to today's therapy with trepidation.

I knew the expectation was to be sufficiently strong enough to throw away the remaining crutch and walk unaided.  What a load of horse poop!  While I am happy my MCL seems to be scarring and tightening up nicely, per the PT, I had to emphatically stress that I know my limitations and my knee is not strong enough to stand on alone.  I demonstrated how I'm having to physically force my leg into a straight position when standing as it has a tendency to flex forward.  That is now causing pain in my hamstrings.  Oh friggin' joy!  Nonetheless, we forged ahead and did some 'Old lady' exercises in the hallway which provided some entertainment for the old farts in the therapy center.  At one point the PT assistant had me standing facing the wall in the hallway taking itty-bitty side steps which hurt like a totally dirty MOFO!  Then to complete the humiliation she had me use my one crutch, lift my right leg up to my waist and then place it down in front and then hold my left leg up like a flippin' stork.  I think it was about right now, that I may have shouted the f-bomb as I felt my leg burn like hell and feel really weak.

I'm not sure if the old farts around me heard my expletive or not as they were in various states of their own personal torture, but screaming that word, did seem to impart that I was adamant about my knee's limitation.  My personal torture session ended fairly quickly and I left with instructions to continue exercises on my quads and to 'wean myself off my crutch.'  Oh yeah, right!  I might as well just spend the day walking like Igor in Young Frankenstein.

So my goal now for next week is to be able to walk without a crutch at all.  Quite honestly, that scares the hell out of me.  I guess I'll feel more confident and comfortable doing that as I stretch my abilities and find success in some accomplishments. 

I never intended this blog to be all about me....well, at least not all about me with an injury....but this is the state of my life right now.  So as my life has evolved, changed and tossed me unexpected challenges, I guess I'll continue to share the unusual happenings of my world.  Now, if I can just get back to normal chaos someday soon, I'll be extremely happy....most of the time.

Dreams of pushing a shopping cart

In my continuing theme of lamenting about my knee injury, I will one again bore the two people who still read my blog and complain and moan about the healing process.  I've learned a lot about myself during this injury and healing process, mostly that I am not patient at all.

I returned to the physical therapist on Tuesday and was pleased to learn that my injured knee is continuing to heal and is scarring down and tightening up.  This is all good news, but the flip side of the good news is that I must push ahead and step outside (no pun intended) of my comfort zone with my knee.  I was told to use only one crutch and begin to bear almost full weight on my right leg.  This is scary stuff.  Five weeks ago when I injured it, I couldn't stand with any weight on my leg without my femur flopping to the inside of my knee by about 7 cm.  Wickedly gross stuff.

Now I'm supposed to stand and 'trust' my knee to support me.  I get pins and needle like shooting pains through the MCL portion of my knee that remind me it still isn't like it used to be.  I've been told that it will take a full year for the scar tissue to mature and for the knee to be as stable as it once was.  While my physical healing is progressing, my psychological healing is taking longer.  Every time I take a step now, I am acutely aware of where I place my foot, and what it feels capable of bearing.  I must be super careful about not twisting or rotating on my right foot as that will cause the knee to twist too. 

OK, let me just cut to the damn chase and say it.  I'm friggin' scared as hell to begin using the leg again as I worry that I'll injury it again.  I know the pain it caused and I really don't want to have to feel that again......EVER!  See, mentally I'm a basket case.  Even though I'm a nervous wreck, I am pushing myself to do just as the PT told me to do.  Next Tuesday I return to the PT and if it's continuing to heal as expected, they take my crutches away and will ask me to stand like a stork, bearing all my weight on the bad knee.  OH MY GOD, this scares me.

How do I get beyond the fear of re injuring my knee again?  I am so impatient to get back to my normal full-steam-ahead pace of life, that my mental fears hold me back.  I can't trust my knee yet and still I dream about the day I can drive to the grocery store and push my overly-burdened cart thru the store with great vengeance. 

Pathetic!  My great motivating dream is to push a cart thru the damn grocery store.  Holy Toledo, I need a life!

Nuttin' new

I went to my weekly physical therapy appointment last Tuesday and left in great disappointment.  Mr. Studdly, AKA Mr. PT informed me that my knee is still healing and is not tight in full straight leg extension.  At 30 degrees of flexion it feels as tight as my left knee but since it's still loosy-goosy in the straight position, he won't allow me to wear my leg brace unlocked or to bear any weight yet.  POOP!

I have some more involved exercises to do to strengthen my knee, but they hurt like hell.  Now I actually don't know what hell feels like, but I can now describe it as a burning ache that radiates to the deepest recesses of my knee.  Sometimes when I am trying to bend my knee it feels like someone tied knots in my ligament and as it stretches the knots get pulled over each other.  Yeah, not a cool feeling especially after having seen my ligament on the MRI and seeing how it looked like shredded chicken meat. 

I go back to the physical therapist on Monday morning and then I see the ortho.  I am hoping like heck that my knee has tigthened up enough that they will allow me to start wearing my brace in the unlocked/flexed position and will let me start putting weight on the leg.  I know the ortho told me that by 6-8 weeks my knee will be as scarred down and as tight as it will get.  I just hope that it gets as tight as the left knee and I will not need major reconstruction to tighten the MCL.  I'm not really worked up about needing arthroscopic surgery on my meniscus as that should be relatively easy compared to the damage I did to the MCL, and it can wait for several months as I rehab the ligament.

I'm bummed as I sit here, watching holiday plans take shape around me.  I won't be able to prepare, cook and bake our Thanksgiving dinner, nor will I be able to participate in Christmas shopping in stores.  I'm having a major pity-party for myself and would love to have company.  I just want to get up and resume my normal life and would love to see some forward progress of my knee healing.  Out of this experience I have learned I am not patient, nor happy to sit idly by and watch life happen around me.  I have to get back to living soon.  My expanding waist and butt can't take much more self-soothing of the Schwan's ice cream kind.

The necessity of freshly shaved legs

I saw my orthopaedic surgeon yesterday who reviewed my MRI results and explained the nature of my injury.  I knew I had a grade 3+ tear of my MCL, but to see it in pictures really helped me understand exactly how and where it's torn and shredded.

I was able to see the exact spot where my MCL pulled away from my femur and could easily see that the entire length of the ligament was shredded both superficially and in the deep layers.  What isn't great to see is that my medial meniscus was damaged from the rotation of my tibia and femur and will most likely need surgery after my MCL is completely healed.  He explained that by 8 weeks we'll know how much healing and scarring has occurred and that whatever joint stability is present then, is most likely how much I'll ever have.  He's hopeful that with proper rehabilitation I will have a fully functioning MCL and hence a 'normal' knee.  Once he assesses my knee progress at 8 weeks, he'll begin discussing my probable menisci surgery which he anticipates as a fairly routine arthroscopic procedure with minimal recovery time.

I had physical therapy today which was, let's just say, interesting.  The therapist is a rather good looking guy which is why no matter how much it hurts to stretch, I must shave my legs before any session with him.  He began today by assessing my good leg and knee.  Seems that I am 'hyperflexive' which explains why I can bend my knee joints way beyond straight and flat, why I can pop my hips out of place and my creepy elbows that bend in a freakish way.  Anyway, after establishing that my joints are loosy-goosy, he had me bend my knee for the first time in 2 weeks.  At the start of the session I could reach 41 degrees of flexion and by the end of the session was at 46 degrees which is half way to my 90 degree goal.  I was pea green scared to bend my leg.  I knew my shin might just fall off or flop around, but it didn't it.  What it did do, was let me know that there is a lot of healing going on in that joint.  To flex my leg to only 41 degrees made me feel so wimpy.  I'm so scared that I'll undo all the healing that has taken place and set me back even further than anticipated.  I've never felt fragile before, but boy, am I careful with my knee.  With any luck, next week he'll feel even more tightening of my knee joint and allow me to start toe touching with my right leg.  WoooHoooo, I get to put my toes on the ground.  Hot Damn!

I called my oldest sister last night to give her a rundown of my doctor's appointment only to have her tell me she would have to call me back as she was driving herself to the emergency room.  Yep, us Heckman girls are peas-in-a-pod when it comes to injuries.  Seems she was walking her dog, Buster, when he suddenly took off after something, causing her to fall and be dragged across the concrete street on her back.  She has a concussion and a hideous head wound, but with God's help and 40 Irish Policemen, she'll mend too.  So that officially makes 2 out of the 3 of us Heckman girls with dog related injuries.  I wonder what my middle sister, Kathy will have happen.  Seeing as she is decidedly NOT an animal lover like Nancy and I are, I can only imagine that she will have a Jimmy Choo stiletto high heel accident.  Time will tell, but things tend to run in 3.  This time I wouldn't mind if things quit at the terrible two's.

What lessons are to be learned by this?

I'm a big believer in living life and learning lessons from those experiences.  Of course, hindsight is always 20/20, but upon reflection I can almost always recall having felt gut instincts or feeling a sense of intuition that I ignored.  This instance is no different.

8 days ago I stuck my leg out to protect the powercord and laptop from being catapulted to the floor and ended up with major knee damage.  Oddly enough, right before I stuck my leg out, I had a sense of deja vu( for lack of a better description) and had the fleeting instinct to keep my legs curled up on the couch.  I ignored my gut instinct and am now left with a complete MCL tear.  Not only is my MCL torn completely thru the deep and superficial layers, but it is also pulled away from the femur.  Wait...in addition to the MCL damage I also have meniscal damage.  Seems that will actually require some surgery to 'clean up' the pieces that are just hanging around in the joint now.  So, for the next 3 weeks I am to continue with this hideous leg brace and have ZERO weight bearing.  After 6-8 weeks, the doctor will re-evaluate how much healing has taken place on my MCL and then plan to salvage the meniscus. 

What have I learned from this lesson?  To always listen to that little voice  inside of myself and not ignore it.  If I had listened to that instinct 8 days ago, I would be writing about the expense of buying a new laptop.  Boy, do I sure wish I was bitching about that now instead of being confined to the living room couch and using crutches to get to the bathroom.

I believe in intuition.  If only I didn't have to learn it in earnest the hard way.