Latest / The ACL Athlete Podcast / 209 | Torn ACL? How to Process Your ACL Injury

Transcript

209 | Torn ACL? How to Process Your ACL Injury · The ACL Athlete Podcast

• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome everyone to the ACL Athlete Podcast.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: This is the podcast where we talk about everything related to the ACL, whether that's the injury itself, the rehab process, return to sport, and more.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: I'm your host, Dr.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: Ravi Patel, performance physical therapist and coach.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: Between myself and fellow guests and experts, you'll learn through the lens of the patient, the healthcare professional, and the coach.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: The goal of this podcast is to equip you, the athlete, with the education to make the best informed decision about your care and your ACL journey.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for joining.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: Now let's dive into today's episode.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: What is up, y'all?
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: And we are gonna go straight into the episode today.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: A little bit more in the feels, so I hope you're ready for this.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: But we're talking about 40 milliseconds.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: That's how long it takes in less than 40 milliseconds for your life to be changed by this ACL injury.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: And for maybe be the next few weeks, months, years, if not years, or longer, it could change forever, in all honesty.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: I've seen this injury do that to a number of people.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: It could be for the positive, it could also be for the negative.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: And the goal here isn't to sugarcoat this episode.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: If you're coming for the warm fuzzies episode, this is not it.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: But we're gonna get real with this episode because I think it's one that I'm surprised I haven't done, to be completely honest.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: And it's one that I feel just inclined to do with just some recent conversations and talking to athletes and consulting different folks, that I think there will be some value in this.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: And so I want to dive into this because this can really change someone's life.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: And it sounds dramatic, but it is real.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: And I know many of you listening feel this in your bones.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: Literally, you feel like your life has changed.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: And especially if you're going through the ins and outs of this process, it probably does feel like it's gonna take forever, or you may never get there, right?
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: And there are people who don't get there, and there could be a number of reasons why.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: I hate to say it, but a lot of times it could be connected to some healthcare experiences, or maybe misinformation, or it could be because of compliance, or it could be because of just the knee was not tolerating exactly how this rehab was going and the surgery itself, right?
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: But with that said, it can be a very impactful injury and potentially a surgery, right?
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: And so what I wanted to do was create the episode I wish I had when I tore my ACL.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: And this is the immediate after tearing the ACL, right?
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's not talking about your next steps, this is what you need to do.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: This is talking about just being okay to grieve for a second, to have a minute, to embrace the loss and the situation that you're in now.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: And this can apply honestly to a number of big injuries that happen to people.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: Achilles, it could be rotator cuff stuff, it could be some back stuff that people deal with, it could be some sort of other tendon-based issue.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: But ACL obviously falls into this, and of course, this is the ACL at lead podcast, so we are talking ACLs.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: And the thing is, is that it's okay when an injury happens to just kind of embrace that for a second and just make space for it, especially if this is your first ACL.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: You're processing a lot of information, and you are also processing just like what are these next steps?
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: What do I need to do?
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: But you're really just trying to process.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: That's the main thing that happens.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: And coming back to even my ACLs, right?
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: How I went through it, and thinking about these situations, and it's so interesting to think about my first ACL tear versus my second ACL tear.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: In my first one, I didn't know what the heck happened.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: I was in high school.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: I, you know, made a cut, I felt a pop, I fell to the ground.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: I thought my knee just kind of gave out, or I had some sort of Charlie horse.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: I knew my knee kind of shifted out of place, but I was like, this is weird, man.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: And then I tried to stand up and kind of jog it off, and I couldn't really stand, or I couldn't really walk on it.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, I knew something wasn't right.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: And so then I had to hobble off to the sidelines.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: It was a football game that I was in.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: And so in that moment, I was like, man, what is happening?
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, I'm younger, so processing things is not as simple or the same as being in college, or especially as where I am now.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: So in that moment, I'm like, man, I just need to get back in the game.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: I'm trying to prove something here.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: I'm trying to prove something to myself, to my friends, to my coaches, to the people watching, to all the work I've put in.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: But essentially, the athletic trainer told me my ACL was torn.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: And just, you know, let the flow of frustration set in because I kind of knew that was a season ending thing.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: And so I was frustrated and upset.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: And I was just like, I don't know how to process this, right?
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't even know what the next steps are, I don't know what this entails.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: And so that felt a little different, especially being in high school and knowing the summer was coming up, and um, just not even thinking about next steps really.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: But then you fast forward to my second ACL, and it was totally different, man.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: I was in college, I was getting ready for trying to apply to grad schools.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I was, you know, moving around campus a lot and working.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: And so this had a huge impact on my lifestyle.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: And then I think about also it being the second ACL and more familiar with training.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: I'm starting to get into PT information a little bit deeper.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: And so at this point, I'm like, man, I've had my second ACL.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: And that one hit me a lot harder.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: It was a longer journey.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: Not to mention my healthcare situation, my insurance was in a much worse place.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: I had a$10,000 out-of-pocket max for my insurance, and my deductible was so high.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: So I was like, man, how am I even gonna pay for this?
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: Because I knew I'd need to have surgery again.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: So it was just very different going through a second ACL injury through this process immediately after.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: What were the thoughts that went through my head?
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: And honestly, like one of the things that was tough was like, man, could I have done something different?
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: I that's the main thing that went through my head in the second ACL, especially, was like, could I have done something different?
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: Or were there some signs that I needed to look out for that I could have just been like, man, I could have avoided this and avoided this process of dealing with the physical pain, the mental just like exhaustion that was to come.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: And to think about really having surgery, money, thinking about being a student, thinking about navigating the day-to-day, thinking about what I'm gonna do for rehab and pay for it, thinking about all these different components that really set in on the second one.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: And it felt just honestly really exhausting.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_00: I also didn't have as much help because I didn't have my parents or my brother or anyone else around to be able to help assist me immediately in the moment.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_00: I had to rely on friends, you know, to be able to help assist me, at least in the moment.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_00: And luckily, I did have some amazing friends who helped me, but it's just a little different when it's not family.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's just different, y'all.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_00: And so what I want to share here, and I'll kind of share some pieces of my own story through this on where it applies, but what I want to make sure is that there is space for this.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't think it needs to be this hyper-focus, like, all right, ACL torn, move to the next thing, next thing, next thing, next thing, and don't make it this transactional process, right?
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: There is a lot of mental components to it and just processing in general.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: And so what I want to talk through is actually the five stages of grief.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: I know we hear about this um when people are dealing with loss and grief itself, and this is a grieving process, right?
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: This is not just some sort of pain issue that we'll resolve in four weeks.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_00: And a lot of times people don't really know what's ahead of them.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: They really don't.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: If you've torn it for the second time, then you probably do.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_00: But if this is your first ACL injury, you don't know what's ahead of you.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes there's the beauty, and you don't know what you don't know, but then that could also be a double-edged sword of maybe just not taking this seriously or just not understanding how long it's gonna be.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: But with that said, like understanding these stages of grief, I remember going through all of them denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: You know, with denial, you're denying it happened, right?
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: You're kind of in that shock, you're processing it.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember feeling that, especially with my first and second one.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_00: The second one especially hit a lot harder for me just because I was like, no, not again, right?
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: And it sucked.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: And so this is just the raw giving it to you guys, real of what I was experiencing um in this process.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: And so that happened.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I was even just hoping for some reason.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_00: I knew it was torn.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_00: I knew in my gut, I knew in my bones, I knew it was torn.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: But I was just hoping whenever you know I had the Lockman test done, and then I get the MRI that there's something, some sort of glimmer of hoping that there was no tear.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: And it was torn, of course.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: And it was just the way the cards were dealt, right?
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: I tore my ACL.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_00: And then after that, I was angered, right?
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_00: I was frustrated.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: I was just pissed about it.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, man, how did I let this happen again?
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_00: Could I have done something different?
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: And that's where the bargaining piece kind of comes in, is like replaying how it could have been different.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe I could have just, you know, been able to do things a little bit better, moved a little bit better, trained a little bit better.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I'd just done all these things to just try and, you know, play cards with the universe, if you will, of being able to process this grieving and then the depression sets in, right?
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: You're like, all right, I am here and you feel overwhelmed, you feel helpless.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember feeling this in the second one where there was just this just down feeling.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, man, I gotta do this all over again.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: And it was exhausting.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_00: And I didn't have as much support or resources from financial or rehab-based or any of those pieces.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_00: So it just felt like a harder mountain to climb, especially the second one.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I know that that also makes it feel like, man, am I actually gonna get back to doing what I want to do?
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: One time, maybe.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: Two, I just kind of felt in the moment, man, I might need to like rethink some things.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_00: And then the last piece was acceptance, right?
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_00: Just knowing that this has happened, knowing I've been here before, knowing I can do it again, and processing through all those pieces, exploring the options, getting the game plan in place and moving on, right?
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: And while I still felt disjointed because I was younger, I was still able to have a better plan in place for my second one.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, I was able to rehab through and do all the right things and take things into my own hands as well, because I was moving into a more of a performance-based role and understanding strength and conditioning, understanding rehab processes.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_00: So I was in a better place to rehab the knee for my second one.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_00: But with that said, it didn't necessarily make the process of the tear and everything easier, you know.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_00: If anything, the second one made it harder.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_00: And I tell people this all the time: just because you tear it a second time doesn't necessarily mean that you're just gonna be able to fly through it again.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: It could be a completely different experience.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: And I know any of you who have torn it twice, you could probably agree to this is that you can't just assume that it's gonna be the same process.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_00: And it's crazy how many athletes tell us someone who's coming onto a second ACL and rehabbing it, it is something where they're like, I had a completely different experience.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: Either is way easier or maybe a lot harder, right?
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_00: And no knee is the same, even within the same knee itself within ACL, it's gonna be a little different because the procedures are different, the knee has been impacted differently, and so it's just a different process, right?
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_00: And so I just want to share this today because this stuff is real, y'all, and there's no reason to sugarcoat the process.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_00: And know that you're not immune to this either, right?
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: You're gonna go through this process, you're going to go through these stages of grief, right?
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_00: You might move through some faster than others, but it's okay.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I legit just talked to someone who just tore their ACL.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_00: We were talking through some of this stuff, and they felt not only the physical pain, they couldn't literally move their knee very much because of the pain and just the acuteness of the injury, but also just a general overwhelm of this process.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_00: What to do?
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_00: Scared of messing it up currently, thinking that something's gonna go wrong.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you guys remember that?
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_00: Like you injure your knee and you're like scared to move it because you're just like, I don't know what to do.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: Like, am I gonna mess something up worse?
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_00: And so you just kind of freeze up and you just kind of wait until you get some professional guidance on it.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: You're wondering who to see, should you have surgery, what graph to get, rehabbing, the options, what does that look like?
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_00: The timing of surgery and rehab, work, you know, having kids, all those things kind of play into this stuff that is crazy, crazy, crazy how much like you have to factor in to deciding all this stuff, right?
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_00: And that's overwhelming.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_00: And it's overwhelming for someone who's done it once, twice, three times, and it's challenging, right?
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_00: And so I'm just letting you guys know this was something very recent with an athlete that we just had this conversation this past week about.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_00: And so I laid out a roadmap, but I also said, let's give this a second, give it some more time to process, focus on the next step, just the next step, and then we can go from there.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: We don't need to have every single thing cleanly laid out and done and figured out.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_00: We can get there, but also give this the space it needs and what your brain needs and what your body and your emotions need because it's a lot.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_00: And so I just wanted to do this podcast episode and be real with y'all about how I felt, how I know athletes in this space feel and the challenges that can come with this.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_00: And I think the biggest takeaway here is just to give yourself space and to process it.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_00: And I promise you that'll be a healthy way for you to be able to move forward and game plan this thing overall.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I think the other thing too is to have just trusted people, a support system in your corner and building a really solid, vetted ACL team.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_00: If you can do those things, you will be in an amazing place.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I guarantee you, every step of the way will feel better and better because you're with the right people, the right support, the right guidance.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_00: And anytime you do kind of feel like you're coming back to one of these places of grief, well, you've got the people in your corner to help support you and to process through all that and have confidence in that.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_00: So I hope that this was helpful, y'all.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_00: Felt like it was a very much needed episode to do, just in recent light of some conversations, some feelings, all the things.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_00: But if you have any questions or need some help, any resources, we're here for you guys.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_00: You can reach out to me via email.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_00: You have my information in the show notes.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_00: You can visit the website.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_00: We're here for you.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_00: Until next time, team.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_00: This is your host, Robbie Patel, signing off.