A knee knows

I tore the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) in my left knee skiing at Mt. Wachusett in central Mass. on January 18, 2007. This is a common injury to weekend warriors like myself, so I thought others might like to know what happens once you've done something unfortunate like this to your body. Maybe you've injured yourself too, and feel like the game's over. However, you can return to your sport -- you just need to stay focused and do the work.

Here's where it started...



Sunday, September 9, 2007

6 Months Post-op

I've been running now as part of rehab, for about a month. Initially, on insructions from my PT, it was no more than three miles total, walking a half mile, then light jogging a half mile, and so on. Two days ago I ran/jogged for three miles without stopping for the first time since my injury last January. That was a good feeling.

Generally, the knee feels just about perfect. Some days, I'll notice a little ache or I'll just notice that it feels different. But for the most part it's feeling damn good. I have been hitting on the tennis court without going for too much for a month now, which has been fun. Moving to my right to hit a forehand with a neutral or slightly closed stance and the involved leg in front, has felt kind of sensitive. I must be putting some lateral pressure on the knee in that situation, so I still need to be careful.

With my shoulder procedure coming up Oct. 5, I'm trying to get on the court as much as I can (which turns out isn't much). The bathroom remodeling job I've been doing in my house has been eating up my cycles. Photos on my FB site.

Insurance coverage for PT ran out in August, so I'm on my own for the rest of my rehab. I don't plan to ski this year, I don't think. I want to focus my strength training on my lower body and my shoulder and try to be ready to go when the tennis season begins next spring. In retrospect, I can see that my ACL tear happened because I didn't have the conditioning I needed to protect myself. I won't make that mistake again. If you read back to the beginning of this blog, you can see that the injury was almost "incidental." A little more quad-hamstring strength and it probably wouldn't have happened. Also, beware of skiing anything but flat stuff with boots loose, as I was that night. It has been my habit on initial runs to ski with boots very loose, and then crank the buckles down after a couple of runs. But the loose fit allowed my leg to hyper-extend, and pop went the ligament. If I hadn't been headed down to an accident scene on my first run to help out Ski Patrol, I wouldn't have been on the Smith Walton trail at Mt. Wachusett, a trail with one little steep section, which of course is where I did the knee.