13.) Dressing up? How about dressing down.

Throwing on a pair of jean pants with a peg-leg is extremely difficult and anything else that isn’t extremely loose-fitting and baggy. With that being said, your entire wardrobe will change to something much less attractive, which is another reason for saying goodbye to your social life.

12.) If your family hasn’t seen you naked, they probably have now.

Before you go into surgery, you’ll need to strip down naked and throw on that ass-less blue apron – there’s no escaping this part. Hopefully your parent’s aren’t around to witness, but chances are not “ever in your favor” since you need a supervisor throughout your entire trip to the hospital to look after you. Once you get home, you’ll eventually need to take a shower, in which case, you’ll need help getting undressed. However you want to put it

11.)You wonder why your leg is much smaller than the other?

A few days go by after your knee surgery, you decide to take off the compression garment and wrap around your injured knee. Looking at your knee, it is clear and obvious that your injured knee went anorexic on you. Don’t worry, this my injured friend is known as “atrophy” – the degeneration of cells from the lack of use due to your surgery. This is why physical therapy plays a major role towards your recovery process.

10.) Painkillers are life savers.

Well, as long as you don’t abuse them ( Vicodin, morphine, codeine, etc are known to be addictive). Before my first ACL surgery, I never consumed narcotics and never realized how much easier they made life during my recovery. I would take these ate home to cope with pain and to push through my knee exercises at home. Little did I know, they make you loopy and dizzy, which I found very amusing. This loopy feeling, however, is what part of the reason for people craving these types of narcotics. Don’t be afraid of getting addicted as your doctor will tell you that yo cannot become addicted from these during your recovery, but take your pain meds as instructed and be careful.

9.) Your sex positions are limited.

For men, you’re left at cowgirl, one-legged doggy and getting a blowjob. I wouldn’t suggest missionary, but then again if you’ve got full ROM back then get to those hip thrusts, although, you might feel your hip cracking and popping since you need to rehab that too. For females, well, this all based off my scientific theory known as an educated guess. You’re left at laying on your stomach and just taking it like a champ, or, you could bend over the bed, peg-leg doggy style. I’m not sure what else you ladies could do… please, inform me.

8.) Reality kicks in – you might not play professionally.

In teens and college athletes, there’s a cognitive bias and dissonance towards playing in the big leagues. No matter what anybody tells you, you’re going pro. When an injury like this kicks in, you should re-evaluate your goals in life. Do you want to play professionally? If so, do you really believe you will? If so, then by all means chase that dream. Just be sure to have another plan in case this doesn’t work out. As your parents tell you, be sure to have a vision for your career outside of sports.

7.) Peeing in the middle of the night is a nightmare.

Wake up, sleep walk to the bathroom, pee, go back to sleep. It’s as simple as that, right? Wrong! Instead, you wake up, think of how daunting this task, sit up, find your crutches in the dark, crutch over to the bathroom, figure out how to pee without crashing into the toilet and waking up your family thinking there’s a robbery, pee, go back to sleep. Personally, I would approach the toilet with the tripod technique – use one hand against the wall and the other on your gardening hose with an acute angle. For females, I’m sure this is even harder since you can’t bend your knee when sitting, you’ll need to hope you squat and land on the toilet correctly. If the ledge of your bathtub isn’t on the same side as your injured leg, i’m sure you’ll need a stool to hold your leg up while seated. This is a nightmare every single night for about 2 months.

6.) Goodbye social life.

Any time a friend brings up doing something social and going out, your immediate thought is, ” How daunting of a task will this be on my armpits from the crutches? How much walking will I need to do? How embarrassing will I look?” As much as you’d like to go out with friends to hang out and go to different events, you can’t necessarily risk re-injuring your knee – it’s just not worth it. Just thinking about different scenarios is already a nuisance, never mind, i’m not going.

5.) Taking a shower is asking for an epic fail.

At any given moment, you could slip and possibly re-tear your acl trying to shower. You have never been so focused on every move you make in the bathroom. Keep in mind, of course, to figure out how you’re going to cover your knee since your incisions haven’t fully sealed yet. This normally consists of a plastic bag with some duct tape – easy and efficient. You check all four limbs to ensure you don’t slip and bust your ass trying to get in the shower. When actually showering, I would just stand on one-leg or sit on the ledge of my shower. For those that can’t do this, it requires placing a chair in the shower to sit on. I can only imagine what it was like for my friends to walk in to this, a man naked, sitting on a chair in the shower with a plastic bag over a knee brace… weird.

4.) With a knee injury, your hands are useless.

Hands and anything else do not simultaneously work together as you were once accustomed to. It’s near impossible to carry anything and crutch around without falling. The worst thing when getting around on crutches and holding something with your hands are things like sidewalk curbs, stairs and doors. Before you would trip over these things because you didn’t notice them. Now you can spot them from a mile away and getting by each step or door is like unlocking pulling down the flag in Super Mario – you’ve made it to the next level.

3.) The struggle is F**king real.

We’ve all had the occasional bumps, bruises, scratches, sprains and breaks that put us out of commission for a couple days to a few weeks. However, tearing a ligament is no easy road to recovery. Recovering from knee surgery – depending on the severity of your injury – can take as long as 6-9 months of recovery. Unlike a sprain or break, tearing a ligament requires rigorous committed physical therapy, and if you slack off, you will reap the consequences… the struggle is real.

2.) You realize how much the game means to you.

Aside from the love you have for your family, the love of the game becomes so evident and real to you. It’s almost as if the sport you play decided “we should take a break” – or that’s your acl dumping you. Either way, it’s a depressing feeling to be without something you love and care so deeply for. You always loved the game, but you never really “missed” it as much as you do now.

1.) You will never, ever, take walking for granted.

This is self explanatory. When you’ve struggled day in and day out for as long as 4-9 months to be “normal” again, you will never take walking – or your health – for granted. You never realize how good you have it until it’s taken away from you. You’ve grown up your entire life to a few bumps, bruises and sprains, but never something that’s kept you out for months. You never thought “learning to walk” could be so difficult, painful and frustrating. So many emotions run through your head from being pissed off it happened, depressed you can’t be normal, fear of re-injury to the satisfaction of accomplishing the 6-9 months of rehab. Be thankful for where you are at, it could always be worse and it could always be better, but you can always show appreciation for what you do have. After all, you still have your legs.