Perspective

And so it was that I had somehow managed to survive for four decades including the typical reckless stupidity of male adolescence, ten seasons of youth soccer, years of skateboarding, road biking, mountain biking, skiing, snowboarding, countless drunken stunts and dares, and a half dozen car accidents, two of which were severe enough to require ambulance transport to the hospital. And through it all, I had a handful of sprains, cuts, and bruises, two broken bones and a couple of degenerative cervical discs to show for it – nothing more. Not once in forty years had I ever managed to bend either of my knees in any directions other than those in which they were intended to bend. How truly amazing that particular statistic now seemed, given, in hindsight, my inability to avoid the recent violation of my knee’s design limitations.

Now for the first time I had an injury with permanent consequences. The one constant among people I have talked to with a reconstructed ACL is that their knee was never the same again. Some talked about functional instability and some described lingering pain that comes with too much activity or changes in the weather. A couple ACL vets told me about follow-up surgeries that were required to “clean up” debris and degenerative damage caused by the body’s response to the original injury. One doctor I saw said that he tells all of his ACL patients that their days of neglecting their knees or taking them for granted are over. “You will have to think about your knee every day for the rest of your life. How to exercise it, how to protect it, which activities it can withstand.”

After the ACL diagnosis was confirmed, I was emotionally all over the map. I tried to maintain stability on the outside, but internally I was hopeful, worried, angry, disappointed, frustrated, and deeply depressed, and often all within the same hour. It was very much as though a part of me had died – the part of me that was the healthy, naturally functioning knee. I spent hours dwelling on the details of the incident, and the surgery, and on all of the potential limitations and changes this could have on my life. I confided in close friends and, although I appreciated their words, no amount of well intentioned “you’ll get through this” support was enough to help me regain my usual sense of optimism and confidence. For weeks after the diagnosis I awoke every morning to the feeling of a bomb going off in my gut with the renewed realization of the injury. If I woke up during the night, there was little chance of going back to sleep. Worst of all, I felt in some way that I had let down my kids. I have always believed in the importance of being physically active with kids. This has consistently been one of my favorite parts of being a parent, and one of the ways that my kids and I have always been able to connect. Certainly I would now be falling well short of that kind of engagement for the next year at least, and to some extent, maybe long term as well.

It was only as I got into the fourth week that I really began to find what I needed to deal with the injury. Perspective. “It could be worse”, although true, is not at all effective unless and until you really begin to realize that for a lot of people, it already is. I began to consider, and I mean really personally consider what it must be like for people who are wheelchair bound, or slowly going blind, or for the people who will go to their doctor today and be told that some part of their precious body is full of cancer. Sources of perspective are easy to find, the key is be affected by them. For me, in order to be affected by someone else’s situation due to injury, or disease, or poverty, or disaster, or war, I first had to personalize their condition. I found that in just five minutes of genuine focused thought I could begin to feel enough of what someone else might be experiencing to significantly alter my own perspective, even if I was still only able to be barely aware of the full reality of that person’s daily life. It has been uniquely empowering for me to be able to adjust my outlook and create an objective appreciation for my own situation and for the opportunities that I have to improve it. Of course none of this changes the reality of my injury, but it has definitely helped to prevent it from destroying my attitude.