What's Up Doc?

While I wish my doctor's trip was as funny as the scene in Funny People, it was not. There was, however, a particularly freckled ginger in the doctor's office who was pretty hot. And I say that because, as most people know, I have thing for gingers and also pregnant women. Sick.

The ortho was pretty surprised when I told him I'd been swimming more now than I normally swim, and able to kick/flip, etc. The constant pain is down to a manageable level, and I'm almost able to completely straighten my leg, and the bending is coming along. At this point, I'm good to go for surgery and can get it done whenever is convenient for me. Since he does it on Mondays and Fridays, I'll probably have to wait until after the RM Invitational because of Labor Day. That leaves me with almost a month still.

So in the meantime I'm going to continue to train, and probably up the volume and intensity for a little while. Can't hurt myself any worse, I figure, at least not in the pool or a fixed machine like a spin bike.

The surgery seems pretty quick, outpatient procedure, they don't even use general anaesthetics, just a twilight version so I'm not even totally out. Takes about an hour. They'll scope it, take out the bad ACL and insert a new ligament from a donor (hopefully it comes from a super slutty lesbian nympho criminal). For a few days I'll likely have to stay home (in NJ) and chill out, but I'm confident I'll be able to be at Philly Distance Run to cheer on the multitude of friends I have running.

Then comes the real recovery. The doc feels that within a month I should be back in the pool, within 6 weeks riding a bike and by 2 months running again. That puts me in mid November, which will represent 4 months of not running. Not that I would try and shortcut my recovery, but given how quickly I got back in the pool and to riding a bike after the initial injury, I can't imagine it will actually be that long. I'm going to say I'll be back in the pool within 2 and on the bike during that 3rd week.

He then told me about a girl who goes to Monmouth University and plays field hockey, tore her ACL in the spring. He did the surgery on May 9 and cleared her just last week to play again for her senior season. I wondered if it was the ginger that was sitting in the waiting room, as she was wearing a Monmouth shirt and looked like she would have played field hockey.

Anyway, he said that she just rehabbed like an animal, spending oodles of time in the training room and just forcing herself to get better and stronger. I can do that. New goal: 100% by December 14, which will be 3 months and would enable me to run Celtic Solstice that next week.