Be grateful for your health

Last October I had knee surgery where they opened me up, removed some scar tissue and patched up my patellar tendon. The doctor said that these injuries typically only occur with men around the age of 40 but of course it would happen to me too. Two weeks before the surgery I had a sort of epiphany, I talked about it in one of my early blogs. I think it was around October 1st that I deleted all forms of social media, facebook, instagram, snapchat, and vsco. I did this because I found that I was becoming too relient on my phone and I needed to focus on myself. The reality of this surgery was that I was going to be living on the couch for atleast a week with the inability to get up and move around. If I continued to use my phone so regularly I probably develop some terrible habits.

On the 14th of October I had the surgery and it came out looking like this. As much as

my shallow self wanted to post a picture on snapchat with the goal of getting "hope you feel better"s from people I barley care about, I would not let it happen. The days following the surgery the pain just kept getting worse but I just kept thinking and thinking some more. I wrote on my journal almost every day, most thoughts would sound like this, "My leg still does hurt really bad and it only seems to be getting worse each day, but there are still people who are in worse situations than you. Starting today you are going to have to put your head down and get to work, whether that is reading, schoolwork, landscaping videos (my dumbass actually wanted to be a landscaper before), or writing. The time is now to be creative)." A bit hard on myself, you think? I have always been hard on myself, it's a curse and a blessing. When it is a curse it can be damaging, at that time in my life I could

not just be proud of myself for dealing with what I was going through, I had to be hard on

myself with the belief that it would only toughen me up. I'll delve deeper into that another time but the main thing to take away from this so far is that deleted SM was the single most wise and enlightening thing that I have done so far in my life. I learned more about myself 4 months than I ever have before.

I am about to throw myself a little pity party, for the sole purpose of the reader being able to put themselves in my shoes for a minute.

- I could not get off the couch without someone helping me.

- It took me 2 minutes to walk 20 feet to the bathroom while dragging my left leg.

- I had to crawl up and down the stairs for atleast a week.

- Food became my only source of comfort.

- I was confined to a singular space.

How's that? do you feel bad for me yet? One thing I did learn is that by being restricted from doing simple tasks like going for a walk, you start to have an appreciation for it when you can do it again. I can't even remember how many times I told myself that I was never going to take my health for granite. If you are healthy and have both legs you should take full advantage of that whenever you can.

Today, after nearly 4 months of physical therapy, my knee is doing great, I barely feel any pain anymore and I am able to accomplish everyday tasks with ease. I count my blessings everyday.