Recovery Reflection - Patience

When going through my recovery there was a period when I was gradually increasing how much I could bend my knee, the amount was 5 degrees per week which is a painfully slow and tedious thing to go through.

But one thing it did teach me was patience. A recovery can't happen overnight, much like the things we plan to do in life don't just magically happen over night. For me, it became a process doing the little things every day that kept me moving in the right direction. It's not exactly satisfying to massage scar tissue every single night but when you look back in 10 week's time and you can bend your knee 50 degrees rather than the first 5 degrees you're definitely grateful for everything that's helped you get that far.

I take this approach in life now and although this post may not help me reach my ultimate goal, there's a chance that one person sees it and that's one more person who's heard my story, has hopefully learned something or gained a perspective they didn't have before. And I know I'll be grateful for this one day.

For added context - The photos above were part of the process of gradually bending the knee. I was allowed to take my brace off and try to squat to the depth that the bend allowed. Although there is a bit of weight, there’s not much range so it takes a long time to feel like you can do a ‘proper’ squat. Squats are a big part of my regular exercise/maintenance so it’s interesting to look back on this and realise how far I’ve come.