"I understand that pain leapfrogs over language and lands in dumb growls beyond time. A place where there is no speech and no clock, no means of separating the moment or its misery. Nobody comes and nobody goes. It is a place unvisited by civilization. Civilization has not happened."
- Jeannette Winterson, Gut Symmetries
Yeah baby. I was back. On my bike. On the road. The wind whistled through my hair. Sang its song of freedom in my ears. Nice weather too. Not too hot, not too cold. Sunshine on my back and big fat sheepish clouds on the horizon - all was good with the world, I thought. I was on my self-propelled way.
And totally happy. So much fun to be mobile again. So restful to be out of the house. For a semi-civilized ol' bear like me, it made all the difference. As for the new knee, it was doing just fine. But I wasn't going to push it. I was happy just to cruise along in my baby gear and work on my cadence.
Yeah right.
Maybe it was the adrenaline of the moment. Maybe it was just all the fresh air in my face. Whatever. I hadn't felt this good in months. Chained to my chair until my knee could bend enough to spin again, I'd spent the last few weeks an impatient prisoner of passivity. I hadn't pushed my heartbeat into the three-digit range since the operation. That was strange too. I didn't think I'd ever spent that much time in quiet mode.
Slowly my pulse increased.
Spinning. Freewheeling. Just rolling effortlessly along. I felt like Atlas released from his morbid hold. Sisyphus delivered of his annoying rock. Prometheus unchained even. I felt alive again. And I let my mind wander over the last few weeks. The humbling helplessness of the first few post-op days: Oooh, those were nasty. The frustration of watching my muscles atrophy. Feeling my strength drain away. So quick to disappear; so cruel in its thoughtless departure. And then the slow - very slow - path back to "health."
Did I mention the pain? Incessant. Penetrating. Demanding. Infecting every second of the day. Cackling inside my ear. Reverberating deep in my gut. It had taken hold of my soul and squeezed and pinched it until I was dry of tears.
And it brought me to a whole new understanding of my oh-so-human limitations. Meaning? I don't know what it's like for other new-knee people, but my first two months of post-op recovery were as tough to bear as anything I've ever experienced.
A quick glance at my monitor. My heartbeat was still rising. My cadence too. I shifted to a bigger gear. It felt good. Felt right. No twinge in the knee. No little voice in the back of my head saying: stop! Nothing in my way now. I was finally on the path to recovery.
Don't worry dear reader. I'm not leading you into a "and then my knee popped out of place and my leg fell right on to the street" kind of narrative. I made it home in one piece. Didn't really exceed my limits. Felt great on my return. And I was even quick to apply ice to the new joint. In short, I acted in a totally responsible way.
Sure, the knee had swollen some during the ride. And I felt a little more pain than usual. But all in all I felt my first two-wheeled venture out into the world had been an unqualified success. Couldn't wait for the next day.
And the day after that. Indeed, I got in a wonderful trio of rides in that week before my regular physio session at Vancouver's Mary Pack Arthritis Centre. It was there, alas, that I learned I'd been an idiot again...
Won't I ever learn?
A little background:
I'd been attending sessions at the MPAC for the last month. An impressive facility entirely dedicated to fighting arthritis and arthritis-related diseases, the centre offers multi-week rehabilitation programs for new joint recipients (either knee or hip). I was right in the middle of one of those programs - had graduated, in fact, to group sessions that featured a new physiotherapist who brought (as I would soon find out) a serious tough-love approach to her work.
" What have you been doing ?" was the way she introduced herself to me. Her tone was that of a disapproving older sister (kinda like Lucy from Peanuts).
She picked up my (still-swollen) knee and looked at it from different angles. Then she tested the suppleness of my quads and hamstrings. Ouch, that hurt. Her tone became even more stern. "These muscles are way too tight," she said, barely suppressing the tsk-tsk in her voice. "No wonder you can't straighten your knee out yet. Your muscles won't let it happen." And then again. "What have you been doing?"
Then it was my turn. "Well..." I prevaricated. "You know, I mean, well, I thought it would be okay if I actually got off my wind trainer for a day or two and get in a few miles spinning on the road instead." I felt like a 12-year-old kid getting busted for shoplifting. But wait a minute. What was going on? I hadn't done anything wrong...
Or at least that's what I thought.
"You did what?" Her eyes bore that incredulous look that only women can master. You know the one - the one that says 'you're such a screw-up.' "You went cycling on the road?" she continued. "At this stage of your recovery?" She shook her head in sad disapproval. "That wasn't too smart, you know."
Another shake of the head. She looked at me and fake-chuckled. "I've been doing this for a long time, you know, and never, never have I heard of someone foolish enough to go cycling at this point in the rehab process. You could have set that process back for weeks. As it is, you are in a very bad way."
And then she went to work on me. My core strength, she said, was all screwed up. I'd been using the wrong muscles and I'd trained my body to act in a corresponding manner. And that had caused all sorts of problems. There were muscles, she explained, that hadn't been fired in years. And these were the ones we'd have to work on together if I wanted full mobility again.
"You're so weak for such an active guy," she sighed. "And all in the wrong places." A lot of abuse had been visited on this body over the years. It would not be an easy task she warned me. She also made it clear that unless I was willing to do her bidding (exactly as she dictated), she was not interested in helping me out.
"You have not been nice to your body," she concluded as she clucked disapprovingly at the many scars that adorned my battle-worn carapace. "I think you took your body's gifts a bit for granted when you were young. I think you were a bit thoughtless for the future."
Wham. It was like she'd hit me with a haymaker between the eyes. I didn't even feel it coming. I was down for the count.
The veil had fallen from before my eyes. Suddenly I understood her disapproving tone. 'Here you are,' her eyes told me, 'a big healthy male with a great sporting background and you're moaning and groaning about a knee that gave out because of abusive behaviour. Meanwhile, legitimately sick people come to the centre each day desperately seeking treatment from us. For them, it's not about getting back on skis or whether or not they'll be able to surf again. It's about staying alive. You should be ashamed of yourself.'
Ouch. She didn't actually say all that of course. But her message came across loud and clear.
And maybe that's a message that Whistlerites should mediate on for a moment or two. Know what I mean?
In our incessant search for the next physical-emotional high, we mountain funhogs do indeed take our human coil for granted. Whether it's jumping off cliffs or launching off teeter-totters, crashing at 100 km/h or splatting on the flats, the damage we inflict on our bodies during those big-adventure outings have far-reaching consequences. Are we being responsible in promoting those activities as much as we do? Is it time we looked at less aggressive imagery to represent Whistler's recreational offerings? I don't know. What do you think?
