The one year anniversary, Part One

When I began writing this it was a year to the day that I ruptured my anterior cruciate ligament. That was yesterday and now it’s a year to the date. I have been thinking about what I would post for a while as I knew this ‘celebration’ was coming up, but getting down in lucid sentences what’s been running through my head isn’t particularly easy.

I was playing mixed seven aside soccer, the kind where most guys seem to take out their domestic violence issues on the football field. This night there was one particular guy I ran afoul of, he was built to use his fists while I’m built to swing sticks. What happened was in no way his fault, contact sport has its perils. However, it was his push from behind that put me all out of kilter and ultimately resulted in my trip to the hospital.

When I think about it I still wince at the pain. As my knee gave out I was looking at my leg, at least I think I was as the knowledge that I had done something serious was with me before I heard the crack or felt the pain. Some rudimentary photoshop playing has arrived at what my leg kind of looked like at its moment of reconfiguration.

I was later told that I acted bravely, but I howled and swore a bit before immediately requesting an ambulance, swinging my head back and forth to try and clear it of pain.

I have broken an arm, a foot, probably fingers and toes and most likely my nose, but nothing prepared me for this.

At the time I refrained from crying. It wasn’t out of some show of bravado, I knew I had hurt myself, but the pain was too sharp, the want to know how badly I had hurt myself to pressing. As I calmed down some asshole who had gathered amongst the crowd of onlookers commented that I wouldn't be walking for two years. That made me cry a little and was when I tried to put on the brave face.

How I calmed down is worth noting, and many thanks go to the referee who helped me reign myself in. He cleared most everyone off, asked me again if I thought I needed an ambulance, and then told me to think of somewhere else. I remember now vividly the picture I brought to mind of a beach in Fiji. The colouring is kind of strange but it was simple and it worked. It is almost amusing that pain isn't anything more than a series of electrical impulses.

That was the end of the game. I went down in front of the other team’s goal but from the faces I saw most of the women were upset and all of the men were grim. Playing for our opposition was a physio who checked me out on the spot. He accurately and confoundingly predicted I would be told my ACL was nothing more than flotsam in my rapidly swelling knee. There are several telling tests to know if ones ACL is still intact; the Lachman; dynamic extension, and; anterior drawer tests. These tests are often performed on both legs to ascertain the difference if there is any, between the two knees. All tests should end in a ‘hard end’, where the femur and tibia and fibula lock against the anterior cruciate ligament in the knee. A ‘soft’ end is indicative of a rupture, and my leg was jelly.

The other telling signs are pain and a hemarthrosis, where your knee tries to emulate a balloon.

Part Two will go up in the next couple of days, but one of the most annoying things about breaking your ACL is the lack of an immediate, definitive diagnosis and consequently a lack of knowledge about what you can do to maximise your recovery. In the weeks waiting for an MRI I fantasised that the other team’s physio had gotten it wrong – he had only checked my bad knee without comparing it to my good knee – that I wouldn’t need to have surgery, that I hadn’t irreparably changed the rest of my life.

Unfortunately, my false hopes were wrong.

Cringe worthy

The last retroactive post...

Tuesday 8^th May

Tonight my parents sold our family home of 21 years. I thought I would have moved on before this time came but events transpired in such a way that I am back at home only to see it pass on to another family. Truth be told I am not as sad as I believed I would be given that 8 Aberdeen Road has been my home since memory serves. This is mainly thanks to the fact that I am itching to engage in the world beyond the borders of what my world now constitutes and this drive has been with me potently for at least five years. An inherent transience, a shifting identity, a want to consolidate myself while expanding at the same time. All these I see as out there waiting for me to understand and discover. However, this could be a delusion under which I am deceiving myself. On no reliable grounds can I justify why I believe what I believe about travel, or what it will give me.

The drive to do what we do isn't apparent, I cannot feasibly explain who I am or why I want to do the things I want to do. If this conversation were to boil down to purpose with the classic remedy to purposelessness being religion or a belief in a god – that I do not believe is the answer or in fact the question. Belief does not automatically insert purpose into a person. From belief in a deity one can derive conviction in their actions, but nothing actually informs a person as to what they are doing. While people may have conversations with the god of their beliefs', I reckon that whatever that belief manifests itself as, is like an inbuilt compass. A mind can pose a question to 'god' and the answer they receive is an instinctual reaction of the mind. Like tossing a coin when split over a decision and letting your emotional reaction to the outcome determine the course of action that you take, 'god' exists only in the realm of uncertainty and want of explanation, and belief creates the answers.

Patently, this is all academic. Even if the religious mind were to operate in the manner I described, faith ultimately washes away the questions an individual might pose to oneself. God is infallible because we cannot prove he is real or otherwise. So is the choice for religion the smart one? Would it cure my apprehension or explain the things that I don't understand? No. Being pragmatic and accepting that things are the way they are is my way of life and shouldn't be mistaken for apathy. Accepting that the world is the way it is I hope to create change not during my life time, but rather I want to start change that will last beyond any living memory of AJD. Any change that I might be able to create would be selfish, naive, destructive and transient. Biologically if the solution lies in a mule, the solution itself is moot, as it cannot be passed on and dies with its host. I can only hope to create the basis for change and give others the power to change themselves. A centralised fission of change is as fallible as a dictatorship and in many respects, just as damaging.

What then of life or goals? It's hard to say that anything will ultimately be achieved in my life that measures up to the grandeurs that rampage through my head.

However, I must tackle every opportunity, every experience, and every moment with the passion of a man dying. No matter the course I take, I must make the most of whatever comes. Fear of uncertainty be damned. I challenge myself to embrace uncertainty, to live with fear and not because of it. I challenge myself to live.

Coming to the end and the beginning

Looking at my old diary there is one entry left to put up that will officially end the retroactive posts I began this thread with. It is messed up and to an extent reflects the almost total and prolonged introspection I experienced while dealing with my recovery. When I emerged from my enforced seclusion I couldn't relate to any one but by transfiguring them through my own ego. I didn't make a good conversationalist and overcoming that selfishness of thought was difficult and an unexpected aspect of my recovery.

I have a strong urge to edit my last diary entry as it reveals more insecurities than I'd care to consciously recognise, nor does it read well. Ultimately though this blog/wiary was started to try and share an experience that I tried to seek out when I first broke my knee. I intend to fill out the details of the past year (!) with things that relate specifically to my knee and on going recovery, and I will post my last diary entry in pristine condition. One thing that has become clear to me is that an injury as serious as this can create as much damage mentally as it does physically, if not more.

I don't think I've dealt with the mental side of things particularly well in totality. While I have applied myself to recovering properly, I would be lying to say it isn't a crutch and I have so far worked my hardest. I am not who I used to be and it shames me to know that I'm not trying my absolute damnedest to become more of what I was while embracing all the new things I've gained. Life has become scary and the easiest way to stay safe is to keep only partially engaged. I hate that aspect of how I currently am, but it turns full circle when the only one I can rely on to change this is myself, yet I fall short.

I am much, much better than I was. Incredibly so when I think back to the fact that I couldn't walk. Much better now than a lot of people are in general physically speaking.

I want to be invincible though, or as close to this lost illusion as I can become.

Welcome to 2000 and 8!

Thursday 3^rd May

It has been 12 weeks now since I snapped my acl and irrevocably changed aspects of my life. One thing which has become apparent to me is the small level of reflection through which I perceive things. Living moments become instances lost in time as I submerge myself in what I'm doing. A weakness or fault of this way of being is an unawareness of the more obvious aspects of whatever task is at hand. How important this weakness is I cannot gauge. I have no way of measuring the impact it will have on my life, but memories cannot be uniform in the way they are made as the living witness places the emphasis on recording the things which it deems most important - memories are the hegemonic interpretation of the subconscious being. They are not even infallible, as time softens even the sharpest of pain.

Perhaps this is no weakness in itself, being unaware of the passage of time, living days as days are, when goals are necessarily small. One thing it does create is a sense of frustration. When greater goals are at hand, achieving those goals only comes about through the same day to day living. Spinning out possibilities instead of creating opportunities and completing real things is no way to live, it's the antithesis of how we should involve ourselves in everything we do. If a sense of the overarching narrative is lost during the process, it can be reclaimed at the projects end, and in fact I don't think this can be seen as losing sight of whatever it is you are striving for. No one can predict how things will play out, they can plan and react, and yet the journey will only be apparent when you turn around at the end.

Right now I am frustrated. Without the ability to pursue my recovery at a speed far greater than that which I must take, the fallibility of youth and my own ideal of invincibility is patently obvious. To some extent this scares me, for my knee was broken in the most harmless of activities, yet I see in my life adventures and events in which I will move beyond injury to death. Where do I find solace? I guess that my knee was an accident borne of improbability. Metaphorically there was no parachute to open because I wasn't yet falling.

If one thing comes from this experience, I hope that it will be the spark to keep myself healthy, the potency of mind to never become complacent with my body or my mind. In this way I don't think I can fear death if I can embrace it, flirt with it, or touch it. Take away my ability to push myself to this edge and then you've taken away my life, my control, my way of knowing what existing is.

Death is the stark canvas on which the brilliance of life is painted in its most defining moments.