Knee Jerk Reaction

Recently I had knee surgery. It was minor, a simple scope job they said but it turned out to have a few extra tears and tugs that needed to be repaired. The first week after surgery the doctor instructed me to take it easy and keep moving my knee as much as possible. And put ice on it – tons of ice – which meant to me to freeze the crap out of it.

I had the surgery on Friday and was in the office on the following Monday. Walking was okay as long as the distance was less than 20 feet. As I had to walk up and down my own stairs at home and the parking garage was more than a block from the office, my knee in no time ballooned into a funky, fossilized looking, hairless piece of meat that when thawed would hurt and throb like the audio base in a low-rider.

The doctor took out the stitches, pronounced it a success, albeit swollen to the size of Montana, and recommended physical therapy. My therapists were three young women; all seemed very competent and sweet. I never would have guessed that they had such sadistic tendencies. They methodically took turns forcing my leg into torturous positions I thought humanly impossible. I was more twisted and tweaked than I ever had been even when my leg was healthy and I simply could not discern how having my leg bent behind my head like a pretzel could help my knee. This went on for a few weeks and slowly I made progress toward my ultimate goal of getting back on the basketball court. When I would ask the dungeon masters when I would be able to start running, they would say “not yet you have to get cleared from your doctor, you haven’t healed yet and you don’t want to hurt yourself even more do you?” No, I guess not I’d mumble.

While waiting to meet with the doc I felt a bit apprehensive and although I was hoping to get the okay to play b-ball, my experience with the therapy suggested that I’d be fortunate just to be told to start with a slow jog. The doctor walked into the examination room smiling, holding out his hand to shake mine and then asked how the basketball was going. What?! Basketball I said, what are you talking about? You want me to hurt myself? In therapy I’m not even allowed to crawl too fast.

He asked calmly how is it going – any pain or discomfort? Yes I said the pain is in not being able to play or even run. He said why not? You’re clear to do whatever you want. If it starts to hurt too much stop, but the body is good to go, it’s just a matter of pain management. And also you don’t need to go to therapy anymore.

In that moment I felt truly empowered. It was up to me, not the therapists or the doctor or anyone else. It felt good and I tested my knee as soon as I could and although that first run hurt it was filled with joy. Sometimes we’re told what our expectations should be and we grow at the pace that someone else sets for us. We endure slow progress because we think that an expert may know more than us and it’s our place to conform to their expectations and in the process we become complacent and rationalize that we’re doing our best.

However, once the power of outside validation or its cousin, the power of suggestion, is introduced amazing things can happen – one can change perspective in a nanosecond. And with a positive perspective we can achieve.

Our best efforts are really very subjective and are connected to an inner drive and will that only we can see and monitor – a drive impacted by an expert opinion or even a suggestion. Once I was told the knee was fine my level of effort rose as did my confidence.