Knee journey.
So for the past couple of hours i’ve been going through 3 years of pictures on my laptop. Random pictures I took in Europe, with friends, after surgeries, of the things I love the most. Going through my pictures opened a door of emotions I really wasn’t expecting, or prepared for. I saw pictures of my knee from the first surgery the day I took the bandage off. I remember being mortified when I counted 21 staples. Some right on the front of my knee. I remember being afraid to bend my knee, worried my skin would rip. With my 3rd surgery, my doctor pulled off the giant bandaid and there were stitches sticking out of my knee that looked like fishing lines that he had to cut that were coming out of the inside of my knee. On March 15, in just 4 short months, it’ll make 2 years that the hardest journey of my life will have started. People can prepare you, tell you that there will be highs and lows to an injury. But they don’t tell you the hard stuff, the stuff you really need to be prepared for. They don’t tell you how hard it is to walk to the bathroom 3 days after surgery, how hard it is to sit and stand up with a giant brace on your knee, they don’t tell you that stairs are actually terrifying to go down. They don’t tell you about how frustrating it is to not be able to stretch because your muscles are too weak that they just quiver. People can warn you that it’ll be a long road. But they don’t tell you how hard it is to get in the shower when you can’t bend your knee. They don’t tell you how frustrating it is to watch everyone go about their lives normally, when you’re stuck. Stuck in a room. Stuck in a chair. Stuck. Planning your life based on if you can rest your knee, whether there are hills or rough terrain, whether you can put your knee up on a flat surface so it doesn’t hang. How hard it is to try and keep up with people who are walking normal speeds, but crutches are exhausting and you can’t keep up. I guess a lot of this past two years has been buried deep inside. Injuries don’t seem hard, they don’t seem to be a thing that leaves behind PTSD. But it is. People don’t tell you how every time you knee pops or is sore after surgery, you panic and rethink everything you’ve done that day. How long it takes to wear jeans after surgery because your knee is too swollen for them to fit. They don’t tell you how shitty you feel on all the medicine after surgery, you can’t blow your nose because you’re too dry but you also can’t breathe. Your mouth is dry. You’re confused. Hungry, but also sick to your stomach. I have opened myself to healing physically, but not mentally. I can be proud of how my knees are now, but I’m nowhere near close to being healed. I remember the breakdowns. Throwing my crutches after my first surgery because I was tired of not being able to walk for over a month straight. Not being able to go get them because I couldn’t walk. I was so angry, but my mom never left my side. I have a few people that have never left my side during this journey. This long, curvy, terrible journey. I felt left behind. My friends were going on, doing their normal things. Skiing, going out to eat, going to the movies. Walking without pain. Jumping. I was angry that other people were doing everyday normal things, but I couldn’t. They don’t tell you how badly tourniquets bruise, how bad they actually hurt. They don’t tell you how when you shave after surgery, there’s a numb patch that is left behind that makes you feel like you’re shaving a dead person’s skin. They don’t tell you a lot of things. But they do tell you that it’ll be okay in the end. And they’re right. Looking back on my pictures, I remember the feelings. I was helpless, hopeless, vulnerable, angry at everything and everyone. Time heals all wounds. But wounds are always so much deeper than they look. Thank you to everyone who dealt with my bullshit at the lowest point in my life, through the excitement I felt when I could squat for the first time, when I could jog again. There are so many things people don’t tell you when going into this journey. But I’ve figured it out, the good and the bad. I’m still figuring it out. I guess the point of this was just to get the shit off my chest that I can’t really say out loud. I used to hate my scars, but now I fucking love my battle scars.
Words from late night thoughts.