After getting my brace refitted two weeks ago, I thought I’d give racquetball one more try last week. I did, and my knee objected by popping out again, this time, in a manner that left no room for any further indecision. So I was on crutches much of last week while negotiating a time slot for ACL surgery in the next week or two.
While laying awake that first night, trying to find a position for my knee that would allow me to sleep, I flashed back to a couple of things that helped me get through till morning.
A few field hospital scenes from Ken Burns’ Civil War PBS series came to mind, particularly those showing piles of limbs ten feet high outside the amputation houses. I tried to imagine what it would be like to recover from an amputation back then, in those conditions. It helped me make a mental shift, so that I began treating my dumb-ass knee pain like a hangnail in comparison. I’d yelp in pain when I shifted my knee and then I’d laugh and swear goodnaturedly. [I wisely chose the living room couch for these antics so as not to inflict damage on my marriage.]
Secondly, I remembered this blurb from Timothy Miller’s book, How to Want What You Have. “Pain cannot be avoided… Suffering, on the other hand, is optional and unnecessary… Whether something hurts, and how much it hurts, depends on what you are paying attention to and what you feel you have gained or lost as a result of the injury… Pain may be borne with resentment, fear, and anguish, in which case it becomes identical with suffering, or it may be borne with good cheer and a light heart.”
The examples he uses in the book to illustrate this are right up my alley: a guy who wrecks his knee while making a great play to help his team win a company softball game vs. a guy who wrecks his knee on his only day off while helping his ungrateful jerk of a brother-in-law fix his house. They’re both in equal amounts of pain, but only the latter suffers. I wrecked my knee doing something I love, and I plan to return to it when I heal. So I decided I had nothing to complain or get bummed about, and thus far, I’ve been able to maintain that attitude. We’ll see how it holds up.