The Thing About Knees...

The world we live in is so competitive that we often forget to celebrate the things that we accomplish. Often, the grief that accompanies our failures so easily overwhelms any kind of joy we get as a result of our successes that we forget about them entirely. After all, this refusal to fail is often the driving force behind the greatness within a person. Coming up short on 1 particular goal shouldn’t diminish all of our achievements though. Everyone can always strive to be better, but that doesn’t mean we can’t take a step back once in a while and say to ourselves, “Damn, look what I did”…and now back to our regularly scheduled snarkiness, subversiveness, and self-deprecation.

Blah, blah, blah, inspiration, blah, blah, blah...

 All injuries share the same psychological elements, but different injuries emphasize some of those traits more than others. Upper body injuries incur feelings of frustration and uselessness. When I hurt my index finger on my left hand a few months ago, the most mundane tasks were suddenly difficult. This included things like opening doors and water bottles, but in a sports context it also included things as simple as making a chest pass. Ankle sprains make you feel clunky and slow, as if you have a cinder block strapped to 1 of your legs. When my achilles are really acting up, it feels like I have a knife sticking out of the back of my heels, but I feel like that kind of injury is mostly about rest and pain management.

Knee injuries are a different thing all together. All injuries carry a certain amount of uneasiness along with them. For example, when you are recovering from some type of mild muscle injury like a lower back spasms or a pulled hamstring, you’re not sure how far you can push yourself…but if you try to play a sport with a knee injury, that feeling of uneasiness is replaced with something closer to plain fear. I have had what I guess could be categorizes as a couple semi-serious knee injuries over the years. (I guess I would categorize bone breaks and ligament tears under “super-serious.”) The lack of stability that you have in that joint following an injury is unsettling to say the least. You get the feeling that it’s possible that your knee could just collapse on itself like a demolished building at any time…not a fun thought. Eventually, the knee heals and feels less aggravated, and you begin to think about it less and less, but I’ve noticed that I still have developed coping mechanisms over time. For example, ever since my 1st knee injury (partial medial meniscus tear in my left knee) I now rarely ever jump off of my left leg. If I do, my vertical is pretty weak…instead of an explosion, my left-footed jump is more like a small firecracker. As a result, I usually have to come to a jump-stop when driving for a layup. This is fine, and like I said I’ve learned to cope, but as a right-handed basketball player who drives right the majority of the time it’s easy to see how this could be a problem.

Ok...bad use of imagery.

Knee injuries can also be befuddling. A couple of years ago, that same knee buckled when I landed jumping over a dog gate in my in-law’s house (a trip to the doctor later on revealed that it was a sprained MCL). That happened in the morning on that particular day. The knee was sore and stiff, but not enough that I was really concerned about it at the time. In fact, I went to the gym in the afternoon, and it just so happened to be leg day for me. I did squats, leg presses, lunges, and probably 1 or 2 other exercises that my knee didn’t appreciate either. That same night, I went to go play basketball for a few hours with Krissy and 2 of her brothers, Frankie and Nicky. I could tell that something wasn’t really right, but I was able to run, jump, and cut mostly like normal. I wasn’t worried until we got back to the house, when the knee had really started to stiffen up. The next day I could barely walk, and it probably took about 3 or 4 months until it started to feel close to normal again.

Last Saturday, something similar happened. I felt that same troublesome left knee hyperextend a smidge during a touch football game. So, what happened next? I played on for another hour and a half. It was stiff that night and the following morning, but it loosened up enough for me to play several hours of basketball on Sunday. Then, stiffness and soreness ensued the rest of the week. When it was time to hoop for a few hours this past Saturday afternoon, it took a good 45 minutes before it loosened up to the point that I was no longer thinking about it while playing. So, I’m not sure what it is exactly that I did to make it finally stop hurting, but it did stop eventually…similar to how it stopped hurting the week before. As I told my friend Mac, “If only there was a way that I could harness what I did to make feel normal…” Realistically, the best prescription for my knee is probably rest. Unfortunately, that is usually not a realistic option for me…more injury updates to come.