The First Week Post Operation

The next day, things didn't go too well. The nerve block didn't start wearing off until the night after the surgery and into Mothers Day. Long story short, on Mothers Day I decided to go out with to eat with my Dad and Phil at Bruno's, this Italian pizzeria that has the best Chicken Marsala in Clifton. I tried to hide away the pain, because I hadn't seen my dad for a while. Everyone who knows me knows that I LOVE FOOD and I would never say "NO" to food. For the first time in my life, I couldn't even touch my food because the pain was so intense. My dad lost his appetite because he couldn't withstand seeing me in pain. This is what happens when you do not listen to nurses or doctors advice of never being late on your pain medication despite the fact you don't feel anything, especially after surgery.

During the first week after surgery, I am going to be once again very honest its going to hurt and if you are a very independent person you are going to rely on your loved ones because your body will become very stiff the first few days. Make sure you have your loved ones and your support system, for me I had my boyfriend, my roommates back at home, my father, and my mother, to help you: emotionally and physically. You can't really move out of bed because your body is at at a standstill and you are trying to recover from the surgery. The first couple of days after surgery all I did was rest and elevated my knee with a pillow. Invest in buying the Aircast Ice machine with the cuff. Even if your insurance doesn't cover for it, the aircast is so worth the $200 because all you have to do is fill the aircast with ice and cold water circulates around your knee. You don't even have to keep getting ice every hour and put it in a bag, this is known as the old fashion way. I restricted myself from doing any physical activity the first couple of days. Everyone said that this surgery was going to be a piece of cake, but the first few nights were sleepless due to the intense pain and stiffness throughout all of my body. I am not going to sugarcoat this for anyone who has to undergo an ACL Reconstruction surgery, its going to hurt like a bitch. That's the best way to describe it, especially the moment when you wake up after the operation in the recovery room so be prepared for the pain. Keep your  brace on at all times, as much as I wanted to take it off I was scolded by my mother because there is a chance that you could fall and damage the knee again.

The Day of the Surgery

Looking back from the day of the operation,

My scheduled time for the surgery was at 11:30, but I waited for over two hours in order to be admitted. Anxiety and fear engulfed around me as the moments before the surgery became closer and closer. I didn't want neither my mom nor my boyfriend to leave my side, but my boyfriend kept on wanting to go outside. When the clock hit 1:00pm it was time. I had to say my last goodbye to my mom as they took me to the operating room. This moment takes me back to when I was maybe about 5 or 6, when I had no idea what was going on but all I remembered was crying and I didn't want to let go of my mom when I was getting an operation for a cyst on my leg. No matter how much indifferences we have between each other I do love her a lot since she's been there for me when I really needed her.

The Filipino nurses and anesthesiologist reassured me that I was in good hands, because they told me "don't worry you are in the Philippines we are here to take care of you." Believe it or not, they both reminded of my mom since she is also a nurse. The operating room was cold and unusually bright, like a heavenly light. The nurses were relentlessly slapping both of my arms for about 10 minutes in order to find a vein, which basically delayed the operation. All I remember was the anesthesiologist putting on the gas mask and she kept on asking me whether or not I was sleepy and I kept resisting for a couple of minutes. I was waiting for her to insert the long pointy needle in my groin, because I thought they were going to inject the nerve block first before the general anesthesia. They told me that they had to take off the other needle in my arm when I am asleep. At that moment I honestly thought that I was going to wake up during the operation, this condition is known as anesthesia awareness. Those critical moments before I fell asleep, that was when I knew I had to let go and let God. All I remembered was I started praying as I was falling asleep and then I blacked out.

Mind you all, I am usually good at tolerating intense pain even after I tore my ACL I was walking around Palisades mall hiding the pain from my boyfriend and roommates and those who know me know that I had twisted my ankle numerous times in the ast. BUT The pain after the operation was an extremely intense pain I had never felt before in my life. Trust me all of the morphine, IV medication, and percocets did not take away the intense pain of the surgeon cutting your body open. The ride from Manhattan to NJ was alright, I didn't feel carsick nor any nausea from the surgery at all. It was hard for me to even get out of the car and walk into the house once we got home, because the anesthesia was still wearing off so I didn't really have any motor coordination.

The Night Before the Surgery: Lost Friendship

In less than 10 hours, I am going under the knife for the second time this year. This time I want this to be my last breathe of air. We live in a cruel, twisted, and broken world full of those with very bad intentions. This world consists of 90 percent of those who want to do harm: whether it is murder, stealing, lies, etc. Each time we turn on the news, its always the same depressing story over and over again as it is overshadowed by death, remorse, and sadness. What about those who do good deeds everyday? Society has forgotten those who have good intentions: those who possess unconditional love and true kindness that seeps through the soul. The ones who extend with open arms their love and kindness are the ones who feel the most pain inside their hearts. Maybe we are not meant to be happy because it is only a temporary feeling. I continue to live among the living, but in the inside I feel numb and dead already. No longer is the pain coming from my physical body, but instead some wounds are too deep to heal within my heart. This pain comes from the constant disappointment and put downs I am getting from everyone. I find myself becoming more and more distant from those who are hurting me by building walls around me. The worst part is the longer I am keeping the pain inside of me, the more it is showing up. I fall too hard, I become too comfortable with certain people and somehow I end up screwing up these relationships by distancing myself further away from them. I have very high expectations for people, if you know me well enough when I say, “I would do anything for you”, I really mean it and I do not like breaking promises. I become very vulnerable up to the point where I am everyone’s doormat and people do step on me. I have expectations in which I want people to help me, the way how I helped them in the past. That’s how I really know these are the individuals who are loyal and possess the ability to return the love and kindness back to me. And off course most people that walk into my life take advantage of my kindness and never return the love back to me…And it hurts me. This is how I lost my friendship with certain people. I look back at old pictures and reminisce about the past memories that makes me think about the good times we once had: graduation, surprise birthday parties, outings at the buffet, long drives at night, free movie Tuesdays, etc. I miss the days when we were young, wild, and drama free without any relationships complicating things. If I had one last chance from God to ask them to forgive me and wipe off that moment I began to back off and ignore those people, I would take it. Maybe I am writing and dedicating this blog entry to my past and current loved ones, and to clarify this these loved ones are the ones who I consider a part of my family. I shouldn’t feel this way, but I do. Does anyone blame me for having a distorted reality that there is good in every individual in the world?

The Absence of Fear

If everything happens for a reason and God allows bad things to happen to us to make us stronger individuals, then I ask myself why is it always me. I feel as if I am not ready for what is yet to come. I am no longer sugarcoating reality, because this is it. I am not going to live a normal life for a while like everyone around me. This means I am sacrificing long walks in the city, blasting music and long driving, going swimming down the shore , being able to party all night long, being able to walk normally, and most importantly: my independence. An every day task is going to be a struggle for me, I took too many things for granted. Unfortunately, our expectations in our minds do not match reality. The disappointment of not being able to graduate this May, doing an internship throughout the summer, and also enjoying my summer lingers throughout my mind. I want to be able to have that “big”girl full time position in the city already to prove to everyone around me that a bachelor’s degree is worth the time and effort. In the meantime, a sharp needle has been inflicting so much pain into my life since this January. It’s not just physically, but emotionally and spiritually. The relationships around me are broken, it’s not just with him but also my parents and friends as I distanced myself. I am shattered and broken into a million pieces as I allowed myself to fall deeper into a dark hole alone. Unfortunately, I have to accept the reality that at any given time our circumstances in life changes drastically within a blink of an eye or in my case one fall. As the clock ticks closer and closer to May 11, 2012, my mind is scattered in many different directions. “Maybe” and “what if” crosses paths within me as I continue to think about what I am giving up for the next few months. Fear is whats engulfing my mind without a doubt in my mind something seriously can go wrong on that day. What if I need to separate myself from the fear that is holding me back? Maybe this accident is my gateway into proving to everyone that I am a strong person, that I can easily rise from the ashes of despair and defeat. I am determined to recovery fully from this and I am ready to put all of the hard work into everything. I am not going to let the fear of suffering to stop myself from living life to the fullest. Less than 22 days from now I will be facing my second surgery this year, I want to enjoy the things I can still do now without the crutches. So here goes nothing… “The thing that scares you the most, that makes you say I don’t know if I can do it, I’m scared”; run towards it because it’s so amazing on the other side.”-Sherri Shepherd

How I Tore My ACL?

I want to recollect upon my journey. I had goal in the beginning of this year to lose weight, so I finally joined a gym. From January until the first week of March, I had been consistently exercising and also eating right. I stopped eating junk food and eating after midnight. I felt very good about myself, because I lost about 30 lbs since last year. Unfortunately, I kept on pushing myself especially when I was running the treadmill in the gym. Whats the problem about speeding up in the treadmill and also going fasting using the bicycle? You strain your muscles and your joints become weaker.Throughout my entire life, my left ankle has always been slowing me down. I still remember every moment of what happened to me the first time I sprained my left ankle. In eight grade when I was 13 years old, I was playing for my volleyball team. I jumping up to spike then I rolled on my ankle. I became too stubborn to go to the doctor and time after time I sprained my ankle from those big cracks on the sidewalks or falling down the stairs. I have a very strong ankle brace that I use and it keeps my ankle straight. I never had a thought in my mind that I would need surgery for ankle. Up to this day I would occasionally twist my ankle and the pain would become very intense as each injury accord. For about 8 years I have been ignoring this problem by avoiding to visit the doctor.

 Unfortunately, I was wrong and this time it wasn’t my ankle that slowed me down. Here’s something I remember from a couple of years ago. Everyone knows I am a big Nets fan. If anyone remembers the breakout rookie, Nenad Kyrstic, in 2007 against the LA Lakers he fell hard on his knee. He’s seven feet tall, but the pain was too severe for him to even walk…He tore his ACL.

 More than 8 years later on March 1, 2012 at around 4 in the afternoon, the inevitable happened to me. While playing an old childhood favorite game of mine, Dance Dance Revolution, at Dave and Busters. I forced my aching body to jump and shuffle around while following the arrows, the moment I jumped I fell really hard on my knee and heard a loud pop. Needless to say the hardest part about this accident was I was out with my boyfriend and my two roommates. I am the type of person who doesn’t want to slow anyone down and I always try to hide the physical and emotional pain. No one really noticed I fell on my knee but I was limping in pain while walking around Palisades Mall. While walking out to the parking lot, I tried stepping onto the ground, but I fell again. This time, it was even more painful. Everyone will say that the pain wasn’t as bad as Derrick Rose or Mariano Rivera, because they had to be carted off the field with the help of many people. Unfortunately, I am very stubborn since I don’t want anyone to know that I am in pain. I refused to go to the ER that night, because I didn’t want my parents to be worried about me, so therefore for about 2 weeks I fought through the pain and it subsided for a while. I went to the doctor after getting my MRI at the end of the month and I found out that I tore my ACL and meniscus. I was very devastated. It felt as if a needle punctured my heart because I had goals for the summer to find a paid internship in the city, work at the Stadium during the concerts and also the State Fair, be able to feel the ocean water beneath my feet, and lastly walk around the city for hours. I love to be able to go out and be active. I wanted to lose weight and be able to be confident in myself again, but unfortunately the doctor said to me this injury would be a long road to recovery due to the physical therapy. 6 to 9 months is a long time. Needless to say, I didn’t want to slow down anyone I was close with because I am very independent. I am always going to question to God why did He allowed this to happen to me. Someday I will know his purpose.

Here is a picture of what your ACL looks like when it is torn:

My knee has lost its stability so basically in pain English this meant that I felt like my knee was going to give out and fall each time I walk. At least once a week prior to the surgery it felt like as if my knee gave out I thought that there was going to be more damage to my left knee.

The Inevitable Change Within All of Us

Seasons change and we also go through many transitional phrases throughout our lives. Change: we fear it, get used to it, are all affected by it, and in the end overcome it. Essentially, we all grow and discover new things about ourselves every day of our lives. Everyone usually say that change is good, what if there is the one percent of us that fear change, especially when the closest individuals in our lives change into complete strangers in our lives. Change is an inevitable part of life, that sometimes we do not have control over. Nothing can stop the motions of life, no matter how hard you try allow life to pass you by. What if we fear the chaos associated with change? What I do not understand is that a change in life’s circumstances can completely dissolve our own perception to a completely different new person. This is what I fear the most, whether it getting a new job or even having children, people change. Some people become completely unrecognizable as they transform into a stranger in our lives. But why? Why allow self pride and money change who you are? I am sad to say that throughout our lives, we experience our family, friends, and even the people who we keep close to us change into someone they are not. We all come to terms with reality that there is absolutely nothing we can do to stop this change in someone. No matter how hard we hold on to a singular ray of hope a person can change back to the person they were before everything came about, what if there is nothing we can do. This is called denial and there is a certain point in our lives where denial overshadows our own lives. We allow ourselves to be captive by our past experiences with that person, but continuous disappointment dampens a strain in our relationships with one another . In the end our actions and experiences define us for who we are. Consequently, I lost a lot of close family and friends due to a significant change in their own lives, especially in the transition period of our lives. These transition periods include graduating, moving to another state, getting a new job, having a new boyfriend or girlfriend, getting married, having children, etc. Eventually, we lose contact to the very people we say that we are going to with them “forever” and in the end these people turn their back on us. People do not change overnight, but time and circumstances matures us either in a good or bad way. Its up to us to either accept the other person has changed or move on. “Change; we don’t like it, we fear it, but we can’t stop it from coming. We either adapt to change or we get left behind. And it hurts to grow, anybody who tells you it doesn’t is lying. But here’s the truth…the more things change, the more they stay the same. And sometimes, oh, sometimes change is good. Oh, sometimes, change is…everything.”-Meredith Grey, Grey’s Anatomy

Beyond Money

Life constantly changes as long as our hearts are continuously beating. As the clock keeps on ticking, life revolves around us as we take a breath. No matter what though, time never stands still. We all have our aspirations and desires that becomes our strength to get through the day. Unfortunately, we are constantly reminded that we are constricted with our obligations to work within a small cubical office throughout our lives, in order for one main objective to make money. Some may say money, sex, drugs all run the world we are living in today and money is a catalyst that motivates us towards our career ambitions in order to improve our lives through material possessions. Meanwhile, others will say without money you are nothing but dirt in the earth. Our selfish thirst for these vices overpowers the simplest necessities in life. One can have all of the earthly possessions in the palm of their hand, but what money is not enough to satisfy our needs within our hearts. I think in the end money isn’t everything, I would rather create memories with my loved ones around me rather than being enslaved to greed. Beyond our materialistic desires lies the very foundation that keeps each of us happy. These are all intangible feelings that millions of dollars cannot buy and it is called love. This is not the same synthetic love we celebrate during Valentines Day. This love is the unconditional love that constantly grows within ourselves and the relationships we are involved in throughout our daily lives. I maybe considered “young” in the eyes of many, but I see all forms of love every day: true/unconditional love, unrequited love, lust, etc. I think money and love are important themes that I should focus on. They both represent the good vs the evil that counteracts with one another since good and evil need to coexist in life. I do not know how yet, but as I am building up the overall theme of my story, I think I am going to constantly touch on how both love and money controls our decision making one way or another. Our desire for love and for money changes us, either for the good or the bad. In the end experiences tend to be recreated through a form of storytelling and I sit here with a pen and paper I am thinking about what themes are the most important to me. The words that keep reoccurring in my head over and over again is love, friendship, and determination. Although others will say I cannot speak correctly or say certain words with the right pronunciation, those who do not know me well enough are blinded by what they see in the outside. In the end, I am here to prove them all wrong, because this is part of the letting go process by excelling beyond everyone’s low expectations they have towards me. I know I shouldn’t listen to these put downs, but its the driving force that pushes me to go after my ambitions in life.