Almost one year since surgery

In a couple of weeks, it'll be one year since I went under the knife. Time flies. People still say to Mireille: "Wow, it took a long time to get well again."

Really? Strangely, it feels like a distant memory but, at the same time, it feels like it was yesterday. That probably doesn't make any sense whatsoever but it's the best way I can describe it.

And, by the way, that is meant to encourage people. In the moment it seems like forever but looking back it'll be nothing. Don't sweat it. (Okay, well that's a bit unrealistic...)

Our current dilemma is whether or not I should go for a one-year check-up. Frankly, Mireille doesn't see the point. Like I said in the last post, the leg is still small so we can guess what the surgeon will say...

"Keep working at it."

Do we really need to hear that? Who do I think I'm fooling? I still pop, crack and can't bend all the way.

Maybe we should just book a physio appointment, go on the torture device and see where my strength is at... Then Mireille can decide about the surgeon visit.

What should I do??

Udpate from Florida

We've been in Orlando this past week, visiting theme park after theme park. It's been a lot of fun even though the weather's awful. Where's the sun??

A few months ago, we certainly would not have enjoyed ourselves as much. Limping would have ruined it. A stiff knee getting up after the ride is over would have been annoying. Standing in line overcompensating with the good leg would have been painful.

Being practically healed is great! I don't remember what it felt like to be injured. Mireille remains cautious because the adjoining leg is still smaller.

Here's an update, 11 months post-op:

• If leg is extended too long, I crack at the first bend.
• One-legged jumps on surgical leg not even with jumps on good leg.
• Running is not perfect but pretty good.
• Surgical leg still smaller than good leg.

Still regularly going to the gym, spinning 2x per week, doing yoga daily. Not hitting the pool, though...

You know your ACL is healed when...

When you're walking across a driveway, covered with fresh snow and hiding a thin layer of deadly black ice. The good leg slides forward while the bad leg twists back. Nothing pops out of socket.

We passed the test! I held it together during what could have been a terrible disaster.

Awesome.

Another year over... soon.

I should probably write something before the year ends.

But it's just the same old boring stuff. Lots of gym workouts, jumping, spinning and some swimming. I've been running regularly at the gym lately, too.

I know. I said running was terrible and that we'd stay away from it to spare the meniscus. What prompted this desire to jog? The knee brace resizing incident.

In early December, we went to get DonJoy the knee brace resized thinking the thigh had gotten bigger. Nope. Not at all.

We are now running out of desperation. Desperation to get that quad built up.

Girls can jump, y'all

After the injury, Mireille was surfing all over the net trying to find out as much as possible about knee injuries and recovery.

She found a DVD called Girls Can Jump, which is a program designed specifically for ACL injury prevention in women. However, it's good for anyone -- we're just more vulnerable, of course.

http://www.girlscanjump.com/

We started the program last week and it's going well. All that jumping is good for the confidence.

Warning: it wasn't filmed yesterday (if you know what I mean) and can come off a bit cheesy. But whatever. The exercises are timeless.

I recommend it to anyone who wants to prevent a knee injury.

Run, Mireille, run

It seemend the stars just weren't aligning for us tonight.

We drove all the way to spinning only to find out there were no bikes left... the class was full.

Then -- plan B -- we went to the gym. But the front door wasn't working and we would have had to go all the way around the building to get in. Too much frustration was setting in at that point.

We went home but couldn't just go in and sit on the couch. Not after being told yesterday we had a lot of work left to do in the strength department.

So we laced up our sneakers and went for a run. Just under 5 kms of consecutive running.

At first, the limp was bad. But, after a while, we got the hang of it and the confidence kicked in.

No pain, no swelling. Soreness where we want it: in the quads and hammies.

C'mon, bear. Bring it on.

Tortured by the torture device

Today was our 8 month post-op follow up with the surgeon. And what a disappointment.

The green light for sports rested on a strength test on the Orthotron. Yes, that dreaded machine I wrote about a while back ("Almost 6 months" post).

The machine obviously hates me as much as I hate it.

Why couldn't we test me with some leg presses and hamstring curls? We rock at those.

So, we gotta keep working at it. Will probably revise my gym workout to be even more aggressive.

On the bright side, I am doing fine. The problem is Mr. Quad and Mrs. Hammie. They're just not strong enough, it seems. They're also still a bit smaller than on the other leg. But not that much. I'm really surprised by our results.

Oh well. Gotta listen to the expert.