hallelujah!

for the first time since my accident, i feel like i will be okay. only now with this new feeling do i realize that i had come to believe that i wouldn't be okay and that everything i felt or thought was affected by this underlying fear.

i had the manipulation procedure on friday - the doctor bent my knee while i was under anesthesia to break through the scar tissue that was stopping my knee from bending more than 60 degrees. it worked! i can now bend my knee a little past 100 degrees (90 being a sitting position). i've been showing it off to anyone who asks about my knee. i was so excited to go to physical therapy today and so looking forward to demonstrating the change to my physical therapist that i couldn't sleep last night.

even until the night before the procedure, i wondered if i could break through the scar tissue if i pushed myself further. i sat on a chair in the living room pressing down on my knee down with my hand until the pain made me cry and i tasted metal. a few hours earlier the woman who i sat next to on the bus pointed her finger at me and repeated twice, "what did YOU do?"after i told about the upcoming manipulation. she said that the reason i couldn't bend my knee further and needed this procedure was b/c i had failed. she went on to tell me that after her knee was replaced, she bent her knee immediately. her doctor even brought his residents to see her to demonstrate a patient who had recovered "101%." i don't think it mattered to her that we had had different injuries and surgeries and that i wasn't allowed to bend my leg for 8 weeks. for a moment, my spirit sank b/c she was confirming the very thought that haunts me: that this accident and now my knee not bending is my fault. i recovered from what she said, but the idea of fault sat with me a little bit throughout the night. a few people, when they find out that i fractured my kneecap while mountain biking, have said, "oh! that's great. you were having fun. you controlled the situation," which is the exact opposite of how i think about it. if something had happened to me, i think i would blame myself less. i try to remind myself of what my PT said about my knee not bending: "it's not your fault. it's not my fault. it's just mother nature." while i now believe that about my knee not bending it's harder to accept that about the accident - i went on a ride and then i fell and that feels like fault. 

so i had the procedure and the doctor said the scar tissue band was at 60 degrees, the very point beyond which i couldn't bend. i felt redeemed - there really was a physical obstacle that prevented me from bending. to move forward in my recovery, i had to give up. i had to trust the advice of my PT and my doctor. there were a couple times when i wanted to go into PT for additional sessions, hoping for a breakthrough and needing to prove to myself over and over again that i was trying my hardest, needing this as evidence (in my own personal courtroom of my mind) if i ever wondered, in the future, if i could or should have done more. and my PT told me not to come in, to save my sessions for after the procedure once i could bend. finally i had to accept that i could only heal by giving up and handing my body over. my doctor told me that even under anesthesia i cringed during the procedure, more proof that the scar tissue build-up was significant. he also told me that based on the scar tissue and the size of my still thick external scar, he thinks my body has a tendency to form a lot of scar tissue. thank you body, so grateful for the intention to heal, even if it's overdone. 

while my first post-manipulation PT hurt, it was a completely different type of pain. before, i would often look down at my knee, convinced that there was a brick in front of my knee that prevented the bending - today the invisible brick was gone. i'm sore and stiff and achy but i feel like i can bear the pain and move through it. i'm still scared - paranoid when i wake up in the morning that the scar tissue army might have gathered during the night and that i won't be able to bend. and i don't want to celebrate the bending too much b/c there is still a long way to go. but for today, i'm happy to see my knee bending so, as my friend said when i told her, "hallelujah!"