ACL Repair Day 8

I woke up to a throbbing in my knee I couldn't ignore. I relctuantly took a full Extra Strength Tylenol and texted my friend to let her know I sadly would not be able to make it to her birthday celebration today. As much as I really want to see her as it's been awhile, and an art gallery tour on Granville Island is right up my alley, my body is telling me no. The decades old 5 year old in my mind potests that I want to go...I can go. Just go. But I remind myself what happens when I cross my boundaries, and this striking pain is clearly a boundary. Boundaries... a long post in progress on that topic. The pain in my knee feels like a challenge, and my begrudging decision to say no is me honouring my boundary... I don't wanna, but I gotta. It's part of a greater healing for me.

I've summoning up the words to write about what my recent experience under the strangehold of mind and body affecting drugs is like. It wasn't just numbing phyiscal pain for me. Not this time.....it was a vortex of pain, darkness and more. I will tell about this later.

So I let my friend know where I am at, wish her a lovely time and make aspirational meet up plans. It sounds like she is doing quite well, blossoming into the next stage of her life, and I feel truly happy for her. There is a beautiful joy in watching and witnessing people's growth,... the bottom of the pit challenges to that tipping point, and then the burst into the freedom you see they find in themselves. Happy Birthday LC and I'm stoked for your life!

Meanwhile, I am fumbling with movement this morning. My hamstrings are more than talking to me. As someone who is hypermobile, I don't have as keen of an understanding of standard limitations for how far a body should bend as most non-hypermobile bodies. I didn't realize how much of my hamstring I use for many of my movements. Since a chunk of them were extracted for my ACL graft, they are in just as much of recovery as the new graft and my holey bones. I've been pulling on them too hard with small motions I didn't think used hamstrings. I didn't realize trying to touch my toes while sitting with my legs straight stretches my hamstrings. Whenever I do that in yoga, it really doesn't stretch much for me....I always thought it was a position to relax in.

For hamstring grafts, it's important to not work or stretch them for the initial recovery period (6 weeks). I've been sitting up to do my knee bends, and it turns out....that was NOT good.

So I'm sticking to home time today, content creation, art if I can and hoping for some friendly weekend callers...treats would be a double bonus. Lol. I have noticed my treat intake deficiency since I haven't been visiting the fridge or pantry much or at all, especially high and low stash spots. TREATS - I MISS MY TREATS!!! It's really not that bad...I'm getting plently of healthy treats,....I just want some naughty treats. haha

Obvious tip: Long baggy lounge pants with crutches are disaster waiting to happen. The best bottoms I have found to be compatible for the ACL recovery lifestyle of crutches, constant icing and elevation is either soft booty shorts with long soft leg warmers, and/or pants made with thin loose fabric and cuffs. I tried sweatpants and it created too much of a buffer for the icing. Loose legged pants with big bottom openings.... those crutches WILL get caught at some point.

Wall knee bends

I can see through the video, I am not bending as far as I think I am.Not even close. Pushing my tibia and foot back up the wall is challenging and more painful so part way through, I use my other foot to assist with the bend and push back up.