After ACL replacement surgery in April, I was determined to come back and start playing soccer again in 2011. Mission accomplished.
The season actually started on the 9th, but because our team got registered a little late, we had a bye week, giving me an extra seven days to exercise and prepare. (Yay for working out with the Wii!) This afternoon, I went to a presentation in Minneapolis, had dinner with Grandma, then went to the soccer game at 7:15. By the time I got to the field, I honestly wasn’t sure whether I’d be playing or not.
Exercising on the Wii may have helped me build up some long-lost muscle, but the workout programs available don’t provide much in the way of sprinting and kicking. I was intent on getting to the field, jump a few times, run, sprint, kick a ball… whether I was going to play or not depended on how much my knee hurt or how stiff it felt after putting it through that kind of stress. No point in suffering extreme amounts of pain and having to sit out for another couple months just to get on the field for 10-15 minutes.
I’m not sure if I’ve explained this before, but “knee pain” has nothing to do with the replaced ligament. That’s healed just fine. The pain is above and below my kneecap and rears its ugly head when I squat down, jump, etc. (I’m assuming it’s because the replacement ligament used to be the middle third of my patellar tendon, which stretches from the quad over the kneecap to the shin.) Thus, the problem is probably that the tendon isn’t at full strength yet. That’s my guess, anyway—all I know for sure is that’s where my knee hurts.
Anyway, after running around and taking a couple shots on goal, I felt okay (relatively speaking). There were a few small flashes of pain, but it wasn’t enough to keep me off the field tonight. I ended up playing… probably 10-15 minutes. I started the first half, subbed out a couple times, and survived the first 25 minutes of the game without too much trouble. For safety’s sake, I spent the second half on the sideline. (When the other team scored a goal, I felt a familiar urge to put my gear on and get back out on the field, but this is one injury I don’t want to aggravate any more than I already have.)
When the game was over and we had secured a 5-3 victory, I walked out onto the field and shook hands with the other team, walked back to the sideline and didn’t feel too bad with my knee covered by a thin layer of Biofreeze. However, that not-feeling-too-bad went away after an hour or two.
Now it hurts when I try to lift and straighten my leg… well, there are a handful of ways to move my leg that hurt at the moment, but lying here in bed with ice on my knee, I really don’t care. Pain is temporary—I’ll feel better after a day or two—but playing soccer again… well, it’s not pride, so it’s not forever. Still, being on the soccer field after so long has made the pain seem a lot more tolerable.
