Amen! Everyone’s tradgedy is a tradgedy to them, not to you. So the degree to which it is bad is up to them. I’ve had bad things happen to me. Sure, it could have been even worse, but it’s still bad.
I knocked my shoulder out of socket and tore some stuff in there when I was 15. I still feel it a little 30 years later. I can’t reach behind my back as far, can’t do some exercises at the gym (butterflies), and occasionally I get this creepy uncomfortable sensation that my arm is just dangling by skin.
I had a really severe ankle sprain a few years ago. That ankle is weak and I have to be real careful when I walk on sloped or uneven ground. I try not to risk further injury. I sometimes feel a twinge of pain if I barely turn it. And oddly, it’s still bruised! Doc says the tissue is stained by blood cells and it might never go away.
I effed up my right knee when I was 15, playing soccer. Took about 2.5 years to heal up from it and get my strength back. It hasn’t really impeded me, but then, I’m not a super athlete and I’m not trying to run marathons or anything. It does bother me some days, and is more prone to injury although never as bad as that one time.
(Dislocation, sprain, and torn muscles if you were wondering)
I’m bumping this thread to provide an update since I’m certain you are all dying to hear how I’m doing.
Six months removed from the injury and four months after the surgery for the ACL replacement, I’d say I’m about 80% to full recovery.
I can walk normally with perhaps the slightest hitch. I’ve been given a date of May 13 (nine months after the surgery) at which time, I can fully resume all physical activities and will be formally released from doctor’s care.
Looking back at my OP, I stand by the notion I addressed in a later post that I was not wallowing in self-pity though it may have come across as a tad whiny.
An injury of the life-changing variety? Well it has certainly been life-disrupting if at least temporarily so. I had pre-physical therapy prior to surgery and then the surgery itself followed by pain-filled days immediately afterwards. There followed PT twice a week, then once a week and now every two weeks. I’ve gone from walking with crutches to one crutch, to a cane and then nothing. Going up and down stairs provided a challenge to someone who took the action completely for granted and there’s more but I’ll stop here.
I fully intend to make a full recovery with nothing but the faintest of residual scarring of the mental and physical variety to serve as a reminder. Hussah!
And sometimes you don’t know immediately that your injury is life-altering. I shattered my left tibia and fibula just above the ankle in 1996. Had some pretty hardcore ortho surgery involving the installation of plates and screws and rods, followed by deep vein thrombosis. If it had healed normally then, it might not have been so life-altering, but it didn’t. I spent nearly a year on crutches that first round, followed by 2 subsequent rounds.
18 years later, I have end-stage arthritis in that ankle and have been old that I’m buying time until I have the joint either fused or replaced. I’m only 46, and I can walk somewhere between 1 - 2 miles before I am kaput for the day (and am sore as hell again the day after). Saturday we had some friends over for Christmas caroling, and by the time we walked out the front door, I was already limping and it took 4 rounds of ibuprofen, a solid night’s sleep, and a hot bath before I could walk semi-normally again.
So no, it’s not quadriplegia, but for someone who used to enjoy playing soccer and spending the whole day walking, it’s pretty damn life-altering.