Music: Violent Femmes: Add it up
I know where I want to go with this post, but we’re going to take the scenic route. This should not surprise you.
Before we do this I feel like saying that I am perfectly capable of quoting Neitzsche and Plato, and the collected wisdoms of various curmudgonded philosophers who have spoken to me over the years. And yet, when it comes time to pick out quotes for my blog I turn to Peter Griffin, esquire, of Immortal fame and widsom collected from Family Guy. Ahem.
[at the police station, where the convicts are held] Hi, uh, excuse me, you guys. Yeah, I’m here to pick up my son, Chris Griffin. Uh, he’s here to finger the guy who held up that convenience store. M-maybe you’ve seen him, his name is Chris Griffin. Oh, wait a second, y’know, I think I got a picture of him, somewhere…h-here you go. [gives the picture to the one who robbed the store] Yeah, you can go ahead and hang on to that, I got a ton of ’em at home. In fact, I was gonna throw that one out anyway ’cause Chris messed it up by writing his school schedule and a list of his fears all over the back of it.
There now, aren’t you glad we went on this journey together? I wonder sometimes who reads this blog, and what you must think of me. A) He’s pretty good at integrating media into posts, and B) what the hell is he talking about. I’ll take it. Feels like this to me sometimes:
Great things.
So the original point I wanted to make was about fear which led me to family guy which led me to Stewie…and I’m going to cut that off right here.
What are you afraid of?
I’m not really talking about campfire style, ‘And then when she came around the car, the hook was hanging on the door handle!!’ I’m also not talking about spiders, clowns, darkness, heights, snakes, or birthday parties. Have you ever felt a crippling fear like a punch in the stomach?
Kind of like what Physical therapy was like today. I’m three months+ out of surgery, and hopefully in two more weeks I’ll be running. We did strength testing today, which involves being strapped to this leg extension machine and kicking as hard and as fast as you can on both sides to give a comparison. Not so bad, the hamstring is weaker, start jump roping, etc.
The other part of the test was hopping forward on one leg three times and measuring the distance.
Kind of like this
only with more this
Maybe its bravado, (probably is) but I have never been scared of anything physical in my life. Having not done anything similar in five months, I was terrified to jump three times in a row on my surgically repaired knee. Like palms sweating, hands shaking, clinging to dad’s knees on the way out of the theater at the end of Ghost Busters when you were six terrified.
At this point I REALLY want to get back to running, and eventually racquetball, frisbee, soccer, basketball, etc. However almost equally as badly I DO NOT want to go through this again.
The tests showed that the strength in my quad is very good, and the hamstring still has some work to go. What I’m realizing now though is I have some brain rehab, if you will, to do for that anxiety of using my leg in the way I am used to.
I guess the leg felt fine when I jumped, but the landing felt really…off. Going through knee surgery you get used to varying degrees of pain in the joint when you’re doing just about anything. When I started this process, I clearly bettered the medical profession by defining my own pain scale. This sounds weird, but I’m not sure if the landing caused me physical pain, or if the anxiety of it just got me worked up.
There is solace in the fact that I didn’t crumple, my leg didn’t explode or fall off, and I’m fine now. From here on out though it has got to be game on. Working through that fear, I believe, is going to be a big part of that process.
At least jumping on my knee is not as bad as that evil monkey who lives in my closet. (!!!)
Stay tuned! I’m so close to running I can feel it!
The ACL Bomb 