A History of Violence
Determined to catch that disc. Beach Nationals 2017.
“Limited diagnostic ultrasound reveals a hypoechoic cleft in the posteromedial meniscus suspicious for a tear.”
This was the diagnosis for my left knee at my appointment yesterday. The upshot is that my knee will swell when I exert it and I can manage it with ice and compression. And this’ll be how it is with that knee now. Eventually I may need surgery but for now I just need to manage it.
This has got me thinking about past injuries and my how my attitude toward them has evolved over the years.
For example, twisting an ankle playing basketball. I probably did that half a dozen times to varying degrees in my 20s. My attitude was always the same: keep the high-top on, maybe lace it a little tighter, and keep playing. Limp around for a couple days, but don’t sweat it.
Probably the worst injury I ever had was in tae kwon do when a wheel kick connected with the small of my back. I was almost a black belt, and was sparring a talented junior belt. We were both good enough to go fast and be able to pull our punches to avoid injuries. However, we both launched wheel kicks at the exact same moment and his plan of hitting me in the padded stomach was derailed by me spinning around. A few inches one direction and he’d have hit my spine and who knows what would have happened. As it was, I went down in pain and we stopped sparring. Pretty sure I finished class, though. And I know I came back the next day because a fellow student who was a PT helped stretch my back so I could function.
I remember not being able to use my right side very well, and having to do left-handed one-armed pushups instead of regular ones. But I did not miss class.
Eventually I went to a chiropractor on a recommendation and he fixed the issue in one session. I did not realize how lucky I was until many years later.
I had many more minor injuries in martial arts: cracked ribs, broken knuckle, muscle bruises and things like that. They would never keep me out of class.
In my 30s, I hated being injured and missing ultimate. Even when I had to have knee surgery I put it off because I didn’t want to not be able to play. The year of recovery was horrible because I missed the game so much.
These days I have a much different approach to injury. Now, I look at what it is and weigh it against recovery and how far away a tournament might be. I don’t rush out to play again until I know I’m healthy. In fact, Lorraine usually has to convince me to get back out because she understands the benefit of getting the muscles working again, and knows how recovery works better than I do. She got me to commit to Nationals in 2019 after I’d torn my meniscus the first time and had me back at the gym much faster than I would have on my own.
Seems I may have missed the happy medium between going back to soon and being too cautious. That’s something I can work on now.
