ZeroGrav – November 2017 – the dissapearing / reappearing ACL (anterior cruciate ligament)

[Misc]

I figure it’s about time I put my ACL journey / tragedy? / adventure? / experience! into a blog post.  After all, it has been 18 months since the injury and 16 months since surgery.  On that fateful night in April 2016, I was playing indoor basketball as I had been doing every Tuesday night for a couple years at the local gym, but to be honest something felt off.  I was missing easy layups, I was tired, but I just wouldn’t accept it.  About an hour in I was on a fast break, running full speed, teammate passed the ball to me low and slightly behind, so I come to a complete stop while leaning down and twisting to the right, and ::BAM::, literally felt blinding pain and saw stars.  I actually had a visual image in my mind of something like a rope of light ripping in two.  Apparently that was my ACL (Anterior Cruciate Ligament), which is one of two ligaments in the knee that control pivoting, shifting, and to some degree overall stability.  it’s twin is the (PCL) Posterior Cruciate Ligament and the cruciate in the name refers to the cross shape they form.  Anyhow back to the scene, after 30 seconds of grimacing and fervently hoping I wouldn’t cry from the excruciating pain in front of all these guys, the pain basically disappeared (shock maybe?).  Everyone was pretty cool about trying to find some ice and stuff, and then proceeded to kick me off the court so the game could proceed.  🙂

Fast forward through the next couple weeks/months, which basically consisted of verifying it was a complete tear, finding out my surgery options, etc while dealing with the mental frustration that I wouldn’t be running around again anytime soon.  What was I to do if I couldn’t ‘be myself’ persay, couldn’t really do anything physical… Do the activities I participate in define me, or is there more to it?  (Oh yes all these strange philosophical questions come up when you’re forced to sit around all day).  The injury really was my fault, my muscles were completely fatigued that night and just didn’t kick in when I tried to stop, thereby sending all the force to the knee.  Lesson learned, listen to your body…

So far as the surgery options, the first presented to me was an allograft, which I believe is more common in general and some say allows for an easier recovery.  They actually use a donor’s ligament to replace the injured one.  That just wasn’t for me though, I didn’t like the idea, and would rather use my own body to fix myself is possible.  In comes option two, which is an autograft, where they take one third of the patellar ligament to serve as the new ACL.  It’s typically considered the gold standard as it heals strongly (bone to bone, the patellar tendon essentially fuses into a new ligament [hence the clever title of this post] over 6 – 9 months), however it is also a tough recovery as it is basically like giving yourself another critical injury to fix the first.  So I did opt for the autograft choice as I really wanted to get back to sports someday and it seemed to make sense for me.

I was pretty anxious about surgery, but it went just fine, people do it every day… The doctor did find my meniscus was damaged in two places though, so it was a bit worse than the initial scan showed.

Recovery was tough, it took me a good 3 months or so before I could bend my leg fully (i.e. Think of pedaling a bike, I just didn’t have the range of motion to make a full circle), when you’re operated on all the muscles tighten up immensely. And then atrophy of the surrounding muscles kicks in, which is super frustrating, as it messes with the tracking and alignment of the knee, and just exacerbates the whole recovery process.  I was able to extend (straighten) my leg fairly quickly though, which I’m told is important to a full recovery, so that gave me something to stay positive about.

From month 3 up to 1 year, it continued to be challenging.  Apparently building leg muscle is a really slow process (at least for me it is).  Had lots of great support though from friends, family, and even strangers (Reddit is awesome, totally expanded my viewpoint)!  The mental aspect of recovery is just as tough if not more so than the physical – Personally speaking, I get ‘in the zone’ when running a few miles, playing ball, etc., without those activities being possible for an extended period of time can cause a pretty dim outlook.  Oh, and then the other tough part is the good knee started hurting, from overcompensating for the weakness of the surgery leg.  So yeah, right around 1 year post-op I started to feel somewhat OK, strength was getting back to maybe 70%.  Alas, the way out is through…

Today at 16 months post op I am probably feeling 80%, I’ve returned to basketball, running, and kickboxing.  I am definitely much slower than before, but I’m just thankful I can do the things I love to do.  I am determined to get to 100%.  Things still feel a bit off in the knee area, lots of tightness after working out, the tracking goes awry sometime, and the thought is always in the back of my mind that either the bad or good knee could suddenly explode.  Hah, sorry to be so blunt, but it’s hard to not think of it… maybe once at 100% that thought will wash away,

I feel like I could express a lot more on the subject, so leave a comment or ask me in person, happy to discuss (if you haven’t already heard way more than you want to!!  hah).

[Gaming]

While I haven’t had too much time for gaming recently, I have had plenty of multi-tasking availability to watch gaming on YouTube (while holding the baby, etc)!  I finally started using the app on my TV and it is pretty awesome to watch pro Starcraft 2 matches, it just doesn’t get old, every match is unique.  Also been checking out Halo 5 World Championship tournament broadcasts and I have actually picked up a lot of new insight and advanced tactics by checking the pros style, which I’ve then applied in the game when I do get the chance to play.  Fast and furious – get in a game, win, and get out.  :]