This week was a particularly rough week in my recovery journey.
As I write this, it’s been five weeks since the operation, and certain very basic milestones are still out of grasp.
I can’t walk normally. I can’t go up and down the stairs in the way that involves bending and putting weight on my left leg. To sit in a chair—or on a toilet—I have to pinch my thigh to relax the quad and “unlock the hinge” that hinders my ability to transition from a standing to a seated position.
This is frustrating.
After standing—or sitting—for an extended period of time, my body forgets how to get up and move. It takes me minutes to shuffle—and, if I’m lucky, to improve on the shuffle with a limp—from the finite Point A’s and Point B’s that define the vast scope of my life right now in recovery: from the couch to the kitchen table, from the bed to the shower, from the desk to the bathroom.
This is even more frustrating.
When I look at online guides on exercises and rehab progression for ACL recovery, I’m hitting the mark on some things and am falling behind on others. Worse, the process is nonlinear: things like straight leg raises, which I was able to do at Week 2 in my recovery, became weirdly elusive and intolerably painful at Week 4.
As for what really got in my head this week: one of my friends had the same surgery just over a week ago. After one week, she’s able to do things I still can’t do after five weeks.
This is the most frustrating.
Unhelpful Comparison as a Recipe for Despair
Easily the most frustrating—and painful—part of my recovery so far has been fighting the tendency toward comparison.
When I struggle to get in the shower or put on my shoes, the comparison is inevitable between “Me, after the surgery” to “Me, before the surgery,” or, worse, to “Me, before the injury.”
When I go to physical therapy or get sucked into “ACL Instagram,” the comparison is inevitable between “Me, after the surgery” to “Other people, after the surgery.”
I know it’s not always helpful to compare. I know that everything needs to be considered and digested in the form of little wins and points of gratitude, such as:
I was able to go out in public and go to a coffee shop with a friend today.
I was able to move my leg enough to wear something other than shorts.
I was able to “hike” to the mailbox.
But in my day job, I am paid to establish benchmarks. I make a living by identifying improvements and measuring progress. It is hard to “turn off” the same kind of thinking I use to successfully manage products when it comes to “managing the product” of my own body, which, if I think of it as a product, is an underperforming one.
When I’ve prided myself in so many areas of my life on an ability to perform–if not outperform–it’s depressing to feel as if my body is relegated to an indefinite period of underperforming. That I am relegated to an indefinite period of underperforming.
The truth is that this “underperforming” period will pass, but until it does, I struggle to find an objective, data-driven way to answer the oft-asked question of “How I am doing?” The temptation to compare myself–both to myself, to others–is high because, short of my PT’s biweekly verdicts, I have no other way to understand whether I am “on track” and “doing well.”
I’ve accepted that the tendency to measure my progress is compulsive in pretty much all areas of my life, and it’s not likely to stop even with a setback like this–at least not overnight. While I work to compare myself less, the question I ask myself is: “For now, are there more helpful ways to view my situation through the lens of comparison?”
And there are.
Making Better Comparisons: Week 1 vs Week 100
If I am going to compare myself inevitably, I may as well make better comparisons. Perspective kicks in when I make other, better comparisons.
I am not able to do the things I want to do yet.
It might be a while before I do the things that I want to do.
There may be many others who are able to blaze through the tasks that will take me many more weeks or months to achieve.
However, there are other aspects of my recovery that are comparatively fortunate.
I wasn’t in a lot of pain after the operation. Some people end up in excruciating pain, pop a ton of Percocets, and become at risk to a mild narcotics addiction following a surgery like this one.
I had a job with insurance that allowed me to afford the operation without concerns of financial insecurity. I know people who do not have that same luxury when undergoing a surgery like this.
I was unaffected in my ability to continue earning an income. Because I work remotely, I could sit at home with my computer on my lap, leg elevated, knee wrapped in an ice pump, and with no need to commute anywhere or be on my feet. That is not true for others, especially those I know who rely on physically taxing their bodies to make a living–as athletes, as workers in the trades, or as workers in the service industry.
My impairment is a temporary one. This is also not true for others for whom damage to the body permanently affects their lives.
Those are examples of more “helpful comparisons” to others, but the most important “helpful comparison” is this one for myself:
No matter how good—or bad—things look week over week, the recovery timeline is still between nine months for return to sport and two years for truly reduced risk of re-injury. Doing well in Week 1 doesn’t actually matter as much when the real goalpost I’m chasing is more like doing well around Week 100.
As a compulsive overachiever, I want to be “crushing it” when it comes to my recovery–not “just recovering”–but outside of consistently “doing my homework” from physical therapy, the timeline of recovery isn’t in my control.
Knowing I’d rather come back once and “for good” than come back too soon and be caught in a string of continued sidelining injuries, I have to be patient, remembering this:
As far as comparisons go, Week 1, 10, 20, or even 50 doesn’t matter. I’m here for “crushing it” in Week 100.
Before you go…
Have you got any hot tips on…
Managing a painful surgical recovery?
How to compare yourself less to others—or to yourself—or how to do so in healthier, saner ways?
Recommended reads, listens, or watches on the theme of patience and progress—anything to keep my perspective uplifted and positive in this not-so-fun time?
If so, I’d love to hear them. Drop ‘em in the comments or DMs.
See you next week,
EZ
Most Americans begin their long slow decline starting about 30. They don’t look much different- it’s happening silently in their cardiovascular system. It starts to stiffen, oxygen transport slows, aging accelerates, their cognition slowly starts a long degradation process. They’re always that much less sharp when it comes time to realize they’re getting less sharp and need to take action. The action is exercise - the downside of which is occasional orthopedic injury. The real you is up in the skull though so orthopedic injuries don’t really affect the real you. You’re by far making the best trade off of an occasional ortho sidelining in return for long term cardio and cognitive health. Recovery will still suck but you’ve got the right approach over the long arc.