Kelly's World

Let me take you back to a time…a time long, long ago. Where a girl called Kelly freely roamed the netball court, playing up to 5 games a week. A time where she was able to jump, catch, stop, turn, pass and run without a care in the world. A time where she had only a week before played in the biggest game of her life, a superleague grand final (losing the final but still being thrilled with 2nd place for the season). A time when nothing held her back.

And then this happened:

Last Thursday I was unlucky enough to bust my knee during a game of Netball. I’m not sure what happened exactly, if it dislocated or not, but it felt like my knee went one way and my body went another. Long story short and two days later I am on crutches with a big puffy knee that I can’t put much pressure on.

Three months later, it was followed by this:

My knee just after my knee reconstruction surgery

That was in December of 2008. After 2.5 years I’m finally making my way back to the netball court, under the blessings of my physio. I should point out this is also NOT under the blessings of my sister or one of my best mates. I believe their statements were along the lines of “you’re a dickhead”.

I won’t lie to you all. I’m scared, very scared. I don’t want to hurt myself, and I know that I run the risk of doing so by stepping back onto the court. Realistically though, every single person who partakes in any sport is taking a risk, and it would be foolish to believe otherwise. I’ve been doing my exercises and I’ve put in the hard yards with the physio. My body is as ready as it’s ever going to be.

I’ll also confess and say that it wasn’t my idea to get back out there. Truth be told, I probably wouldn’t be out there if C hadn’t asked me to join his team. I’ve had a few offers from friends and I’ve turned them down because it was easy to ignore them, but when C challenged me I accepted. He’d timed it perfectly.

I’ve had the craving to play again before but I’d always been able to push the thought to the back of my mind. A few weeks ago I watched the final between Australia and New Zealand, and was literally standing in the middle of the living room screaming at the defence to get an intercept. I felt the rush of the game come flooding back, and I wanted to play. C saw that, asked, and I accepted. I know I’m not doing this under any pressure from him at all, I’m going back because I want to. I’m scared, but I’m also nervously excited.

The most important thing is that I need to have realistic expectations for myself so I don’t get frustrated. I need to understand and accept that I’m not going to be as fast as I used to be, or that I won’t be able to move my feet as quickly as I could. I need to realise that it’s OK that I’m going to be afraid on the court the first time, and that I won’t be playing like a superstar (not that I ever did in the first place). I can only do my best and be proud of myself for being brave enough to get out there. I’m not sure how I’ll respond when I get out there; whether I’ll be afraid of people coming near me or if I’ll just stay rooted to the same spot for fear of moving. I might also go to the completely opposite end of the scale, and feel my competitive nature come flooding back as I play harder than I’ve ever played before.

I believe there will be some huge benefits in it for me. By playing again and seeing that my knee holds up I won’t be afraid of doing a fitness test anymore, one that I’ve been putting off for about a year now. That more than anything has really held me back; it’s the dark black thought niggling at the back of my mind saying “you’re afraid, you’re so pathetic, you’re afraid”. It’s true; I’ve been afraid to put my knee under the strain of the test, which meant that I wasn’t able to apply for the police service (I need to pass the beep test as part of the application process). My physio believes that while my knee is ready to return, he thinks I’ll psych myself out. I think that once again he’s spot on. Time to be brave and overcome my fears.

Wish me luck. I’m afraid, but I’m excited.

Kelsbells the netballer is back.

I am writing this from the floor of our unit, where I lay with an ice pack on the curve of my lower back. Once again, I have managed to hurt myself.

I blame it on the hotel room bed where Mat and I slept following my Christmas work party. I awoke that morning with a sore lower back (having a spa didn’t fix it, but at least the spa was nice) and despite stretching it every hour the pain never went away. Then later that night I simply stepped the wrong way and boom, back pain extending down my leg to my knee. Not good.

A visit to the Chiro this morning and I was finally able to stand up straight again. The pain hasn’t gone away, but at least I’m vertical. My instructions are to keep icing it for 10mins on, 10mins off for an hour. I have been doing it for longer since the ice makes my back feel good.

It’s annoying though. My friends have pointed out I’m the most injured person they know, and I’m still young. It’s a valid point though; I’m going to be screwed when I get older and my bones deteriorate.

I also have a family Christmas function on tomorrow which I was really hoping to attend. I guess I will see how it goes.

I hope you’re all having a better weekend than I am!

Today I had the most excruciatingly painful physio session either. I thought I had been over the worst when I was recovering from my knee reconstruction, at one point I had wanted to crawl away from him. All of it was nothing until today, when I actually cried. Yup, there were a few tears, and I told him he was a sadistic bastard.

Monday I had noticed my knee was a little swollen, and a little bit sore. To be safe, I didn’t go for a run and didn’t ride my bike to work. Yet when I arrived at the physio’s this morning he immediately noticed the swelling (I actually thought it had gone down). He tapped my knee cap and showed me the difference between my bad knee and my good knee. It turned out the knee cap in my bad knee was actually floating around in fluid – wow! Then he set to work on my muscles, and I cried. It felt like someone had grabbed my muscle, twisted it as tight as possible, and then tried to pull it out of my body. To say the experience was horrific would be an understatement. I will be sure to post photos of the bruises that come up. I bruise normally after sessions with him, but I wouldn’t be surprised if these ones come out completely black.

So for the next week I’m not allowed to do any running, or any riding. I have to keep it up when I can, and take it easy. Oh, and do hamstring stretches. Lots and lots of hamstring stretches.

While normally I would be fine with that, and accept it as part of my rehab, the reality is that it’s bloody annoying. I’m only 1.5 weeks away from participating in a 14km walk/run in Sydney, the City 2 Surf. I wanted to run this year, and in fact had signed up for one of the running sections. Now all of that is in jeopardy, and I’m frustrated. I’ll be meeting with the physio again next Thursday, the day before we fly to Sydney. He will tell me if he thinks running will be a good idea or not, and I will ignore him if he says I can’t. Kidding, I won’t ignore him (he IS the expert after all) but if he says I can’t run then I know I will be incredibly disappointed.

I’m going to listen to the expert, keep my leg up, and pray. Keep your fingers crossed for me!

My knee/leg 7 days after surgery

First off – I don’t think my leg looks very glamorous lying on the couch. It reminds me of a chicken leg haha. Also, the keyboard, mice and iphone cable were in the picture since I took the photo sitting where I work during the day *grin* The cable was being held my knee while I took the picture.

Compared to day 2, there is more blood in the top wound, and the blood has dried in all 3 (hence the dark colour). The bottom left wound has amazingly spread out a fair bit, but as you can tell there’s not that much blood in that one, it was more just seepage than anything else. It’s also the most itchy of all of them, so perhaps it’s scabbing over already.

You may be able to see the bruise extending up my shin as well?? It’s a slight yellow colour.

Other than that, same ol’ same ol’! This time next week I’ll be posting a picture with the patches off, and all scars revealed…stay tuned!

In only 6 days, 16 hours and 50 minutes I will be meeting with the surgeon to get my stitches out, not that I’m counting. I also believe that’s the day I will be off the crutches, and regain the use of my hands. I hope. I might not be able to walk properly immediately, so I may have to keep the crutches with me – I’m not sure. Fingers crossed for the best possible outcome anyway (no crutches). We’ll find out next Monday anyway.

Not much has changed under the bandages – there’s a little bit more blood perhaps, but other than that it still looks like the same old skin sewn together. Boring!! I should take another picture so you can see the difference after a week; I’ll remember to do that tomorrow. It just looks like it’s all spread out within the patches, so when they come off it’s going to spill everywhere!! I’ll have to remember to wear shorts to the hospital so I don’t get my jeans caked in the stuff.

Today started off absolutely terrible, but ended up pretty great. First thing I did this morning was swing my leg out of bed, as if it was completely normal. I would say it had to do with habit, and it actually didn’t hurt until it hit the floor and the blood trickled down my leg. My shin and calf muscles have become increasingly painful to walk on, and my calf has even begun cramping a little. This is probably due to the fact that my leg has been elevated SO much, and iced so much, that when I put my foot down to start walking I don’t really give my muscles a chance to get some blood in them. I’ll just have to make sure I really focus on stretching out my leg tonight.

Anyhow, after I got out of bed and did my morning ritual (ex-shower, only loo, wash face, and let Turbo outside) I went back into the bedroom to get my water bottle. Putting the top in my mouth (my attempt to “carry it”) I headed to the kitchen. Just as I reached the tiled surface, BANG. I dropped the water bottle, it cracked (it was a hard plastic) and water went EVERYWHERE. Mat hadn’t gotten home from poker until midnight, so the last thing I wanted to do was wake him up. Instead I got a towel, slung it over my shoulder and went back to the kitchen, then used the crutches to mop up the mess.

I also had a killer of a headache, which I had associated with sleeping wrong. It turned out later it had a lot to do with the setup of my “workstation” in the living room. Lying on couch with my foot up I was spending every day looking to my left to the computer monitor so I could work. In hindsight it wasn’t the greatest of ideas. I’ve now switched position to the chaise, and will alternate it during the day so I’m not constantly looking in the same direction. I took some panadol, then during a phone conference I had this morning, laid down with an ice pack on my head. I don’t know if I was still tired, or it was the fact I was closing my eyes to block out any form of light lest I irritate my headache any more, or (more likely) the technical babble during the meeting was as boring as batshit, but I’m pretty sure I dozed off during the meeting. It would have only been for a few minutes at most, and what they were discussing was way over my head. I’m pretty sure no one missed me. The most amazing part of it all was that I was able to pick it up at the end, make some amazing points and summarise the outcome to my boss (who was also in the meeting – perhaps he fell asleep too). One of the other staff members who works from home skyped me to tell me she’d almost fallen asleep as well, so definitely not only me.

During the meeting I received a phone call on my mobile from my chiro – apparently I had an appointment this morning but they were half expecting I wouldn’t show. They thought it would have slipped my mind because I’d had a big week – CORRECT. We rescheduled for 11.30am, as I was desperate to see her to sort my neck out. When I arrived, she found the trouble spot on my neck and CRACK, instant relief. Headache was almost gone although the remnants hung around for a few more hours, possibly due to the muscle strain in my neck. Nothing a good massage can’t fix. It also turned out the receptionist at my chiro played netball on a Wednesday night at the same centre we do, and was actually in the opposing team when Mat went down with his shoulder dislocation! She hadn’t realised it was me until I left for the hospital with him. Small world.

Rest of the afternoon was uneventful. I played in the backyard with Turbo for about 5mins. Basically I picked up his toy hamburger, threw it down the lawn which he raced after, then I slowly crutched over to him. He ran away, I followed, he ran away again, I followed again. Went like that for a few minutes until he tired of how slow I was, and laid down in the grass. Fine – I can take a hint!!!

So now you know how exciting (not) my days are, I think it’s best I post blogs just weekly from this point; unless you’re really fascinated by my “keep leg up, sook a bit about how sore I am, get bored, blog about it” stories??  I’ll be sure to add some more pictures once the stitches are out and we’ll see just how awesome my scars are going to be!!