Today marks two official months since having surgery on May 28th, 2021! Looking back, the time has flown and it doesn't seem that long but it really has been eight long weeks trying to relearn how to walk, stand, sit, sleep, and everything else that requires a leg that doesn't want to cooperate. Despite the pain of the brutal first days after surgery or the disappointment of not reaching my recovery goals when I wanted, I found lessons on the way. Often the things we really need to be taught are brought to us in the toughest ways. I don't know why it took this accident for me to really take a look at myself in these ways, but I am grateful it happened. It has brought me the perspective I couldn't have had otherwise and I find a lot of value in that little silver lining. Anyway, that brings us here, to the two biggest lessons I learned in the past two months! (If you're curious as to why they are both labeled #1, please go read the opening paragraph of my first post! It is intentional.)
1. YOU CAN NOT COMPARE YOUR RECOVERY TO SOMEONE ELSE'S
In my case, I partially tore my MCL, LCL, patella, and fully tore my ACL and PCL. This means my recovery is extremely specific to those five ligaments and tendons. My physical therapist has to take into account each of those little guys that were damaged and assess how to move forward in a way that is tailored to my specific injury. In most cases like mine, I should have also torn my menisci but thankfully I didn't! (My friend Jamie likes to call them "meniscuses of steel.")
All this brings me to say that my injury, your injury, your teammate's, brother's, mother's injuries are all
vastly different, so you can let yourself get caught up in a contest of recovery. For me, this has been the point of a lot of struggle in the past few weeks. As athletes, we are taught that everything we do is measured and compared. Our coaches pick who travels and plays, by comparing stats. As recruits, coaches are comparing you to every single other girl they've seen in your same position. You either didn't get picked for a team or you didn't, based on how you measured up to the person next to you. I understand the value in that within athletics, but I would argue that it has absolutely no value in recovery.
I have felt myself slip into a mental tailspin when I start comparing where I am with my journey compared to someone else's. In my head I start to hear, "she was further along at this point," "you atrophied less," "he is already out of his brace," etc. The different ways in which your mind can tell you, you aren't enough or aren't doing enough is countless. My advice is just to try and minimize the voices. If the person you are comparing yourself to didn't have the same surgeon, PT, post-op plan, pre-op plan, wait time, flexion measurements, initial quad strength, bone bruising, etc, you can not weigh them against each other. Essentially, no two injuries are exactly the same in their entirety, and as soon as you start allowing yourself to make them compete, it's going to drain you.
I find this most often when people you meet stop to ask what happened. I'm in a clunky knee brace, so it draws attention and someone is always ready with a comment. Everyone knows someone who has had a knee injury and they usually want to tell you all about it. I find it endearing when people want to know how I'm doing, how far along I am, and if I'm okay. The place where they usually start to lose me is around the, "oh I tore mine too and was back in a few months" mark. No one can tell you what your process is going to look like, but if you have surgeons and physical therapists you trust, those are the only people you need to listen to for advice when it comes to the actual healing of the injury. If someone had every part of my injury but the patella, recovery would still look different.
I fully believe most of the time it is people wanting to be relatable and helpful, so that is why I think it's on each of us individually to separate someone else's story from our own. I have to continually, tell myself that my time will come again, and if that is two weeks after the time it took someone else to be cleared, so be it.
If you want to see where the whole journey started in relation to where I am now, you can swipe/click right, BUT I do have to warn you that it is quite graphic and even makes me quite uneasy sometimes. Enjoy!
1. YOU CAN'T LIVE WITHIN YOUR SPORT
Personal identity in sports is something that gets talked about a lot when it comes to athlete's mental health. (If you want to hear a great explanation of it, please refer to Jamie Stivers' post, under the "Willing Athlete tab.)
Moreover, when you play a sport your whole life you tend to bury yourself within it. It is almost to the point where it gets attached to the end of your name. I'm not just Maia. I am Maia Dvoracek - volleyball player. It is so embedded and engrained within ourselves that anything that removes us from our sport is taking a massive chunk out of who we are.
My injury made me ask, who am I when I can't play volleyball? I haven't fully been able to answer that yet but I'm working on it. I think that to play sports at an extremely high level there has to be a large part of you that devotes and loves your sport, but that does mean that is where your only value is. It would be lying for me to say that during my time off the court I worry about losing the respect of my teammates and coaches. I have been scared of people forgetting about me because I am not in the gym anymore. In my darkest days of recovery so far I have told to myself that I am nothing without volleyball. Even lying on the sidewalk with my knee dangling out of its socket, the first thing I said through tears and screaming was "I'm done, my life is over." ALL of those are lies. Lies your head tells you when for years your only form of security is essentially a fast-paced game of hot potato.
When I think about it more deeply, it's quite diluted of me to think that, even selfish. I am alive, I will walk again, the people in my life love me regardless of my sport. And when you are in a clearer headspace, it's easier to see that it's quite simple. I hurt my knee and it's going to take me a year to recover. Those are facts.
Sports give us the most intense highs and lows. The most gratification and disappointment. The most security and anxiety. The biggest thrills and the deepest sadness. I am not saying that to feel any of those things is inherently bad, but when we don't allow ourselves to see past the number on our backs, the day we hang up the jersey for good is going to probably feel like the worst day on earth.
In this, I have been forced from the place that makes me the happiest and I have really been working not to fill that hole, but to find what I enjoy without it. I like writing, crochet, reading, planning trips that I'll eventually be able to go on, finding new music, helping other people and so lot more. I love spending time with my family and friends and it even turns out I am a huge nerd and love Star Wars and Lord of the Rings. (quick side note - please let me know if I should turn one of my scars into a tattoo lightsaber. I think its a great idea, my mom, not so much)
Anyway, all of this is to say that there can be value found in the seemingly worst of times, and finding yourself outside of your sport is really important. Your value is not solely dependent on your physical ability. You play a sport, you are not your sport.
"Happiness can be foind even in the darkest of times, if only one remembers to turn on the light." - Albus Dumbledore
*Yes, I included a Harry Potter quote.*
Please enjoy a photo of two of my newfound hobbies colliding!
