It's been 9 weeks since I had reconstructive surgery to my knee and things are moving along well. It's definately a period of ups and downs though...but the secret for me has been making sure there are more ups than downs.
I was looking through my diary that I started after my operation and found this:
Day 4
"...Vegging in bed...dont want to do my exercises...hurts too much...but I know I must....there's nothing like forcing yourself into pain...it just depends on the mindset I'm in. I know when the Olympics come around in 12 months that I would find it difficult to sit back and watch knowing I had a good chance of being there. How do you give up such a big dream after so many sacrifices?? I am more than 90% there if you count all my competitive years...."
I can still remember this period well. It would have been so easy to just lay in bed and watch movies. When you don't move the leg...it doesn't hurt, so why would you want to move it and cause excruciating pain? ...That's because taking the easy option, would not help me achieve my dream...even if it only counted 0.1% towards this dream...It has to be done...I dont want to have regrets of "what if???"
A lot of things are out of our control as athletes, we cant control what our opposition are doing, how they are training...but we can control what we do....and although the pain after a reconstructive is pretty bad, we can control how good our recovery will be....even if its not pleasant!
Moving ahead to week 9 and things are definately different. I did my first full randori this week and survived! In some respects it is more difficult mentally...because you are so scared of re doing the injury. I know this feeling well from my last knee reconstruction....but I also know that it will eventually go. What is different this time, is that the recovery is so much faster. I am doing things that would normally take 4-5 months...not 9 weeks. So while Im just ecstatic about the results so far...its a very scary experience pushing it to the limits so far. Although the knee is structurally sound now, you cant help but think its just going to fall apart....but thats just in the mind!
If I look at how far the knee has come in the last 6 weeks...I'm more than confident that it will be good to go in 6 weeks at the World Championships. If the AFL guys can go back at 12 weeks, then a judo player will be more than capable!
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