It’s been a really eye-opening, if slow, weekend around here. After my Thursday-morning ACL surgery, I’ve mostly been at home adjusting to crutches, pain medication, physical therapy exercises and my knee brace, which is currently locked in a straight position. I’m looking forward to graduating to some bent-knee angles. Goals.
As someone who craves activity and motion, it’s been more of a mental adjustment – trying to let go of guilt around asking for help with every little thing, down to filling the dogs’ water bowl or getting a napkin brought to me when I’m eating. (Rémy has been so dang patient and thoughtful.)
Another big mental adjustment has been reframing what it means to tune into my body’s needs right now. Here are a few helpful mindset shifts I’ve been making:
Perspective 1: Lying on the couch is lazy.
Reframe: Lying on the couch is temporarily necessary for healing.
I’m practicing allowing myself to rest without guilt – reframing thoughts like “watching TV on the couch in the middle of the day is lazy” to thoughts like “watching TV on the couch in the middle of the day is a soothing, relaxing distraction.”
The body needs time to heal, and there’s no need to overdo activity right now. I’m reminding myself that this is temporary – a weekend of being a couch sloth isn’t going to morph you into a lifelong lazy person with no ambition. (Rest!)
Perspective 2: I should only medicate when I’m in pain.
Reframe: It’s best to follow my medication schedule so I can devote full effort to physical therapy and rest.
It’s been a huge mental adjustment to follow a medication schedule rather than tune in to my body’s signals and medicate accordingly. I didn’t realize that this tuning-in approach might not work, particularly if you’ve never experienced post-op pain before. So I quickly found out on Friday that waiting for the pain (hello, inner signals?) to kick in isn’t the most comfortable or productive approach. I barely slept that night, which isn’t ideal when your body needs rest to heal. Needless to say, I’m following the medication schedule now and feel way more functional.
If you’re like me and don’t love taking pain meds, I saw one note in my patient packet that offered a helpful perspective on this. Something like: Be sure to take medication as recommended, so that you can focus on healing and physical therapy.
That’s hard to relax into when you’re tense and uncomfortable and can’t sleep. (I tried.)
Perspective 3: I should only eat when I’m hungry.
Reframe: I feel better when I fuel my body regularly, with room to tune into my hunger signals.
My appetite has been pretty normal this weekend, but I definitely have had some mealtimes where I wasn’t as hungry. However, my intuitive eating practice has taught me that I feel best – energetically and digestion-wise – when I eat three main meals during the day at regular-ish mealtimes, with room for a couple of snacks if my body is asking for them. I’ve been relishing some goodness dropped off by friends – homemade chicken casserole and strawberry salad, black bean burgers and house salad from Pizza Peel…
So: I’m maintaining those three main meals, with a focus on high protein for repair, plants for “nature’s pharmacy,” carbs for energy and fats for satiation. Even if you’re not crazy hungry, it can be helpful to take those main meals and bring in the practice of “feeling your fullness” – so you’re still tuning into that stopping point of comfortable fullness while regularly nourishing your body. And if you feel that snack-ish hunger pang in the afternoon, listen to it. (I’ve been reaching for a half or full RX bar, depending on hunger level.)
That was a lot – but it’s been a good learning weekend! If you’re going through something similar, an injury or a surgery or an illness, I’m sending healing thoughts. And I hope you take it as a learning opportunity, too. Where can you tune in to what your body needs, and where can you trust the medical process as well? How can you find the balance there?
