Step by Step

Blog Post #1: Maintaining Perspective

[CW/TW: Gruesome injury] When a nightmare becomes reality, and how to move on.

As I lay on the bed, surrounded by the wail of sirens, I was overcome with a deep sense of dread. This is it, I thought to myself. The dream that haunted me for years had finally come true.

For years, basketball had been a passion of mine. Although I am often regarded as the “gentle giant,” the sport became one of my outlets to let go of all my inhibitions in life. I enjoyed the physical contact, the feeling of success when helping a teammate score, and the camaraderie shared between us. And now, looking at my grotesque leg, I knew that things would never be the same.

Intentionally blurry to avoid identification (and the foul)

I tore my ACL (and most likely dislocated my knee, though there was no evidence other than the initial deformity) during the spring of 2019. As someone who was riddled with injuries throughout middle and high school, I always had feeling that a gruesome injury would occur one day, like one of those freak injuries you see on the news sometimes. However, this was worse than anything I could have expected. I could feel that my knee was not in place. The joint behind the kneecap screamed, and I screamed with it. The pain, that excruciating, throbbing pain, that gnawed at me for what felt like centuries, just didn’t dissipate. This injury was hard on me, not only because I couldn’t be on the hardwood courts for the foreseeable future, but also because the recovery process was intense and lengthy.

Even if I recovered, I would never be the same player I was before, let alone live my day-to-day life without some pain or unease. Even if I managed to get through the 8+ months of rehab, the fear of that pain would haunt me forever.

While similarly demoralizing thoughts shrouded my mind, my long term goals for recovery guided me back to a sense of normalcy, from relearning how to walk without a limp, to running on the track, to eventually returning to the hardwood floors. Getting back on my feet was a challenge, but I learned some valuable lessons that helped me get through it.

Here are some tips to get through similar injuries (or even getting through any difficult challenges overall):

1. Surround yourself with an incredible support system. My parents, friends, and physical therapists were incredibly caring and helpful. These guys kept me mentally sane, and helped me get through the pain and general malaise that comes with any setback. Imagine trying to take a shower in the dorms of UCLA (or going anywhere at UCLA, rip senior year) on crutches. Or going to and from class. Without my friends sending me class notes for the days I missed, or their help with food and other things we take for granted, I definitely wouldn’t have survived that quarter.

Perks of being injured: front of line passes to (almost) everything

2. Write down your long term goals, and always look to it for motivation. My goal of playing sports again was a constant reminder that even though my left leg was half the size of my right, if I continued to push myself through these awful exercises, I could one day be back on the floors of Wooden.

3. Create some sort of competition as a distraction. For me, I tore my ACL around the same time NBA star Klay Thompson tore his ACL, so I challenged myself to return to sports before he did. This meaningless rivalry got me through many difficult workout sessions and helped me track my progress through someone else (even though they may never know who I am).

4. Lastly, it’s okay to think about the what-if’s and the what-now’s, but follow these thoughts up with “what’s next”. I still think about how if I didn’t go for that block, my knee would’ve been perfectly intact, and how things would’ve been different. I routinely questioned if I could even get back to sports, or if the pain would ever subside. These doubts are natural, but don't let them take over. What’s done is done, and all you can do now is move forward. What you can do is figure out where you’d like to be once you're at full strength. For me, my physical therapist help create a general plan for my recovery: walk without crutches in a few weeks, start building strength and muscle mass, to eventually run and jog after 5 months. These benchmarks motivated me to move forward instead of looking back.

For those of you who read through all this, I hope you came away with something that you didn’t know before, and at the very least, you came away with knowing something about me. And for those getting through your own injuries, trust the process. Time freezes during those hellish sessions, but that high of finishing your last hour of physical therapy is like nothing else.

(AL)