Well, it’s been a little over a year since I had my two knee surgeries, and now that they’re completely healed, I’m going to attempt to squat 400 pounds, deadlift 500 pounds, and have a 33 inch vertical jump by Christmas. Well, kind of. Really, I just need to get closer to those numbers than my friend Dan Blewett.
God I hope this picture shows up when people do a Google image search for DAN BLEWETT
One of the best ways to retain your sanity during recovery from knee surgery (or any surgery, for that matter) is to try to find the humor in your plight. If you’re laughing, it’s nearly impossible to be in a bad mood; If you can make somebody else laugh, even better.
My main reason for starting this blog was to kill time while recovering from surgery, since I can only watch the entire South Park series so many times before losing my mind. I decided early on that I actually wanted other people to read this thing, and it’s such an uninteresting topic that I had better try to make it funny. Nobody wants to read a bunch of bitching and complaining; there’s enough of that nonsense on Facebook. I, personally, would prefer to read things that make me chuckle, so I assume everybody else shares that preference. Also, I don’t want to be a negativity spreader. Continue reading
While I was recovering from my ACL surgery, I took solace in knowing that literally thousands of other people besides me had suffered through the same ordeal and come out the other end largely unaffected. Guys like NFL running backs Gale Sayers and Willis McGahee became my new role models due to their successful battles with ACL rehabilitation. Sayers especially, since he played in the NFL during the 1960s: a time when knee surgeries were about as advanced as the Ethiopian space program. Continue reading
Well, it’s been 3 months since I’ve written anything on here, so I figure that now is as good a time as ever to add some new content to this thing. The main reason why I haven’t written anything is that, frankly, there hasn’t been anything interesting to write about. Months 1-3 of ACL rehab consist of very few things that aren’t mind-numbingly boring; Continue reading
I thought that I wouldn’t be as bruised up after ACL surgery as I was after ACL/PCL surgery, but I was wrong. Dead wrong.
Here’s my right leg after ACL/PCL reconstruction:
Pretty gnarly, for sure. But that’s nothing compared to what greeted me when my surgeon changed my bandage today: Continue reading
One thing that’s interesting about writing a blog is that I can check my blog’s “stats.” One of the stats that is recorded is a list of search terms that people have used to find my site. That means every time somebody types something into Google and then visits my site after it pops up in their search results, my blog’s stats keep a record of what search term was used to find it. These search terms range from mundane (“acl surgery”) to mildly amusing (“billy ripken fuck face”) to hilarious (“pictures of men on the toilet”). I don’t know exactly why somebody was looking for pictures of men on the toilet, and I don’t really want to know, but I got some site traffic and a hearty laugh out of it, so whatever. I hope that goofy pervert found something to his liking.
I have this picture to thank for that search result
I thought that nothing would ever top “pictures of men on the toilet” as my favorite search term, but I was proved wrong today when I logged on and discovered that Continue reading
Anybody who’s had ACL surgery and isn’t an idiot will tell you that the worst part about recovery is the first week, a fact that I learned roughly 3 months ago while I was recovering from my first knee surgery. For one thing, your recently-surgered leg is placed in a stabilizer brace that is locked at full extension, rendering you incapable of performing even the slightest of tasks without some level of discomfort. Even the most basic activities of daily living like putting on socks now require great cunning, agility, and perseverance. I’m sure it would help if I had any kind of hamstring flexibility whatsoever, but I obviously don’t, so I’m going to just throw in the towel and wear flip flops until I’m Continue reading
Well, it’s been 3 months and 2 days since my last surgery, which means it’s about damn time for another one. So tomorrow at the ungodly hour of 5:30 a.m. I’m going to roll out of bed, head to the surgery center, and get a shiny new anterior cruciate ligament installed in my left knee. This one’s been a long time coming, since I tore my left ACL about 2 and half years ago and have just been putting off surgery ever since. In reality, I could probably forgo this procedure and still lead a fairly normal life, but I’d also never be able to play sports like basketball or football without using a brace, and even then my knee would slip around a little bit, which could hook me up with some sweet arthritis and joint pain later in life. So, I’ve opted to choose the lesser of two evils and suffer through a few weeks of relatively slight discomfort rather than debilitating, chronic pain upon reaching old age.
A while back I made a comment about how the only response I would get when asking about physical therapy was “It sucks.” For the first few weeks of my physical therapy experience, I thought that everyone else was just a huge wuss for saying that; for those first few weeks PT was, if anything, very slightly uncomfortable. Of course, that was before my therapist started bending the crap out of my knee, turning me into a blubbering, whimpering baby. Continue reading
After several weeks of doing absolutely nothing except watching movies, suffering through increasingly painful physical therapy sessions, and generally just being in a foul mood, I had the opportunity to test out my new knee in Ocean City, MD this past weekend. Having conquered such daunting obstacles as staircases and uneven pavement, I figured it was time to see how my zombie knee would hold up to a night out in the seediest place on Earth. I had gone to see my doctor before leaving for the ocean, and he told me that I could start weaning myself off of my brace. I told him that was terrific news, and decided not to tell him that I hadn’t worn it for over a week. Continue reading
