My left leg is propped up and iced on the corner of my kitchen table. One layer of leg wrap separates my ice packet from my scarred skin. I'm pretty sure I need more than one layer but it's been three months and by now, I'm kind of addicted to the refreshing cold on my freshly swollen knee.
Each time, after removing the ice packet and rolls of leg wrap, I'd reveal a puffy knee, red with cold. I'd invite you to feel how cold my knee is if not for social norms. :P
Anywho, it has been three, going onto four months, of quarantine. It was during this time, after buying a last-minute ticket home from my second semester of college, that I decided, "no more waiting. Let's get that fancy ACL reconstruction surgery."
Lol, of course I didn't randomly want ACL surgery because YUP. I tore my ACL.
I tore it.
I tore it back in February in a "How to Play Futsal" 1 credit course that I had chosen to take, instead of horse riding. In all honestly, I thought my chances of getting hurt in my one semester of horse riding would be much higher than an indoor soccer class... which is why I quit horse riding in the first place... welp, but the friends I made in horse riding are honestly forever. They are absolutely amazing, talented individuals.
Back to the ripperoni story...So off I went into the world of indoor soccer. I had a wonderful first three classes. I made some friends, caught some high-fives, and killed it. But by the fourth class, I had twisted abruptly, trying to the kick the ball in. Probably twisted too awkwardly. I heard the infamous pop. A crack of pain ran down my knee. I fell to the ground. And I swear, I fell in slow-motion.
Slow-motion is no joke.
It hit me, as I was on all fours on the ground, gasping at the incredible amount of pain, one word came to mind. "Fuck."
I tried crawling, trying to get back up again, but my poor, poor knee could not handle it. It kept buckling, so I don't know why, but in that moment, I thought crawling was the best thing. My coach had to blow the whistle at me and my comrades had to tell me "yooo stop crawling" for me to stop.
Arms lifted me up gingerly. My mind was blank except for the pain pole dancing in my knee.
"Can you try walking?" my coach asked. I tried, and lol, I buckled. And the three of us were kind of like "oo~oo~p".
"Okay okay, let's not then. Can someone get her a chair?"
It would be 1.5 months later that I would finally get an accurate diagnosis. It took a 30 minute drive in hard rain, in a rented car, my friend driving, none of us knowing how to turn on the wind shield wipers despite both of us having drivers licenses (to this day, I cannot believe that we made it to the MRI office in that rain and what the actual freak, lol. I am an actual disgrace haha xD), quick dangerous turns in the dark, and crutching on wet wet pavement -- it took all of that to get an MRI.
Finally, the day of my finalized diagnosis came. I had asked a mentor of mine from my Narratives Project, a wonderful, warm, positive individual; she's too good to be real. Too damn good. I asked her if she could drive me to the hospital. She said yes. I found myself buckled in her car three hours later, nervous-talking about my knee, about her life and what she did before teaching at Smith... those would be my last absentmindedly happy moments. In her car. Laughing and vibing with this wonderful wonderful motherly, goose-motherly, gentle gentle loving soul.
foreshadowingggg
The nurse called me in. The doctor shook my hand. He sat down and said, "Bad news or good news?"
"Bad news first, Doctor."
"I was... unfortunately right. Your ACL is torn. Completely. Here, on this MRI, you see this dark area? That's where it's torn. And it seems you bruised your femur and tibia a LOT, which is pretty cool. Cool in a bad way, heh.
Hey, but the good news is, the surgery to get it reconstructed is a simple one and I'm positive you won't run into any surgery mishaps."
I burst out laughing.
I laughed. I laughed-cried. That moment, as I sat at the edge of the examination bed, dangling my leg over to the side, I felt the most funny-sad feeling ever.
I would have to go through surgery. All because of one stupid, stupid mistake. I twisted a little too much. That was it.
For 1.5 months before my official diagnosis, I crutched throughout Smith, waited for vans to take me to class and take me home, and couldn't so much as carry my own plate to the dinner table. I was told that I had a knee sprain and that I would only have to wait it out. 2 weeks passed. 3 weeks went. I still couldn't walk. I would wake up each morning, praying there wasn't snow or rain to crutch through.
I ended up moving from my beautiful house with that beautiful street view to a new dorm, one with an elevator. I tried to stay in my old room for three days, sitting on the stairs to go up and go down step by step. Throwing up my crutches and backpack or sliding them both down the stairs first. I relied on my roommate to get me ice. I hardly went to dinner those first few days. I didn't want to bother with stairs. I was a sad hump of human. The first night that I got injured, an officer drove me from the hospital back to school. He helped me up the ramp and then up the two flights of stairs. I hopped all the way up. Tired. Sad. Confused. He was so kind, holding my backpack and giving me encouragement for each step I managed to hop up. It would be relying on these little moments, that helped me get through each day emotionally.
After moving to a dorm with an elevator, my social life was immediately limited to my new dorm, its cafeteria and my room. Every movement I made had to be strategized and planned: there were no "backsies." My new room was one farthest from the elevator, ironically. Geez. :P
Hey, all of that up there was pretty sad; and it really was. But through it all, I consider myself lucky. Very lucky. And grateful. People made my life much better. It made those 1.5 months much happier. The friends that I had made in my classes, from horse riding (which I'd quit welp), and through all the "by chances", they made themselves available for me. They would walk with me at my slow pace to wherever I needed to go. They'd come to my dorm, far from where they are, to have dinner with me. They'd help me move, heavy heavy boxes of stuff from my old and new dorm, and later, when Smith made us scatter, they would help me clean out my old dorm room. They would grab the grab-and-gos from Hubbard and come back to eat in our gov class, while we plugged in an episode of the office into the overhead. They would randomly call in, to check with me, no matter where they were in the country (Faith, I'm talking about you). I had friends who were up for spontaneous eating out trips and who were willing to grab me boba from my favorite restaurant in Amherst - Miss Saigon - or down in Northampton - Lime Red (I love Miss Saigon's boba more heh). They'd come, study with me, go to concert festivals with me in John M Greene hall. Or, maybe we'd go see a hypnotist show at UMass. All of us boarding the bus, walking the length of UMass to get to their show halls, walking at my speed as I crutched through 30 degree weather and wind. The entire time, they cheerfully egged me on and we would all laugh or talk about something dumb, smiling through the quick-setting hunger. We would later be hungry, and crutch to a bus, head out to Amherst for something to eat or drink. More mishaps would come after that haha... but I remember all of those moments fondly.
Thank you my dear friends.
Without all of you, I would not have been as positive as I was about the entire situation.
You reminded me that where there is love, there is hope. And where there is hope, there is healing. Thank you, my beautiful friends.
I'm getting much better now.
Another, perhaps "short" blog post will be written for Part 2. I'm post-surgery and now? I can walk without crutches. :)
I hope this blog post finds you well and that you're finding your own hope, during this time <3
Your girl,
Ngoc
P.s. My friends, thank you againnnn. My heart cannot wait to see you all again, on two working legs :P.
P.p.s. Yen, I didn't forget you. You're the OG sis. :))
P.p.p.s. BIG thank you to Lauv - Sad Forever [Official Video] - YouTube. No kidding this song has gotten me through everything. I needed to focus on what I could do today. And not look at how far the distance from me now to the stronger, future me is. I'll be okay.
No comments:
Post a Comment