So Now What?

So, as you could imagine, or have experienced yourself, my prognosis was a blow that I totally was not prepared for. So what does a type-A, goal-oriented, athletic person to do? Make an action plan, obviously. I admit, I was a bit crushed after my MRI results came in. I do have feelings after all. My ego took a blow. This was not going to be something I would easily bounce back from. That sucked. I felt like my body gave out on me. Even though I was only 32 I felt old. I felt a little broken. But I also knew I couldn’t dwell on that space for long because I had things to do. I had to focus on the task at hand, healing my knee.

Committed

I knew I wanted to move beyond my injury. But more than that, I felt determined to get through it stronger. If the worst thing that could have happened had already happened, if I had already been avoiding sports I loved to avoid injury up until this point then what was the point of going back to that. I could take this setback and make something out of it.

This was a moment to commit to becoming a better version of myself, not getting back to the normal version. Getting back to normal wouldn’t be good enough for me- frankly it wasn’t an option in my playbook. I am highly competitive, with myself more than anything. So I had to ask myself, what was I willing to change to become a better version of myself? The answer it turned out would be nearly everything –how I ate, how I trained, the people I allowed into my inner circle, how I looked at my body. I was already going to have to take a few months to do a reset on my knee. Why not do a total life reset? More on that later.

Control Your Controllables Where and When You Can

Does that mean it was all sunshine and rainbows after I injured myself? NO! I did substantial damage to my left knee. I’m not perfect. I had plenty of moments that sucked but I also knew I couldn’t give in to mediocrity. So, when I felt the angst of the injury well up and breathe down my neck I set a timer. I gave the negative and scared feelings a set amount of time to voice their opinions. But when the timer was done I told them to be quiet because we had work to do.

The things I could be doing instead of injury recovery were pointless now. The things I was missing would still be there when this was done or weren’t worth it to begin with. My entire life wasn’t on pause, just my immediate present. In the grand scheme of things, nine to twelve months of your life goes by in a blink of an eye. Sure, when you’re going through it, slowly, day by day, it feels like eons but it goes quickly. The pain I felt was temporary.

Some things in life you’re never going to be able to plan or control. I couldn’t control the fact that I got injured. I couldn’t control what elements of my life would need to shift because of my injury. But, I could control how I came back. I could control how resilient I would be. And, I could control how I would tackle pre and post surgery. So I decided that I was not going to let this injury stop me from the sports and activities I loved. I was determined to come back stronger.

Here was my initial planning looked like:

1. Commit to working to make every day better than the day prior.
2. Find an orthopedic surgeon that I can trust to heal me the first time AND takes my insurance. Deadline: Within two weeks of injury.
3. Find an orthopedic physical therapist that understands that level of sports I want to get back to. Deadline: Within two weeks of injury.
4. Figuring out what upper body and core workouts I could do without putting any pressure on my knee.
5. Finding people to talk to about my injury. Talking about the injury can be painful at first but it helps. I highly encourage you to find a friend or family member that has had a sports injury before. If you don’t feel supported from your community find someone, like a therapist or coach, that you can talk to. It helps, trust me.
6. Figure out what life would look like immediately before and after surgery.

The plan grew and was modified several times, as I’m sure I’ll touch on that later. I am, admittedly, a planner. But we all know how best laid plans in life sometimes go.

Be kind to yourselves, be brave, and hang in there!

Metzy

BONUS:

While I was going through this I stared to wear two pieces of “jewelry” that would eventually become important staples in my everyday attire from one of my favorite athletic apparel retailers, Compete Everyday: Control Your Controllables and Because She Dared These served as simple reminders every day of what I was fighting to achieve. If you’re looking for a little motivation, check out their store online. This is my personal, unsolicited review of the brand.