S2 Bonus: ACL recovery

It’s funny how this whole blog project started as an accountability thread for getting back in shape, which then mutated into a weekly log of my mental health recovery journey. Ups, downs, victories, and set backs run through this last year and a half and it leads to the understanding i can withstand just about anything. Then i tore my ACL. Now im stuck on the couch and my house will be a revolving door of family and friends helping me out over the next few weeks.

All of that said, the first couple of days are gonna be intriguing to say the least so i figured I’d start this thread as a day by day check-in. It won’t be separate posts for each day, just additions to this entry so check back!

Day 0: surgery and hell

I was up at 4 for a 5:30am check-in time. Put on my cleanest cut-off shorts and lifting shirt and was ready to fuck this thing. I only really started panicking once they made me change and hooked me up to all the shit…but by then it’s like when they lock the rollercoaster bar into place: too late to turn back. In the OR I was smoking and joking with the team, described my epic PB&J Crunchwrap supreme recipe and then polled the room for favorite dinosaurs. That’s the last thing i remember before waking up. Legs all wrapped and weighing about 525 lbs, getting dressed was a bitch.

So we get home and establish the base of operations. I sit on the chaise, fight like hell to “stand up” and hobble to the bathroom to pee, then back to home base. Highlights from day one are that my nose piercing closed up/i couldn’t get anything back in it, showed mom Warhammer 40k lore videos, and fell asleep at 7:50pm. Slept in 2-3 hour blocks all night, significant pain is more so muscular/tendons from having my leg locked out straight. 4/10, wouldn’t recommend. I’m a white monster and banana into day 2 so will report back tomorrow on progress. Thanks for the calls and messages, i love you guys. Be nice to one another, positivity makes the world go round.

Day 1: so the nerve block wore off around 6am and that’s when we learned just how much pain we were in for. I’m inclined to rename this day one and rename the last one to day 0 because they were two completely different experiences (i did do that). I got my mother in my ear going “you need water, maybe play a video game and focus on something else” homie i can’t focus on anything else, all of my focus is going into not dying from this pain.

It got better tho, we watched van helsing and almost all of sandman season 1, did a little Taco Bell action for dinner and my buddy John dropped by to check in on me. Then we got to the main event, sleeping. I’ll be damned if i didn’t sleep 4 hours continually followed by another 6 straight through, followed by a two hour nap. Apparently I’ve been sleep deprived. Anywho, another day another slay i guess.

Day 2 (nee 3): so yeah yesterday was equal parts better and worse all at the same time. We ended up clearing the vast majority of sandman with only two episodes left in the first half of season 2. Aside from that i spent a large portion of the afternoon watching AEW’s version of wrestlemania and explaining the nuances of professional wrestling to my mom. She’s not a fan of deathmatches, so duly noted moving further. That part wasn’t the bad part, the bad part was actually the recovery activities. The night leading into the day i slept like a lot and deeply, partially due to exhaustion but mostly because of the pain meds. The main event for the day was removing the bandaging from my leg and adjusting the brace, holy fuck that sucked. It’s weird, the huge mass of bandage provided a sort of protection which I no longer have. On top of that, we got two new sources of pain: one is the surface incision site pain from a healing wound while the other feels like someone is jamming a screwdriver through my knee cap. Both of which made me want to lose my lunch so I’m glad the hot swap is over. Back to the pain meds every four hours and Netflix i suppose. Today we’re gonna play chess and I’m going to attempt to explain magic. Wish me luck.

Day 3: honestly day 3 felt a lot like day 2 except that i can see this ugly thing attached to where my leg used to be and it is gross. Between swelling, bruising, and a peeling sunburn my leg is a whole menagerie of colors that human limbs aren’t supposed to be. At least i fucked up my non tattooed leg so the scars won’t ruin anything I’ve got around the knee bits. Alright so what did we do…breakfast was a monster, protein bar, and banana, we watched pacific rim and I played some pga golf with Jennica. We did actually play a game of chess and I DOMINATED (it was pure luck and i refuse to rematch because it will not go as swimmingly as the first game). Oh yeah we finished the first half of sandman season 2, each episode kinda felt like a one shot but the back half is turning out to be very interesting…excited to see how that goes. Did you know that the Lucifer from sandman is the same Lucifer from the TV show? Yeah apparently the character leaves hell and creates a spinoff comic which serves as the source material for the show. Also the whole IP is an alternate universe in the greater DC multiverse so the recurring Johanna Constantine character is an alternate version of John Constantine. Anyways…oh and mom vacuumed and i bought more magic cards. Yeah, day three in the books and day 4 coming tomorrow. Spoiler alert: i almost passed out 🙀

Day 4: i went outside! For the first time since ambling my drugged up and broken self back in the house after surgery last week i finally made it outside into the sun. With sandman over and no other binges on the docket, mom wanted me to get moving a bit/i needed to see the world before i went insane. So we threw on the crocs and headed out. Not too big of a plan, just a trip to the post office to send Liz a care package i finished putting together before surgery and stop at a store. Those, my friends, were far more than enough and i lost color in my face…fast. I don’t know if it’s just because I’ve been horizontal and sedentary for so long or because the leg is so beat up from surgery but about five minutes into being vertical in the post office i wanted to die. Moms urging me to pull up a chair but i just…like I had to do it. For myself ya know, i had to prove that i had the capacity to push through general discomfort. The idea is that PT is going to suck and i have that in two days. May as well show myself that i can push through some pain and complete a mission. And I did, but i was fucking drained after that. Everything improved once i laid back down, color returned to my body, and blood left my leg lol. Watched a couple of movies and attempted to introduce mom to the concept of mtg. For every experience there must be a first and yesterday was it for leaving the house. I did it!

Day 5: mom’s last day with me so we had to do it up big! Just kidding, i ain’t doing shit big, but we did do a few huge things that needed to be done. First up, i took a shower for the first time since the surgery. And don’t be gross, i was doing wet wipe baths for the last few days so i was clean but this was the first whole-ass shower. I had to like sit on the toilet and pivot around to get my good leg in the tub then do a one legged stand up, then spent the whole shower leaning against the wall…but fuck it if I didn’t wash every damn thing. Scalp treatment, beard scrub, face wash, loofa and everything…it was the most refreshed I’ve felt in ages! Then we went out and got my nose pierced again…that hurt more than it should’ve. Then A&W for lunch and back home for ice and meds. Honestly the whole “being out in the world” thing is getting easier but I’m still in no way, shape, or form ready to tackle physical therapy tomorrow. Anywho, changing of the guard today, see ya nerds. 

Day 6: the changing of the guard, mom dipped out at 9am (of course after fixing me up with meds, an ice pack, stripping the sheets, cleaning a bit, the whole ass thing) and dad came in at 11. We went to 5star to grab some supps, scoped out the PT site, hit the grocery store, then posted up on the couch doing absolutely fuck all of like …8 hours 🤣 it was dope. I was playing PGA 2k25 with Jennica but ran the audio from our party through the tv so dad could hear. Had to discover a fun new way of wearing my headphones…see below…but we were just hanging out. It did not take long for dad to learn of his biggest struggle during this trip: me doing my own shit and him forcing me to slow it down or just stay put and let him help. My knee hurts a little less, it looks way more gross but the pain is diminishing. The lower the pain the higher the desire to not be a burden…old habits man. Next entry is physical therapy and then I’ll wrap this thread and go back to weekly updates…so stay tuned!

Day 7: well this will be the last of the daily checkins because I’m cured and ran an Ironman this morning.

Nah, i just established what the new normal looks like and began the journey back to normal. You’ll see in the weekly posts that my new accountability bits will be my physical therapy exercises, LSAT studying, and golf rounds on PGA 2k25. It’s weird, since I got out of the Army the only thing i was looking for was a routine. Some normalcy, a regular schedule that I can abide by and i only had to tear my ACL off of my femur to get one. Started the day at PT, half of it was sorta getting my guy up to speed on what happened, where we are, and where we are going while the other half was a walkthrough of the first batch of exercises. Left there, got some breakfast, got a hair cut, watched the open, and chilled the fuck out for the rest of the day. In the CTFO i knocked out two PT workouts, one was a shorter one that i have to do three times a day and the other was a couple of exercises longer that ive got twice each day. I’m happy to report: fucking ouch. Don’t tear your ACL kids, basic things like a hamstring stretch and a seated leg kick can beat your ass. They suck, they suck a lot, and i have five workouts total each day every day until my next appt, at which I will be assigned a new batch of exercises. I feel like PT is a lot like the dentist in that those bastards are gonna ask me to tell on myself and I don’t wanna. “Did you floss?” Feels significantly like “how many times did you do your exercises?”

Thanks for the calls, texts, DMs, emails, drop-ins, and every other manner of support and well wishes you’ve given me. I’m gonna come back stronger than ever and it’ll be thanks to the combined efforts of myself and my family who have dropped their lives to fly out and help out doing everything from helping me stand up to mowing my back yard (i can’t do it, the yard put me here in the first place and if I go back it’s gonna finish the job). My family are absolute heroes. Keep fighting everyone, heads up strugglers (shout out Willie), spread the love and reap the positivity ♥️❤️🧡💛💚💙💜🖤