Rehab junkie

This post marks the 100th post I've ever done for my blog, cue the party poppers! ;) This blog has recorded all the highs and lows and everything in between of my derby journey from the very beginning up to now. It also very nearly recorded the end of my derby career as I was half a letter away from completing my derby resignation letter to HARD on Monday night. I've jumped too far ahead, let me take a step back.

In my last post I mentioned how I managed to achieve the seemingly impossible, I finally passed my Sergeant's level to move up to bouting level only to get injured 10 minutes later in an innocuous fall. Fast forward one month of off skates and physio work and I'm still no closer to getting back on the track. I've injured the MCL in my knee previously but this was the first time I've injured both that and the ACL at the same time. Just like a grass fracture when you break glass the damage went beyond the impact point as it went up my quad and down my shin. I quickly discovered from my physio that they're all interconnected which is why there's such a big problem area. My physio said I haven't got any big tears in my knee but there's a chance there could be some minor tears in there somehere. Needless to say she hasn't given me a clearance to go back to skating but I'm not fighting her because I can feel that my knee isn't right.

In all this time off skates I missed out on the Bambi and Shortstop guest training session, I'll be missing out on this week's family and friend's bout, and the longer I'm off skates the closer I'll get to having to be re-assessed for my Sergeant's test because I'll have been off skates for too long. How to go from the highest of highs to the lowest of lows in 10 short minutes ehh? It's funny I was eagerly awaiting for Jilla to come down and coach and scrimmage with us but now I'm hoping so badly it doesn't happen anytime soon so that I miss out on the chance hehe.

Physically it has been tough but mentally it has equally sucked. I've been feeling down in the dumps and so frustrated that it's not improving. It all came to a head on Tuesday night. After another physio session and another rejection of getting back on skates from the physio on the Monday night I starting thinking that I couldn't do this anymore. It didn't matter how hard I tried, how many times I came back from one injury after the other, I just couldn't catch a break with derby and get ahead long enough before another injury would set me back all over again. It's well documented in derby that when you fall down you get back up and carry on. Mentally it felt like I took one too many falls that I couldn't take one more fall so I started writing the one thing I never thought I'd do a resignation letter from derby. To be honest it was all over the place just like the thoughts in my head and a complete mess and got worse the more I wrote. Frustrated I gave up with the letter and instead I went to the gym to do a restricted work out and some rehab work.

It came down to two reasons why I didn't follow through with hanging up my skates. Firstly while I was at the gym I remembered that feeling however fleeting it was of when I realised I passed my Sergeant's level assessment and thinking how all that hard work had paid off. I wanted to feel that again but hopefully longer than 10 minutes. It was that and a conversation I've had the past day with probably the most positive person I've ever come across that put me back on track. I let frustration get the better of me this time and almost let me do somthing I would have regretted doing.

While my physio won't let me get back on skates just yet she's given me a lot of rehab work to do and the go ahead to do some heavily restricted off skates training. Anyone who has come back from injury knows that rehab work hurts. That part has sucked but I am happy that I'm finally able to do some physical activity again. I was starting to feel like such a miserable fucker especially when I started to notice the strength in my legs start to disappear because I wasn't as active as I was before my injury.

The biggest thing was finally making the decision to bite the bullet and tackle the issue head on. One of my biggest fears has been being told by a medical profession to quit derby because of the permanent damage it's doing to my knees and ankles. How could you not be crushed being told that so I took the bandaid approach. Whenever I've had an injury I've gone to the physio and she's done a great job fixing up the problem so that I could get back on the track. My MCL has been an ongoing problem in my right knee and I've injured it a few times already in derby. Having a proper conversation with someone who has had her own share of knee problems finally opened my eyes to the fact that I needed to stop running and deal with the issue head on so I've finally booked myself in to get an MRI done on my troublesome knee to see what's really going on in there and where to go from there.

If I have to get re-assessed again this time under the new minimum skills then so be it. At this stage I've got no idea when I'll be back on skates, right now my main concern is the MRI and being a rehab junkie so that I can get back on skates.