Me to me every day: “It is a privilege to get older. Life is full of wonderful things. I am enjoying reaching every new era in my life.” My knees: “Settle the fuck down. You’re in your 30’s. The right knee is hanging on by a thread and swelling day by day.” I just turned 33, and I swear I am feeling every bit of it and then some. It took me awhile to come to terms with my rapidly deteriorating body. I pushed myself so much in my early to mid-20’s, that I am afraid I often overdid it and suffered irreversible damage to my joints and ligaments. Stem cells and collagen supplements can only do so much, and I am now living with the repercussions of those actions every day. I thought I was lazy if I didn’t push past nagging ailments and minor injuries, and I always assumed my opponents were training twice as hard as I was. I took it as a badge of honor to run myself ragged, attend every training session that my gym at the time offered, and need to also be trying to break powerlifting records in my state. Sometimes I was training 3 Jiu Jitsu and kickboxing classes every day and also squeezing in a couple of hours of weightlifting, going for maxes even with by body screaming in pain. I’d have a restless night’s sleep on a couch or air mattress, and then I’d do it all again the next day because I didn’t believe in rest days or taking time off, even if I was plagued with an injury. Stupid, stupid me.
I had always been ultra competitive in my life, and extremely self-motivated, particularly when it came to wanting to prove people wrong. I played soccer my entire childhood and adolescence, well into my teen years, and never wanted to give up on myself. I started noticing knee pain around 14 years old, but relentlessly kept pushing myself because I didn’t want to be viewed as weak or replaceable. I kept silent about this torment because I never wanted to give someone the satisfaction of seeing me not play. Only when I finally realized that I did not want to pursue soccer at the collegiate level did I finally see an orthopedist about the issues. Rather than pursuing PT or a separate course of action, surgery for both knees was immediately recommended due to frayed portions of the medial and lateral meniscuses. My right knee was also showing some damage to the ACL, but it was still in tact. The first surgery on my left knee went fine, and was toward the end of my senior year in high school. My right knee was operated on a few weeks before shipping off to college at FSU. I remember waking up from that second surgery and knowing right away something was off. I was in so much pain and it felt stiff from the get go. I never had time to fully rehabilitate it either, because the 8 hour drive to college was a short time after this procedure.
Lack of physical therapy, the long drive, the hilly streets in Tallahassee and walking every where so soon after surgery really strained my knee. Plus, I still feel to this day that the surgeon compromised the health of my knee with two unnecessary surgeries and that something wasn’t right with the second one. Surprise surprise, the knee that gives me so much issue to this day is my right knee. Not my left knee where I severed my ACL, MCL, bucket handle tear on my meniscus, and dislocated the patella in 2017. But my right knee, which has now sustained 4 different knee surgeries (the left had 2). And as I stated before, it is my strong belief that the first 2 scopes I had in 2009 were completely unnecessary. My right knee hasn’t been okay ever since, and all of the meniscectomies on that knee has left me without any meniscus left on the medial or lateral side, and zero cartilage. In fact, it is so bad that the bone-on-bone is rubbing together so severely, I get frequent bone spurs and even bits of the bone chipping off from the constant grinding. One of the surgeries even involved them removing a sizable fragment that had chipped off and was getting trapped in the joint, reducing flexion. The osteoarthritis has been compared to that of a man in his 60’s who spent a military career jumping out of airplanes.
I say all of this to reiterate the fact that I am truly a dumb dumb. I will do almost anything to avoid surgery now becomes it is never a guarantee, operations should be a last resort, the ligament will never be the same, the structural integrity will be almost certainly compromised, and it is of vital importance to explore all options possible before jumping right to surgical intervention. I was so young when I had those first 2 surgeries, and I wish I had sought a second opinion or advocated for myself better when I felt that something was wrong. With most minor meniscus scopes, you should be able to put a little bit of weight on that operated leg the same day, and I couldn’t. When the medical professionals told me to do it, I remember the pain and instability and told them I had the same procedure to my other leg a few short months ago and had no issue. Something was wrong after that second surgery, and I was too young and too naive to question it further. And then because I moved 8 hours north a short time afterwards, I couldn’t follow up with them to tell them the pain was more severe, and much worse prior to the surgery. It has now been several surgeries later, with much damage accrued, and I know that my choice of profession has only exacerbated the issue at an alarming rate. I am in debilitating pain every single day and every second of those days.
I’m not going to harp on this issue, or the fact that my knee is always filled with fluid, perpetually dislocating, constantly swelling, and alternating between sharp, shooting pains and a persistent throbbing ache. Since I have been told there is nothing that can be done until I am old enough for a full and total knee replacement (they won’t even entertain the idea at my current age even though I was told I am far past the point of needing one), I am just going to keep living my life, competitions and all. I am doing everything within my power to help any way that I can, including all anti-inflammatory supplements (like ginger and turmeric), receiving stem cell injections (a godsend, truly), draining the built up fluid, red light therapy, foam rolling, pain medication, and of course, plenty of ice. It kills me that I can’t fight anymore with the state of my knee, but I am setting my goals high in Jiu Jitsu, and aiming for world championships. I can’t go back in time, and avoid the surgeries or not push myself so hard, but I can prioritize healing now the best way that I can. And sure, some would still call mea dumb dumb for continuing to compete now despite the discomfort and agony, but it’s who I am; there is no quit in me. Besides, a little pain never killed anyone.
Yup you are.
eqEAtzFPCT
UCZLvloOiKtYyFIX
dxJPrqgZpKFf