ACL Recovery

poonis

Member
Hey NS, it's been a while. I unfortunately ended my season mid December throwing a simple 3 off a cat track at Copper. Felt super confident because I had landed it bolts like 6 times, but then the next time I landed just slightly backseat on some hard snow and blew the ACL right there. Guess it goes to show that it really isn't very hard to tear your shit under the right circumstances. Super bummed because I was supposed to compete in big mountain for the first time this winter, but I guess it'll have to wait until next season.

Anyway, I'm now on the road to recovery. I had surgery on Friday, and I'm lucky that everything went well. I went for the quad tendon graft, and I've just been chilling on the couch for the past few days of course. I'm in a lot of pain and I literally can't lift my leg at all but I'm just trying to trust the process and take it one day at a time. I guess the reason I'm writing this is to see if anyone has advice on how to stay sane, has any experience with the quad graft (and if it's normal to not be able to use your leg for a while afterwards), and how to handle the mental side of things with this recovery. I'm supposed to start PT in just a few days but the thought of that seems impossible to me right now when any slight movement of my quad results in stabbing pain. This isn't my first season ending injury; I'm realizing just how fragile I really am and I'm scared that I won't be able to overcome the mental block of re-injuring myself once I'm able to ski again and it's just been really tough watching all my homies keep skiing and progressing and going on all the trips I was supposed to go on while everything is put on hold for me. I've been listening to Simon Dumont's Ascension podcast a lot lately and that's been giving me a lot of inspiration, but there's a small part of me deep down that fears that I won't ever be able to reach my full potential as a skier and that this might be a sign that this wasn't meant to be. I refuse to listen to it though, I know I can overcome this. I guess I just wanted to see if anyone else has words of advice to give, because I could really use some right now.

On another note, I think I'm gonna use this downtime to start putting a lot more effort into producing music. I started dabbling with it a couple years ago when I fucked up my collarbone in the middle of the season and ever since I've realized that I really enjoy doing it. I am by no means good at it, but I feel like I've fully gotten the hang of GarageBand and I've been sitting on this house track for a few months now and I think I'm gonna put it out there. Music is a powerful thing and it's definitely helped keep me in a good headspace throughout all this. If you made it to the end, thanks for reading.
 
14388848:Skiblade420 said:
Whenever I get hurt I turn to hard alcohol and drugs, it really helps take your mind off things

I decided to become an opioid addict after reading this, it helped a ton. Thank you!
 
what others said, go hard at PT, spam skate 3 and before you know it you'll be back on the snow. Injuries fucking suck but you'll get through it :)
 
14388848:Skiblade420 said:
Whenever I get hurt I turn to hard alcohol and drugs, it really helps take your mind off things
14388850:Skiblade420 said:
but U have to take an excess for it to work properly

Two weeks into this acl tear and i've already gone thru more weed and alcohol than all of covid combined. Cant wait til I get surgery and they give me all that candy you can only get at the special candy counter at the store
 
14388982:ReturnToMonkey said:
Two weeks into this acl tear and i've already gone thru more weed and alcohol than all of covid combined. Cant wait til I get surgery and they give me all that candy you can only get at the special candy counter at the store

Yeah I'm really looking forward to switching out the oxy for some edibles. Pain meds sure are helping a lot right now but I don't wanna be on these for much longer. I also haven't shat in two days because of them
 
Stay positive, sounds like you are but just remember, you will be out skiing again. Focus on getting strong again and come back better than you were before. Push it when you can, but also rest, listen to your doctor, PT and your body. Sorry to hear about the injury, vibes for a speedy recovery!
 
14389014:BubbleBuddy said:
Yeah I'm really looking forward to switching out the oxy for some edibles. Pain meds sure are helping a lot right now but I don't wanna be on these for much longer. I also haven't shat in two days because of them

Yea, do that as soon as you can. We're all joking about being an opioid addict here but that is unironically what Oxys do to people. Obviously they helpful for pain but you don't need to take them long to start an addiction. Being cooped up in the house and unable to ski is just gas on the addiction fire.

There's a reasonable discussion to be had about excessive marijuana use too, but by any measure, weed ain't heroin and is vastly preferable
 
Back
Top