MRI tonight

I was well enough on Monday afternoon to see my sports medicine specialist, who tugged a bunch on my knee and ordered an MRI. She said that even though it never swelled much, and feels so much better now, I could still have an ACL stretch or tear. The MRI will evidently tell us exactly what happened.

And I’m so relieved to be getting it. But I’m also really nervous. I assumed she’d see me knee, which looks normal (she still thought it looked a little swollen) and feels so much better, and tell me it was a sprain and send me on my way. I didn’t expect the, “it absolutely could be an ACL tear” at all. So while I’m VERY grateful that my injury is being taken seriously, and that I’m able to get an MRI so quickly, I left her office feeling more stressed about it than when I went in.

My MRI appointment is for 7:30pm tonight and she said I should get the results some time tomorrow afternoon. I really, really, REALLY (all the really’s!) hope it just a sprain and doesn’t have a damn thing to do with my ACL.

Please let it not be my ACL!!!!

{I’ve also just been really sad about this injury in general. On Saturday I missed DJ sparring, my favorite thing at the dojo and Tuesday I missed my favorite teacher doing ground grappling and I just was having a really hard time Tuesday morning about all of it. I’m not putting any of this out there for sympathy, just to be honest about the fact that there are moments when I’m REALLY upset that this happened, and I’ve spent more time than I’d like to admit wishing I had just not going to sparring on Tuesday in the first place. I’ve been feeling a lot of big feelings and it’s exhausting and not super productive.}

I’m on the elliptical now, which she suggested I use with my brace. My knee doesn’t hurt at all on this, so that is good. I was going to look into renting a Peloton bike for a couple months but if the elliptical lets me work out safely, I will just stick to this. I am once again so grateful that we have this massive machine and the space to keep and use it and that it still works over ten years of pretty regular use later!

Today we didn’t have a proper staff meeting so I was able to get my Spanish 2 recommendations letters done. This was a HUGE accomplishment in the time I had. I didn’t even have their test scores on a spreadsheet before lunch today, and by 2:30pm I had those, along with their Tri 1 and 2 assessment averages entered, in a sorted list, and printed. Then by 3:45 I had all 35 letters finished and in envelopes with students’ names on them. I still can’t really believe I was able to bang those out so quickly. I guess I’ve streamlined the process more than I thought.

I’m extra relieved to have gotten those done because I have a ton on my plate at work this week. Friday is the end of the trimester and my students are turning in a ton of free reading requirements, which means I have to check them and then distribute the appropriate stickers on their free reading bingo boards. Putting the comprehension check in a form (instead of half sheets) was an absolute game changer, and it’s the only thing making this program manageable, but other aspects of my new system are still clunky, and with 120+ kids, no system can make checking this many forms, and activities and reading responses easy or fast. My classes started a movie on Monday because I was sick and thank goodness I was forced into that because I not only need the time to give out stickers, but I also need to not be scoring any other work right now.

Seriously, I’m so happy we didn’t have to meet for our staff meeting today. So, so happy.

I’m realizing this is my first MRI, so I’m going to go read a little about what to expect. I really, really hope it goes well and that I get good news tomorrow…