Saturday, May 30, 2015

Rebound!



Life is not about how fast you run, or how high you climb, but how well you bounce.
-Unknown


I have been remiss on keeping you up to date on my recovery from "the fall of doom" out of fear of boring the daylights out of you.

Progress sometimes happens slowly and even imperceptibly and that's how my progress has gone. The odd thing about seemingly imperceptible progress is that it adds up! While I wasn't paying attention my recovery moved ahead by leaps and bounds. (No, I'm not leaping and bounding yet, just my recovery is.) So much so that I've strapped the Fitbit back on and am counting my steps again. Heck! I'm even calling them steps again! 

Two days ago I logged 5,329 steps and yesterday I was at 7,448! That may seem pitiful to you but to me it's exciting. When I consider how hard it was, when my Fitbit was brand new, to hit my initial 5,000 step goal and how much longer it took to reach 10,000 steps I can see that all the work I'd done (that I complained wasn't doing much) was actually making a difference. That I'm starting back much better than I started out is proof of the progress I'd made.

The knee is not quite ready for prime time yet. There are still some moves (tying shoes by crossing my leg, walking down stairs and actually kneeling) that still aren't happening yet but hey, I can walk and walking is what I want to be doing. I'd be more upset if Fitbit gave badges for shoe tying and I was missing out!

I'm impressed by the resilience of the human body. Its ability to bounce back from injury is amazing (especially when the injured party has a husband committed to keeping her from being stupid during recovery). The human spirit has the same capacity but not always the same success. I guess that's because we have a choice in how we view and respond to the circumstances that kick us down. We can choose to dwell - which is like not resting and re-injuring ourselves-or deal with them and allow ourselves to recover and move past them.

I had the same mental choice associated with this physical injury. My knee was going through its process of healing. My attitude toward that process - I have to be honest - came and went. I don't do boredom well, and patience is something I haven't developed patience for yet. This injury has been a great lesson for me in the importance of patience in processes over which we have limited  control.

There were times when I decided "enough is enough" with the sitting around. I'd hop up and begin to do more. I'd even try to force my knee to bend in ways it wasn't ready to bend on its own. The result was a lot more sitting around the next day.

Giving up control is not an easy thing for many of us and downright grievous to some (who will remain unnamed). There are times, however, that giving up control is the only option we have to achieve the best outcome. That's what I (Oops! I mean the "unnamed person") finally came to accept.

By giving up control, changing my focus, and accepting a timetable that was not of my choosing, my knee has made a lot of progress. I'm going to examine other areas of my life to see where this same principle may also be the answer.

How about you? Have you ever had to just suck it up and go with the flow? How did you cope? How easy or hard was it? 

FOOTNOTE: As I tried to stand up and leave my office, I found my knee had stiffened up considerably after being bent under my desk for too long. I guess it's more ice for little miss 7,448 steps and back to the laptop with the leg up when writing! (Shhh! Did you hear something that sounded like patience? No? Me either!) Sigh!

3 comments:

  1. I am so happy to hear that you are getting back (slowly) to normal! Patience grasshopper. You will be zipping around in no time!

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    Replies
    1. Thanks. It's been two steps forward and one step back. As soon as I'm feeling better I forget I can't tie my shoes and revert to instinctual behaviors. The result is more ice and whining. This too shall pass - just not quickly enough for this grasshopper. I guess I'll go eat leaves.

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  2. I love that quote. Actually I love the over all message here.
    Glad to see you back! We're all a work in progress. :)

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