A little milestone happened yesterday! For the first time in my 17 month ACLR recovery, I was physically able-bodied enough to hike to my accident spot (*well close to it). The accident that happened in January 2017 while backcountry skiing. Full story here. *Somewhere up in this avalanche chute is where I fell, but I was not about to start bushwhacking! It looked really steep and gnarly. I had been quite obsessed with making it to this location - like I had to tick it off my list and I had to do it soon for some reason. Pretty much all of 2017, this hike would have been impossible due to the atrophy and pain (and poor medical advice!). The past few weeks, I had been choosing to mountain bike instead of hike. Biking hurts less, it's more fun, and I can go longer distances on my bike. The downhill is way more fun of course! Having not hiked many miles was a little concerning. I had not hiked over 3 miles prior to this and the hike I had planned was 5 miles round trip and 1400 feet of climbing. This route was in the wilderness, so you can't ride a bike here. Besides the trail is too technical even if it weren't wilderness. Was the timing right? I was at the end of a sore week, so just lying in bed I was pretty sore. I woke up pretty sore, which got me worrying and very undecided. If I didn't do it Sunday, which other days would be possible? If I don't go for it I'll regret not trying, the worst that can happen is I turn around. If I do go and deal with the pain, then maybe I will be hurting another week and have to skip rehab. Yes, this all goes through my mind in the morning. I decided to go for it. I tape up my knee, take 1500mg of Tylenol, some CBD oil, pre-iced the knee and then set out. Even driving to the trailhead, my knee was aching as I lifted it from the break pedal to gas pedal. I was pretty nervous. I also invited a friend along. It's so hard to coordinate the knee with other people, but she was game for any kind of hike that day. Thanks for being flexible, K! We started hiking and low and behold, it's decent feeling. I think "OK if it stays like this everything will be fine!" I mean it's obvious it's not normal, but I am not feeling pain with each step. Maybe the adrenaline kicked in too. My friend said I was hiking well and couldn't even tell which leg from the back. I use hiking poles. We made it in just over an hour (1:12). In past years when I went normal speed it took me 0:49 to this spot. Not too shabby! Going down is a different story as I used to run this trail back in the day. Of course I trip on rocks and it feels like my leg turned into a wet noodle. We pass familiar landmarks and I narrate to my friend what was going on that day. "I remember going through these little aspens and I decided to put my skins back on because I couldn't do a plow stop to save my life. Here is where my husband found me after that one text that made it through. Here is where we abandoned the ski-sled method and went back to the 3 headed monster method. Here is where we went downhill so fast and the guys didn't drop me once. Here's the creek we tried not to fall into." I wasn't sure what my reaction would be to seeing the spot. I wasn't emotional or sad. I think I was in disbelief that I actually got out of there on one leg. It's not easy terrain! If anything I was pretty impressed! I also felt overwhelmingly grateful for my husband and friends who helped me out - the strongest most level headed team I could have asked for. I think if I had been skiing with anyone else this (or truly solo), things would have been MUCH harder. Well, that's a lot of words for a 5 mile hike.
0 Comments
I updated my DPT and told her about all this new soreness and swelling. I wanted to know if I was doing anything wrong or grin and bear it (lots of people mention just pushing through pain, but that kind of ruins my week!)
Everything she says is so reassuring, like this is exactly where I'm supposed to be right now! Her explanation was that my knee is still building. The soreness and swelling is the knee getting overwhelmed because it's reaching its capacity ceiling. The brain is there to protect me and my knee. It is not telling me I'm damaging the knee, but it is telling me to adjust some current load so that I can keep on going and keep building. Sometimes I build and we hit a plateau - so all the tissues need to adjust to the load again. Put on repeat! When I had surgery, the forces from simply walking on the ground were massive and this used to really stir up the knee. The tissues were not used to this load because they were above my capacity. Now I'm doing more athletic things, and the symptoms come on once again. I have met my capacity for this level and let time do its thing so the tissues have time to adapt. Probably a good idea to back of some biking mileage and vert and do easier biking. I think I'll stop the TRX squats for a while too. This was also the answer to why at 17 months my knee gets easily overwhelmed compared to someone else at 17 months. Time is just not the only factor! Loads and capacities are as well. Sounds so simple, but when you're in pain and needing take more rest days that you want, it's hard to understand what is happening. Now I have a really good answer. Then I remembered this graph I saw on Twitter @scotmorrsn that perfectly illustrates exactly what my DPT was explaining. Then it all seemed like it was OK and normal. It will keep happening in fact! If I weren't testing my capacity ceilings and having no symptoms, I'd probably be frustrated with how slow it all was going. DPT reminded me that even though I had a very rough start to ACL recovery (summary: I started over at month 11 postop), the body is amazing and the brain is even more so, and I will get back to my life. I just started in a different place than others. Now that soreness has lessened a bit, the question is: do I do PT rehab tonight or do I do an easy bike ride? Hmm... Normally Wednesday is not a PT night, but I lost a few days with the extra rest. Probably an easy bike because I can keep it short as a test. Gym always takes like 2 hours. I am almost 17 months post ACL reconstruction overall, and just over 6 months into the new rehab plan. Wow! Can I still say new rehab plan? Mountain biking and rehab - these are my focuses lately! (And my old doggie of course.) I get 1 or 2 rides in over the weekend, then if time and knee allow, I get a Wednesday night ride in. I like to rehab on Tuesdays and Thursdays at the gym (Mondays are way too busy, there for MWF is not going to work). Ideally, I should get a third rehab day over the weekend, but it's been challenging because biking really wears me out! So 2 bikes and 3 rehabs seem to my goal week.
This week I actually accomplished my "goal week" (Wednesday being a holiday helped). Low and behold that is actually a lot for my knee! I tried the bike + rehab combo on Saturday, I think it backfired and left me quite sore. I had to cancel plans for a mountain bike ride I had with a new friend (I hope she doesn't think I'm a flake!) and just sat on the couch with my TENS unit then iced. Actually every time I hurt more, it was due to something ie. bigger than usual ride, too much in one day, etc. So I am probably testing the limits too much. Bummer! I was starting to feel sorry for myself - not being physically abled enough to get a bike ride in - but then I stopped those thoughts. First, I reminded myself that I was not even able to get on a bike one year ago (at 5 months post ACLR) so look at me now doing legit rides. Then, I reminded myself that the ride just the day before was very lovely, and I was feeling quite accomplished for having done 13 miles! Then, looking at my Strava, I noticed I all the activity I got in: 3 rehabs and 23 miles of mountain biking in a week. So no wonder I was hurting! Then I felt a little accomplished, like it was OK. Of course I had to remind myself this about ever half hour. I need to ask my PT if I need to avoid this pain aka back off from mileage or if this is OK. Current weight lifting rehab consists of:
I've been biking outside regularly almost 3 months now. Every time I get out it feels so new and exciting! |
AuthorA 45 year old active female who tore her ACL in January 2017 (at the age of 40). Reconstructive surgery in February 2017 with bone-patellar tendon-bone autograft. Archives
November 2022
|