Last Saturday night I did something to my knee. I’m not entirely sure what. The best explanation is probably a hyper-extension of the knee; imagine missing a step walking down a flight of stairs, only in mid-stride. I hit turf that was 3″ lower than the cement sidewalk I was expecting, and my knee snapped in the wrong direction and I hit the ground, hard. I spent most of Sunday taking very, very delicate steps and feeling my left knee give out every 5-10 paces.
Fortunately I am doing a fair bit better at this point. I went to see my doctor on Monday afternoon, who pushed and torqued and twisted my left leg, and then my right, and then started running down the list of worst-case assumptions, including damage to my ACL. I’m hoping at this point that it’s not the case, and that like the whole slicing the end of my thumb off thing in July, this will only be a temporary thing.
Still, this sucks.
2012 has not been a good year for me. I’ve put on a ton of weight, lost most of my sense of direction, sliced off a (tiny) part of my thumb, and now I’m walking around with a limp befitting Dr. House (it turns out that the time spent playing House for Halloween paid off, only this time it’s my left leg, not my right. I’m not really a natural left-leg limper, it seems). Soccer was something that, despite so many other things heading downhill, I was making reasonable progress with, and we were gearing up to head indoors. The indoor field, which is much smaller than an outdoor field, is flat and conducive to my high-tempo style. I’ve been more or less waiting out the last two months for the move to indoors and the fast-paced tempo of indoor soccer.
However, while I can walk with a slight limp at this point and I generally don’t have to worry about my knee giving out, I am definitely on the disabled list for at least the next four weeks. Throw in the last two games that I’ll miss because I’m in Disney World, and I’m down to perhaps two games that I’ll be able to play, marginally, in early December. I can’t say I’m excited for that. To boot, I also put down the $2100 team fee last Monday. While I will get all but my share of that money back quick enough, it feels like I just, say, bought a $2100 iMac and then accidentally rolled over it with my car after using it for a day and a half.
Earlier this week I was seriously concerned about damage to my ACL, partly because of the degree to which I was limping and partly because my doctor was generally unsure of the extent of the damage and was running down the list of how badly damaged my ACL could be, up to and including reconstructive surgery. I spent more than a small amount of time thinking about whether hypothetical reconstructive surgery was worth it. At 25, I positively refuse to believe that I’ve peaked in any measurable way, and this injury has left me rattled. I’m more optimistic at this point that I’ll heal from this, but, much in the same way that I looked at my chef’s knife in August and September and even today with some trepidation as I get ready to slice something nice and small, I’m concerned that I’ll take the field this winter for soccer or be on mile 10 of the River Bank Run next year and blow my knee out for good this time.
This has, regrettably, proven to be one of those moments that my mom unknowingly referred to when she declared that “growing up sucks”. In a way that is infinitely more appreciable than the great drafting cabinet incident of 2005 (the unofficial story involves swords, pirates, orphans, and 4 staples to the shin with no anesthetic. The real story includes one of those things. Guess which…) I’m beginning to realize that I am not indestructible. I have to say, these moments of realization suck.
The fact remains, however, that for the first four games (which are all the fun ones, by the way) I am out of commission. I’m determined to see the good in this, which means I’ll be at those games fulfilling my unofficial role of coach and cheering my friends on as they take the field. I also cannot promise I won’t warm up with them periodically. Long term, I’m sure I’d agree with Future Joe that taking these four weeks off to rest, no matter how much my gait smooths out in the next two weeks, or what the orthopedic specialist says, it was worth it to take the field in two months and stomp all over a couple of teams (you know who you are).
Here’s to a speedy recovery, and apparently an increasingly mortal body.
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