02/28/2025
TLDR warning
It’s the one year anniversary of being crashed into while skiing and tearing my ACL and lateral meniscus. A life changing experience. My recovery was also marked by getting a DVT (deep vein thrombosis), or blood clot, in my leg.
With any challenge/obstacle I try to see how I can turn it into a positive. Maybe this was the universe’s way of telling me I literally needed to slow down. I couldn’t walk for over two months and couldn’t drive because it was my right leg. I felt not only like a burden but I also felt bad that I could not contribute to our household - driving the kids around, groceries, cooking. I couldn’t go upstairs to tuck in my kids at bedtime.
I started thinking more about the physical limitations as we age because this setback mimicked that to me. I had been increasing strength training but honestly I’m a cardio ju**ie and wasn’t making it a true priority. This changed my mindset from not just focusing on my knee but my overall physical health.
Being on the other side of medicine as a patient in this scenario has also helped me empathize with my own patients on a different level.
At the end of the day I know that I’m lucky - this injury could have been worse. I still have to go to physical therapy and don’t have my full hamstring strength back from where the graft was harvested but I know I’m making progress. There’s never a perfect time for anything and you can’t predict when something unexpected will happen so I plan to stop making excuses and prioritize myself.
