ACL - I mean really, do you need one? Turns out yes, you do...if you want to be active

Okay, so I guess my first entry should emphatically state that I have no clue how to blog, nor do I know how this will turn out, or what it will evolve into. But I will say that given the "news" I received yesterday, I do have a "rationale" for starting to blog. Here goes....

First, the "news" - I found out that I have completely torn my ACL, along with damaging my medial meniscus. Which means....SURGERY. We've scheduled it for June 4, which is less than three weeks from now. (More on my actual injury/doctor's appt. to follow.) I'm pretty nervous, but hey, it's common, and people have surgery every day. Just never been put under before and that's the scary part for me.

Okay, so now, the "rationale" - Everyone I have talked to who has had this surgery tells me that the most important thing is to be very committed and proactive about recovery, especially physical therapy and home exercises. It'll be hard, they say, and you'll be hating life, but if you stick with it, you'll recover quickly and know that you've got an even stronger knee than it was before. So, I know what I need to do and I have to hold myself accountable, but I also figure that if I am posting to something, like this new blog, that I'll be accountable to all of you as well....make sense? Good, I thought so.

So it begins.

The last weekend in April, I was playing soccer with my friend Ann. I was filling in on her team because they never get enough girls to show up for games. I was chasing a long through ball, got there about the same time as the sweeper, he cut towards the goalie to pass back, I went with him to block, so then he cut toward the sideline to clear the ball, and I tried to go with him. As soon as I planted my foot and started to turn, I immediately felt my knee pop and fell to the ground. No crying (yet), but there happened to be this guy watching in that corner and he told the referee that he saw my knee completely pop out. That's when I started to panic, but I still wasn't crying....so I pulled myself up, limped off the field and refused to look at my knee. I thought if I did, it would be completely dislocated and pushed out to the side or something - freaked out to see something like that. I got to our bench, sat down and then the tears came. I think I realized at that point that something was seriously wrong. Not tons of pain, but enough. And then it swelled. And got bigger and bigger. By the time I got home, it was huge. However, driving home, I'd convinced myself it was just a sprain. Of course, right? This is where the denial begins in all of this. So Ben and I cleaned house (my father-in-law was coming to stay with us one night that week), did some yard work and I was really starting to feel that if something was seriously wrong, I couldn't do any of that, so yea, it really is just a sprain. Awesome! But by Monday I wasn't too sure (lots of pain, lots of swelling, no flexibility), so I made an appt. to see an orthopedic surgeon. By the time my appt. day rolled around, I was feeling pretty good, so I canceled. Then the next weekend came, I was still improving but only a little each day. I headed to work the following Monday (8 days post injury) and had this nagging sense that I had really done some damage. So I called to get another appt. That's when I got the news that they felt (3 different doctors) my ACL was torn, and also thinking a torn meniscus. So Dr. G. ordered an MRI, which I had Monday of this week. Then back to the doctor yesterday to review it. I had been looking at my MRI images (they send you home with a CD to take to your doctor), and comparing them with images online, and determined that it was a tear in my ACL. The meniscus I was clueless about. Never saw that for myself until Dr. G. pointed it out. Still, in denial, I was convinced that I just didn't have a clue as to what I was looking at and he would just tell me I was fine, but alas, no....wishful thinking doesn't always pay off. So, here we are, injury to diagnosis to scheduled surgery.

Ben has been great. He gave me a little bit of a hard time when I came home from the game limping, but other than that, he's been nothing but supportive. (Every time I've played soccer since I've known him, I always get the "Good luck and have fun. Don't come home hurt." - Bound to happen, I guess.) I can't wait for him to take care of me!

So there you go, my first entry. I'm sure for now the majority of the entries will be about surgery and recovery, but I do envision this being something that is all-inclusive of our lives as well. You'll see entries about life in general intermixed. Enjoy!