Why My Dilemma About Knee Surgery was not the Real Healing Challenge
Would I ever be able to hike again? (Image courtesy of worldofmiri.com)
The physical pain was a pathway to something deeper
My left knee was in shatters
I had an ACL reconstruction done on my left knee.
This journey started four months earlier when I injured my knee in a taekwondo accident. It was an epic jump kick (sadly, no one filmed it!) but the landing on my left foot was not as epic. I collapsed on the floor howling with pain. I knew I had done serious damage.
I was bound to crutches, or more accurately, to the sofa for the next few weeks. I am usually an active person. Prior to my knee injury, I did taekwondo twice per week, yoga once or twice, ran a nine km loop regularly, and went for walks. I couldn’t do any of this anymore.
It was frustrating
Tension accumulated in my body, and I scolded myself for my stupidity. I had pushed myself to jump extra high, to reach a goal that had been ten centimeters beyond what I had achieved before. Why had I been so pushy? Why had I been so reactive? What led me in that direction?
I remember the moment of the jump. It felt as if an invisible force took over and made me perform. My actions seemed out of my control. It was as if my conscious mind turned off. Who took over? Was that my ego? Or was that potentially a higher force because there was a lesson in this for me to learn?
X-rays didn’t show anything but when the pain didn’t improve, I went for an MRI about four weeks later. The report spoke of bruising in the bone and a partial tear in the ACL. I was hopeful. If the tear was only partial, I would surely be able to get by without surgery. I wasn’t a big fan of any form of body invasion, particularly as my body had been unwell for the last few years. I did not want to add to my plate.
I saw an osteopath, a chiropractor and started physio. The knee specialist I consulted about seven weeks after the accident told me I had to come back in six weeks as my knee was too immobile to be assessed. Over the course of those weeks, I worked on strengthening the muscles and getting back my flexibility. If I did not move the knee enough, it felt stiff, almost as if the knee became locked in a certain position and required extra effort to get going again. I meditated regularly, asked for healing, and visualized a speedy recovery and stable ligament.
With confidence, I entered the specialist’s office for my follow-up appointment. I was almost walking normally again, and I had even taken up yoga, though with limited poses. The specialist assessed my knee by observing my walk and bending my knee in various directions, always comparing the performance to my healthy right knee.
The diagnosis left me in shatters: The ACL was not performing as it should. Hadn’t the MRI report said it was only partially torn? Well, a report is a report, but what counted was on the table. The assessment revealed my knee was not working as it should. It did not matter if the ACL was fully or partially torn or simply overstretched. It wasn’t doing its job.
I had to swallow hard. Surgery meant nine long months to recovery.
Would a knee surgery be worth it?
The appointment was scheduled for ten days later. I was sitting on the fence. Should I go through the process of body intrusion or should I try to explore alternative ways to make my knee stable again? In the next days, I spoke to various people who had experienced ACL problems (I didn’t know there were so many!). About half of them had opted for surgery, the other half had not. All of them were satisfied with their outcomes. That did not help in making a decision.
Of course, I always tell other people they need to choose for themselves and access their own inner wisdom without getting lost in everybody’s opinions. Here was a great opportunity to practice what I believed! I knew I had to follow through on my own advice, but I found this challenging.
Finally, I sat down in meditation and asked the question:
Should I have knee surgery or not?
The answer I got was simple: Either way will work. The most important would be that I was convinced of my healing and that I trusted and believed in my choice.
Well, that didn’t help either! I was still unsure. I felt overwhelmed with the thought of having to make a choice. Then I remembered the process of surrender. My path had led me towards surgery, maybe this was what I needed. I had an appointment scheduled with a trusted psychic medium a few days later. When I asked her, she confirmed both ways would work, but that surgery would mean a speedier recovery compared to non-surgery.
This helped me surrender into having surgery.
I thought I was handling the approach of the set surgery date well. Funnily enough, my digestion was unstable. I went through the usual suspects. Had I eaten anything wrong? Was I not drinking enough? Had I caught a small infection? In the end, I had to admit that I felt anxiety around the surgery. My body desperately tried to process my fears by releasing those emotions through my guts. This is a common pattern for me. I should have made the link, but I had been in denial.
I also noticed a pain in my solar plexus. When I tuned into it, it felt like a massive black hole right in the center of my body. I knew this black hole well. It had been with me as long as I remember. The first times it had prominently risen to the surface was in puberty and young adulthood. I have spent much time and effort trying to stuff this hole (with food, alcohol, friends, partners…), but nothing ever worked.
I felt overwhelmed, so I prayed for help. I handed over. I surrendered. And I asked for the best outcome and the highest result of the process.
The surgery went well. At least, the specialist was highly satisfied. I didn’t share his confidence. The pain was strong, my knee was stiff, and I couldn’t walk.
No walking - yet again
I spent the first days on the sofa and it felt like Deja-vu. The crutches we had previously put aside, were brought out again. I iced, took painkillers, and felt extremely exhausted. At night, I found it difficult to find a comfortable position. I needed more painkillers to be able to sleep. This was difficult as I’m not a fan of painkillers. I believe that pain is a messenger. By suppressing the pain, we miss the chance of receiving the message.
Well, obviously, something was very wrong in my body. Screws had been drilled into my bones (yes, the bones were complaining strongly!) and my knee swelled to the size of a small watermelon. The hospital physio had given me exercises to do and I followed through half-heartedly.
When I saw my local physio after a week, he was happy with the reduction of the swelling, mango-size by then, but not impressed by my inability to straighten the knee. He said the first six weeks after surgery were crucial. It was literally,
“No pain, no gain.”
I had to push through and if I needed to take painkillers to achieve that, I should.
I surrendered into this part as well. Even though the painkillers sometimes didn’t even take the edge off the pain. Straightening and bending the leg was excruciating and more than once, tears shot into my eyes because of the pain. I had to grind my teeth. Whatever the lesson was, this was not an easy one to swallow.
I saw my energy healer as well as I firmly believe in the mind-emotion-body link of physical ailments. A healing needs to happen on several levels, not only the physical level. The mind patterns and the emotions behind the ailment need to be addressed as well.
What came up in the emotional healing blew my mind
My left knee was tied to the black hole in my solar plexus which had been haunting me for so long. This was, of course, why it had resurfaced prior to the surgery. There was a deep sense of “not deserving to be supported” hidden underneath it all. This was a sensation I had felt almost all my life. My energy healer said it seemed I had subconsciously opted for the knee injury to accelerate the healing around this belief system. Without the physical impact, the healing would have taken much longer and been more difficult to achieve.
I gasped. This was a chance to heal the black hole within me! I had felt incomplete because of it for so long.
