I’m so full of emotion, I’m not sure I can write this. I’ve been contemplating it for weeks but every time I think about actually putting my feelings into words, my mind goes blank.

But my heart doesn’t. It’s overloaded with those feelings that keep swirling and bubbling and won’t leave me alone.

Today, as I sit here in tears yet again, it is time to try. Perhaps I’ll be able to at least make a dent in expressing what has been so powerful and important to me in the past few months.

But I’m quite certain that whatever I write, it will not even come close to what I wish I could say.

It has now been three months since an injury and surgery knocked the stuffing out of me. A simple slip on some unseen black ice that resulted in the quadriceps being torn right off the bone with such force, it ripped my kneecap in two. (Full story here)

I had no idea that was even a Thing.

Photo of X ray of badly broken patella - with shadow of outrageously swollen knee visible

For at least 15 minutes, I lay on the cold, wet sidewalk down the street from my home, waving frantically as I cried and shouted for help. I was ignored by people a few houses away and others who drove by until finally, two men stopped to assist me.

By the time they got me into the house and the ambulance arrived, my knee looked like this:

By sending fluid and white cells to the injured area, my body was already trying to heal it with this swelling, although there was no way in hell that was going to happen without surgical repair.

After reattaching the quadriceps to the bone and suturing the pieces of patella back together, the surgeon stapled the incision. Pretty cool when you think about it, and a lot quicker to put in than stitches. Plus staples reduce the risk of infection.

Although I have to say, my knee didn’t seem too happy to have staples in its face. Neither did my thigh. Can’t say I blame them.

Author’s photo. Owie owie owie owie owie.

We tend to think that doctors heal us. In reality, they offer treatments or information or surgical intervention but then our bodies take over, knowing exactly what they need to do. My fabulous surgeon did a great job of reattaching the muscle to the bone, and doing a “patella patch-up.” He’s taken care to offer advice and instruction over these three months about what I need to do or not do, and he will continue for the remaining months of my healing journey.

But he is not actually causing the healing. It couldn’t have happened without his intervention; those patella pieces were never gonna find their way back together and that muscle wouldn’t have magically reattached itself to the bone.

Photo by author — One week post-op. Evidence that the surgeon really did do stuff in there :)

Three months later, my knee is still extremely swollen and discoloured, which the surgeon says will be the case for “many more months.” It’s quite warm to the touch, not so much that you could fry an egg on it but enough to be voted The Tropics by the rest of my leg. I can’t help but envision tiny repairmen in there with scaffolding, hammers, nails, electric drills, buckets of paint etc. and teeny workmen’s vans bringing supplies, carrying away the rubbish…I figure there oughta be an “under construction” sign stapled to my knee. No, wait! No more staples, please! I did not enjoy it when those ouchy-pinchy little pinheads were removed.

The first several weeks were horrific in terms of pain. I cannot take painkillers (other than Tylenol, which didn’t touch it). I was often reduced to tears, especially at night when I was desperate for sleep but it wasn’t making any pit stops at my house. I began to think I was hallucinating about the pain being worse at night but it turns out that’s a Thing. There are various metabolic reasons for it but that’s another story for a different day.

I’m still having a fair bit of pain, especially as I’ve also developed a few secondary conditions as a result of this injury and my ankle, achilles tendon and foot are affected. They’re swollen and it’s extremely painful to walk so I’m still shuffling slowly with a walker or crutches like an old lady.

I was in a full leg brace 24/7 for the first nine weeks (now I know a new way to spell MISERY) and for the past four weeks, I’ve been allowed to remove it to sleep. Yay! Or maybe not as much yay as I’d expected. It causes pain in new ways but at least I’m more comfortable.

I still need help to get up and down the stairs. It’s a major, painful ordeal so I don’t do it unless it is essential. I need a lot of help to function on a daily basis although gradually, I’m able to do a little more for myself as the weeks pass.

So…why does my body make me cry? Am I talking about the numerous occasions of frustration, pain and sleeplessness that have sent me there?

No. I’m talking about how I take my brace off when I get into bed and I see my poor leg, misshapen and squished in places where the tight straps have been all day. I see bruises leftover from the injury and surgery and newer ones from the brace being driven painfully into bone or soft tissue.

I see my long scar, which has been gradually changing over these three months, evidence of my body’s amazing ability to close such a gaping wound, a wound that sits in the midst of great swelling and bruising, signs that it is injured and trying so hard to be well again.

I see the swelling of my foot and ankle and I know this is my body’s attempt to protect the area while it’s working its magic.

I lift my leg off the bed just a little and marvel at the repaired quadriceps allowing me to do this simple movement again when I could not while I sat in the emergency room.

I look at these sad, swollen, red, inflamed parts of my body and I think of the pain they are in. I know, because I can feel it. I think of how they’ve been busy 24 hours a day, seven days a week, working away at healing for three solid months from the very moment I landed on that sidewalk and they’re not done yet.

I feel compassion for them; I feel awful that they hurt, as if they’re my dearest friends in the world and there’s nothing more I can do for them than I’m already doing.

I think about what a magnificent healing machine my body is and I’m overwhelmed with love and gratitude for this incredible gift. So much so that it brings tears to my eyes.

I tell my leg how sorry I am, sorry that despite my best efforts to be careful, I still managed to slip and cause all this pain and damage. I cannot help but cry.

Ever so gently, I rub lotion into my leg, my ankle and foot, giving them a loving little massage and talking to them about what a great job they’re doing of healing. I find myself mesmerised about how this body knows exactly how to heal from the various aspects of these injuries, the surgery, and the secondary conditions that have flared up as a result.

I can’t help but say, “Thank you!” over and over again, and offer encouraging words about what a great job of healing is taking place right before my eyes.

And I give my “good leg” some love, too, some lotion and rubbies and deep gratitude for the way it’s been handling the extra burden while I’ve not been able to properly use my right leg. The left knee has been rebelling a bit at having to bear all the weight when I rise from a seated position; it hasn’t been allowed to share it for three months.

The left foot and ankle are holding up well — so far — and how grateful I am for that! What would I do if they were pissed off at me because of the extra burden? What if they hung out a sign saying “On Strike”? Jeez, Louise, I’d be so screwed. In the bad way.

So as I sit here every evening — and many times in between — I cry tears of overwhelming gratitude for my body’s magnificent ability to heal, for my poor leg having gone through such a dreadful injury and being sliced open to repair the damage, but causing another kind of damage in the process.

I cry for all the times I took my legs and feet for granted, never paying attention to how easy it was to run up and down stairs or to bend over to pick up something I’d dropped. I never thought about how easy it was to stand at the kitchen counter and prepare food, or to be able to carry a plate or a drink from one room to the next. I can’t do that with two hands on a walker or using crutches. Now I have to plan ahead and figure out how I’ll get food and drinks — or anything else — from one place to another.

I never thought about how easy it was to step into a bathtub and sink into its depths — or to stand in a shower. I wonder how long it’ll be before I can do either of those again.

I never thought about how easy it was to put on my own socks. It still hurts a LOT to put a sock on my “bad foot” and I can’t even think about stepping into a shoe! Thank heaven for super thick slipper socks that I’ve worn when being taken to my hospital appointments when it’s snowy and minus 30 outside.

I never thought about how much I love sitting cross-legged on the floor — for example, in front of my altar in spiritual practice or in meditation. I miss it so, so much!

I never thought about how lovely it was to crawl into bed and curl up on my side, as I’d done for decades, until I couldn’t do it because of the thick, plastic brace. And now, even though I don’t have to wear the brace at night, I still can’t curl up on my side or sleep in any familiar and comfortable positions because it hurts too much.

I look at the pictures above and see how far I’ve come from those awful early days, even though I still have a long way to go. This body has been so busy healing, healing, healing…never taking a break.

I could go on for ages about the countless big things and little things I never considered before this injury, the long list of ways in which I took for granted my amazing leg and foot, my knee, the ability to move freely, to get from one place to another, to bend, to kneel, to sit cross-legged, to dance, to get dressed easily, to live my life unencumbered by the kinds of limitations that this situation has created.

And so I cry for the incredible gift of a body that works — at least in part — and for its astonishing ability to heal. I cry in profound gratitude as I stroke these painful, injured, but recovering parts of my body and I trust that someday they will all be well again.

And I know — I know — that this deep gratitude for my healing is a significant factor in this body eventually being well again.

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This Is Why My Body Makes Me Cry