Never Satisfied

"I can't wait get this brace off my leg!"

"I'll be so much happier when I can do simple things like walk up the stairs!"

"Man, when I can just start working out again..."

"I just want to GET BACK ON THE ICE!"

Yeah, well now I'm on the ice, and I'm doing really well when I'm out there. And I'm still not happy. I want to play real games and I want to play them with my teams, dammit. The QCats season is over and I missed the last practice last night because of some seriously Biblical weather. The Hawks are finally, at long long painful last, clicking as a team and winning games. And if you've read this blog for any amount of time you know that it's been a real struggle at times and we weren't sure we'd be staying in the league just a few months ago.

(What my paranoid brain is telling me is that the reason they're winning is because I'm not there... goals against have gone down exponentially.... I'm told the defense is a lot better than it was, and we're putting up good numbers on the other end of the ice. Still, how's that for a nice goalie mind fuck? But there's no room in GoalieBrain for thoughts like that. Only in parentheses in a blog.)

So once again I'm back in the position of feeling like I'm literally straining at a leash. I want to be back in that net so bad I can feel it in the back of my throat. But the next game for the Hawks is do-or-die in terms of getting into the playoffs, and while I feel I would be strong enough to play, I'm not going to put that kind of mental pressure on myself, or open my team up to that kind of doubt. I'm going to hit at least one open hockey session and see how it goes playing at that speed. And if it goes well, I want that net back.

But for now... it's clinic. Clinic tonight, rented ice on Saturday night, and maybe I'll hit open hockey some weekday other than Friday, which is when the McKaye guys are there. Playing at that speed will be the real test. Still one day at a time over here. Going to stone some forwards tonight, bitches.

/GoalieAngst

No Stoppin' Me Now

Hmmm... I sense a pattern here. On days that I have PT, I'm in a really fantastic mood. I guess I miss working out. Well not anymore, because tomorrow I'm going to start the workouts again. I can do pretty much everything I need to do in the beginning of Ultimate Goalie Training, though I'm holding off on the Speed section for a week. I checked with him about everything and the agility ladder is the only thing he said to hold off on. BOOO YAH. I can do lunges. I can do (partial) squats (nothing deeper than 90* for now...). I can do planks. I can do stuff on the stability ball. Sweeeet. Or maybe that should be "sweat". Haha.

But that's all for tomorrow. First, there's tonight. The QCats have the first of a triple header for the weekend, and I think that's a pretty damn good way to spend a Friday night. I'm going to the game, yes. For some reason, it's different going to those games than it is going to Hawks games. I can't explain it. It still sucks to not be out there, but it doesn't feel like as much of a knife in my heart. It's gotta be the whole women thing. It kind of feels more like hanging out with a bunch of girlfriends. (God, I can NOT believe I just said that). Besides... Coach Sparkle is going, so I might as well tag along. And of course there's the obligatory beer-and-pizza afterwards, and since it's a Friday night who knows how long we'll be hanging out in that scuzzy upstairs room after the game.

I'm hanging in there. It's Friday and that means I'm one week closer to being on the ice. I can drink to that.

PT, Butts, and Balls to the Wall

Running through the peaks and valleys of this injury is providing me some mental cardio, if nothing else. I haven't written because I've been either really down, or really restless and just feeling like I'm on "hold" and waiting for it to be over. There've been a few things I wanted to write about but on the whole, nothing's really going on. But today when I walked out of PT I felt great. It helped that I was able to do something I hadn't been able to do two days ago, and the things that I could do, I was able to do even more of than last time. I finally felt like you know what, maybe this guy is right, maybe I really will be able to do everything I could do before.

Speaking of my physical therapist, I had this weird idea that maybe he wasn't familiar with goalies and what goalies' knees and legs need to be able to do. Maybe it's because I've found it so hard to believe that I'll be "fine" by the time he says I will be, that makes me think he doesn't realize exactly what I need to be able to do. I figured a tactful way to ask would be to ask if he watched hockey, and go from there. I needn't have worried. Turns out he went to school in Buffalo. And had lots of Canadian friends. And that's what they did- watched hockey. The poor guy: when he came back to NJ one of the years the Devils won the Cup he was all excited... and no one around here gave a crap. Man, what a way to lose a fan. Maybe I can get him hooked again.

As good as I felt this morning and as happy with my progress that I have been today, I still have this nagging anxiety. A few days ago someone at work remarked that I looked like I'd lost weight. I scoffed- how could that be, I've been sitting on my ass for 4 weeks? But then it hit me. I have. Lots of muscle, and I've heard somewhere that muscle weighs more than fat. I don't have a scale at home, but my clothes don't lie- all my pants are falling off. That enormous goalie-butt I was so self conscious about? GONE. What the hell? How does that happen? Muscles built up over a period of 5 years just disappear in the span of 6 weeks? Is that even physically possible? How in the world am I going to get back into the net and do anything useful if I'm playing with one decent leg and half an ass?

I know. I know. I still have a lot of work to do. But dammit it's SO FRUSTRATING to see all the work I did do, completely gone to waste. Gah.

But I'm doing something constructive with all this angst. Well, not yet. But I will. Soon. Really. I've been going to my teams' games, which really in retrospect has been a huge mistake, especially the Hawks games. The guy subbing for me is good, and has a wicked glove hand. So I watch from the bench as he flashes the leather and wonder "would I really have had that?". I decided that my time would be much better spent throwing tennis balls against a wall than freezing my (diminished) ass off on the bench and letting doubt creep into my mind. I can not express how much I hate the tennis-ball-off-the-wall thing. Really and truly. It frustrates the everloving shit out of me. But if I want to improve, that is what I have to do. Over and over until I can catch the damn thing more than twice in a row. And then more than three times in a row, and so on until my glove hand becomes slightly less embarrassing.

It really won't take much, just a concerted effort to do it every single day. And how much time can it take? I just drag my feet because I know how bad I suck at it, which pisses me off. The only way around that is through it. Man, sometimes I just want to smack that cheerleader in my head. I hate it when she's right.

Vizualizing, and I Fail at Sharing

How is it possible to feel like I've come so far and yet still have so, so far to go? I continue to be absolutely amazed at the body's ability to heal. Just 5 days out of the brace and I have just about complete range of motion back in my knee. It's a little tight, but it's there. I'm walking around without a limp already. I really thought it would take so much longer to get to this point. And yet... my big accomplishment today was doing leg lifts with a 1lb weight on my ankle, and 10 minutes on the bike- with no resistance. Ugh.

I know all the right rah-rah cheerleader mental trick things to do. And I still believe in them. But damn, is it hard to picture doing the things I used to do. Pigeon pose - are you kidding me? Deep squats - yeah right think again. Repeatedly slamming down on my knee, not to mention standing in a position that puts tons of stress on the very thing that hurts right now - are you out of your ever-loving mind??? But yet... these are the images I hold in my head. I have to. I have to believe that it's not as far away as it seems. If in 5 days I've gone from complete immobility to where I am now, I have to believe that I'll be back doing those things again. It's just... really hard sometimes to see that.

Here's why I fail at sharing: A skater was going to jump into the net for practice. She's borrowed some extra equipment in the past, but I guess wasn't going to have it tonight, so Coach asked GoalieHusband if he could bring anything of mine. Look, I am absolutely a team player, but I'm sorry, I just draw the line at using my gear. It's hard to explain, but that's like asking to borrow my underwear. If that makes me selfish, then so be it I guess. But I'm learning to stand up for myself and say "no" when I want to, rather than giving in because I "should" or because I'm "supposed to be nice". If that's a bitchy prima-donna goalie thing to do, then oh well. I know that there is other gear for her to borrow, so I'm not leaving her high and dry. And it's totally not personal. It's just that... that's my gear, man. Lots of goalies won't even let other people touch their gear, much less borrow it. Fortunately, in my frenzied "omg I don't trust my own opinion on this and am compelled to see what twitter says" moment, several tweeps backed me up, so I don't feel QUITE so selfish and guilty. I know I've said this before, but, gotta love the Union.

More Good Stuff

I walked out of PT somewhat sore today, but happy. Seems I'm progressing very well. Dr R is very pleased with my range of motion; it's almost back to normal already! (That's not to say it feels good moving my knee like that... just that I can. Die, scar tissue, die!)

I have two different types of exercises to do at home. One type is stretching, to get the range of motion back. The other is strength, to build up the wimpy little muscles in my leg. Dr R had me doing 1 set of 10 reps of the strength exercises... which honestly felt like nothing. So today when he asked how the exercises were, I told him the strength ones were too easy. "Good," he said. "Because I'm bringing you up to 30 reps." Muahaha! Be careful what you ask for, right? But the 30 reps I can tell are actually doing something; by the end I've got that burn going. He gave me some additional exercises to do as well.

I also got several pieces of good news. First off, I told him that I'd done some weight lifting for upper body, and that afterwards my knee was somewhat sore. He said that's fine, it's just that the muscles aren't used to any activity at all. It won't hurt anything, so I can keep doing that if I want. YAY! Also, he mentioned that I'd be on the bike at my next visit (Wednesday), which thrilled me. Yeah... I'm excited about riding a boring old stationary bike. But I know that's really going to help build up my muscles, so I'm very happy about that. And last, but certainly not least, he told me he didn't need to wait 2 weeks to assess my progress; that I'll be able to play in that early April tournament no problem. Since we'd already discussed that I'd definitely have to do some practices before jumping right into a game, that means I'll probably be hitting the ice sometime around very end of March, first few days of April. YEEEEEEEEAHHH! Nice to have a timetable in mind, and not have to worry about "what if" for the tournaments. Awesomeness.

I had off from work today, so tomorrow is my first day back since the brace came off, which means... I CAN DRIVE MYSELF TO WORK! I have to borrow my husband's pickup truck, because my car is a standard and I can't use the clutch yet, so that should be pretty humorous for anyone at work, seeing me pull into the lot in a truck. Ha. Know what's really weird though? We bought this truck a few years ago because his car died and we needed something big enough to haul both our hockey bags around in. We were originally thinking some kind of mid size SUV but it just so happened that this particular truck was on the lot and priced to move. All that to say- we never thought about getting a pickup. And yet years ago, before we even bought the truck, I had a dream that I drove one to work. I remember parking it, and I remember coming back out to it at the end of the day; the same color truck we have now. At the time I thought it was pretty funny. And I didn't even remember it again until just now. Weird. Maybe I should go dream about some shutouts.

It's All Up From Here

Once again, I sit here typing with ice on my knee. But this time, it's because I just finished my physio exercises. Yesterday the doctor determined the fracture had healed and the brace could come off. YAYYYY!!! Actually, for the next week or two I have to wear it when I go outside, or if I am in crowds, just to prevent me from falling and really screwing it up. But this means that I CAN DRIVE! And I can sit at my desk or in a car comfortably. And even walk up stairs like a normal person! I'm still gimping on my way down, but hopefully that will change soon.

Now comes the hard part, right? When I was so excited on Monday and looking forward to PT, #14 said "oh, my naive Goalie..." And I know that this is not going to be easy. But the relief I feel to finally be DOING something active about recovering, to be out of the "sit and wait and heal" stage, is so tremendous. It is extremely humbling though, to be expending so much effort to do these simple exercises, compared to what I had been doing before I got hurt. But I have images in my mind, little mental reminders to help me through these seemingly simple exercises. Me doing split squats or sumo squats with weights. Me doing butterfly slides. Me making a save, recovering and getting back into position for the next one. Mentally picturing my leg as strong as it was before- no, even stronger. The thing that keeps amazing me is to see how atrophied certain muscles are. It will be so cool to see them build back up again. But right now it's hard to imagine, so I hold those images in my head, of where I know I will be.

It being my first session yesterday, Dr R (that's what I'll call my physio from here on in, for simplicity) wouldn't really give me a timetable to expect to be back on the ice. I am figuring 4-6 weeks, based on what my ortho said. Dr R said in about 2 weeks we'll have a better idea of my progress and he can tell me then. It's not just for my own knowledge though- there is a tournament April 8-9. I explained this to him, and asked if that was something he thought was possible, or if he knew right now that it was out of the question. Fortunately, he said that definitely seemed like it would be ok. I'm very relieved on several counts; 1) yay I can probably play in it! 2) I don't have to panic my team by telling them they need to find a sub and 3) that means Tampa is definitely going to be ok!

Oh and one other thing- I guess because of my enthusiasm to be at this stage and my passion to get back on the ice, people seem to think I'm going to push too hard and overdo it. HELL NO. I'm doing this right. I want to get back on the ice, yes, but I want to stay there. So yeah, I did my measly 1 set of 10 reps of strengthening exercises, and really wanted to do another set, but I'm not going to push it. (Personally I think I can definitely do more, but I will talk to Dr R about it on Monday- if he gives me the green light, good. If not, then I will just be patient.) I am being smart about this. Honest. :)