In late March 2022, I had a snowmobile accident that left me with a fractured tibia plateau, skull, and wrist. Since then, I have been undergoing recovery and figuring out what needs to be done. In the beginning, I blindly rushed the most important part of my recovery due to a lack of guidance and desire for things to be as they were. I have recently come to terms with the flaws in how I was approaching the rehabilitation of my leg. I experienced a turmoil of emotions before I bucked up and started to do what needed to be done. As of the last month and a half, I have increased my physical therapy and have noticed more progress now than combined in the last 9 months.
Back in April, I remember asking my doctor when I could return to my preferred activities such as hiking, biking, climbing, etc. Usually, my questions surrounded the future, my timeline, and my anxieties about when life would return to my old normal. Rarely did I ever inquire or ask about something relevant to my current state or healing, the actual things that were important to know and focus on. I was in a perpetual state of wanting my old life back and looking ahead. “Most people find that they can return to their regular activities in about 12 months” my doctor replied. I didn’t believe that applied to me, I am young and I have the right motivation, as my mind soon wandered off to daydream of a long hike in September or October. My leg will just heal and I can return to the way things were, but my delusions persisted. “Regular activities” how vague, I didn’t consider at the time that my regular activities were probably far different than other people’s.
I did mostly online physical therapy which consisted of a tablet, motion sensors, and a physical therapist on the other end programming my exercises for me. There would be anywhere from 15-20 exercises that would, in total, last for 15-25 minutes. I could email them and give feedback to increase difficulty, change or swap out exercises. After doing this for a bit I did go to in-person PT for a few sessions, which proved to be very helpful. They had me doing much more intensive exercises and there were people there to give me guidance and advice. Still, no one laid out a clear roadmap of how to get to where I wanted to be.
As summer time started to approach, I began to get antsy for things to be different, to return to work and to get out of the house, so I took a job at a summer camp. This meant, I had to say goodbye to in-person physical therapy and commit to the online program while attempting to supplement those exercises when time allowed. However, summer camp doesn’t provide much of that and I often only had about 20-30 minutes to dedicate to PT, so usually, I was only able to do the virtual exercises. Halfway through the summer, I asked them to increase the difficulty of my programming. They replied that I had already maxed out their programming potential for exercises and the next step would be to add bands, weights, and resistance. I skipped over that last part and instead focused too much on the former. I maxed out the program, I must be doing good, I will just keep doing what I am doing and then I will get better. My leg will return to normal and life will go on. So I pressed on, doing the bare minimum, thinking at the time that was all I needed to be doing.
As time went on it became increasingly clear that recovery might just take the 12 months that the doctor mentioned. Okay, I will keep up what I have been doing, my yoga and 10-30 min of physical therapy and when 12 months come along I will be magically healed and ready to return to my normal life. It wasn’t so much an intentional thought as a subtle subconscious assumption. What my doctor didn’t tell me, what no one told me, was that if I want to get back to thru-hiking, bike tours, rock climbing, skiing, and other adventurous activities, I was going to have to put in a lot of extra work and it still might take longer than a year.
I ended up staying at the summer camp I worked at to assist with their fall programming. Their sister camp also needed additional help in October so I went to New Hampshire for the month. I enjoyed my time in the northeast and meeting the people there. The job ended up being a bit too physical for me, with way too much walking around. It wasn’t the best idea for my leg, but I persevered, I wore my knee brace and took it slow. It was a beautiful area but the workdays were very long and jam-packed.
In November, I saw a post in a Facebook group I am a part of for former guides at my wilderness therapy company. A man trying to start up a physical therapy business was in search of two clients who had hurt themselves in the last year, to work with and get them back into physical shape to ski this season. At the time that I was reading this post, I had for some time been living in doubt and anxiety about the state of my leg. Given I was doing far too much unintentional physical activity, I was perplexed and disturbed about the progress I was making. My knee was in a constant state of discomfort and I had been seeing minimal progress. I was searching for guidance, for answers when I saw this message. In my mind I had already cast off skiing this season, knowing my body was not ready for that kind of intensity and movement. However, this guy seemed like someone who knew something about what I was going through, so I thought I would reach out to him and see if I could learn anything. I sent him a message, explaining my situation and we scheduled a time to chat.
He asked me to tell him a little about my accident and my physical therapy journey. I gave him the abbreviated, need-to-know version of the incident. Then I went on to eagerly tell him about all the physical therapy I did and the maintenance I have been doing since, proud of how committed I have been to my recovery.
“Why did you choose to do online PT,” the guy asked, with inquisitive judgment layering his tone. I explained my reasoning and we briefly discussed the pros and cons of a program like that. He was going into the details of how important early PT is and working with guidance when doubt started to creep into my mind, doubt over my past actions and course. How could I have been so dumb, so naive to once again rush the process? You see, that is something that I have always struggled with, always in a rush to get somewhere, moving at a million miles per hour, and more often than not being oblivious to the present moment. I had to laugh at the circularity of nature, how often must I learn this lesson before it seeps into my thick skull? The reality continued to sink in; I didn’t even make the time for what everyone says is the most important thing early on. I rushed into my desires of wanting to be elsewhere, wanting to return to my normal life. I took a job and prioritized my ego’s wants over my body’s needs. I put my attention elsewhere instead of making the time to dedicate 1-2 hours every day to my progress and healing early on. Now I was facing the delayed repercussions of that decision, slow healing.
He did not applaud my efforts but began to inform me of the importance of specifically targeting the muscles around my knee with increasing duration/exercise if I ever wanted to return to my adventurous life. He conveyed his distrust for traditional PT, claiming they only really care about getting people back to their daily activities, and people like me, especially women, often fall through the cracks because what we desire goes far beyond being able to do daily activities. I want to climb mountains, then ski down them, but traditional PT doesn’t take this into account. My idea of pride in my commitment continued to dissolve as the truth of his words became more evident. “Is it too late?” I shakily interrupted. He reiterated that the earlier this work begins the better, but that in general, it is never too late. However, I would need to spend, at the minimum, three months, an hour a day, dedicated to specific exercises targeting all the muscles around the leg.
He then went into more specifics on his program and how he would approach me as a client. I tried to listen but I was mostly distracted by the despair this new information brought and the reality of what I would need to do. You see, in the back of my head, I was thinking about going to Mexico, Central America in the new year, to do some traveling and work on my Spanish. That’s what I wanted. I have to keep going, keep doing, and keep exploring. Now here is this new information being presented about what I need. The truth that I have been refusing to see since I broke my leg. I am not going to magically wake up “healed”. I need to put in the damn effort and work my ass off to get there. You see I get so distracted by where I want to go, where I want to travel, and what trails I want to hike, that I ignore the very thing that I need to do to be able to do all of those things. None of those will come to fruition if I can’t comfortably walk a mile because of the disconnect between mind and body. If the muscles have not been built back up deliberately to withstand that kind of activity.
I wasn’t interested in his program for various reasons but the new information presented caused me to continue to spiral after the phone call. The solid ground I thought I had been standing on was gone and I felt lost, confused, and angry. I was unsure of what to do and how to move forward. I wanted someone to hold my hand and walk me through the process. I just wanted someone to tell me: do exactly this, for exactly this duration and you will one day once again do everything you desire. I wanted a guarantee, but there aren’t any in this life. I was frustrated with the system as a whole. I understood my part in where I was and how I had overlooked the most important thing because of what I wanted. I just wish someone would have sat me down and told me firmly: make physical therapy your job right now, nothing matters more than your body healing. Not getting out of the house, not making money, healing your body so that you can get back to living how you’d like to live. But the big picture was overlooked in my experience, it was about being able to bend the leg, how far, any pain here? My doctor didn’t know much about the recovery process or milestones, he even mentioned stopping going to PT after a couple of weeks if I felt like it. When I asked about skiing in the winter, he shrugged and told me to give it a try.
I reached out to my dear friend John Maus and vented a bit about my frustrations and how I wasn’t sure what needed to be done. John told me about this exercise program he has been doing for his knee health and strength through ATG personal training (also known as knees over toes guy on social media). John studied exercise science in university and is very knowledgeable on the dynamics of the human mind and body in general, so it meant a lot that he was sold on this guy’s program. John confirmed a lot of what I had talked on the phone with the other guy about and went into further detail explaining it all a bit more. After scoping it out a bit and hearing all the information that John had to share with me, his program was looking like a good route to take. Click here for more details on the specific exercises and how the program is structured.
John sent me the workouts for this program and has since been helping me with all my questions, helping me with form, keeping me motivated, and checking in on my progress. I am so blessed to have such a good friend. I’ve been going steady with this program for about a month and a half. On the leg days, I do the prescribed exercises and also add in a handful of other leg exercises to work a bit more with balance and strengthening.
I am feeling much more optimistic about my healing and progress since I have been so committed to working out and re-strengthening my body and legs. My knee is still sore more often than not but walking is once again becoming more enjoyable. My muscles are now strong enough to not give out walking down the stairs and my range of motion and flexibility have noticeably improved as well. I am also feeling much more at peace and content with where I am in my journey. I know that it is not going to be easy, there is still plenty of hard work on the path before me. I might never return to the physical state that I was in, but maybe I just might surpass it. It’s hard to say, there is only one way to find out. I have faith that with patience, determination and discipline, I will return to doing everything that I love.
Have you broken your tibia plateau or another bone in the leg? Have you struggled with the healing process? Tell me about your journey, struggles, triumphs, learning, physical therapy ect in the comments below.
Thank you for reading, lots of love,
Lynne Wummel
