Resiliency Is In How You React

One of My Hardest Days

If you follow me on social media, you may have seen that this week, I suffered a pretty intense injury. Wednesday morning, I was playing basketball and, through a series of unfortunate events, ended up with a very severe knee dislocation that resulted in all of the major ligaments in my knee being torn.

Outside of the birth of my son, Wednesday was the longest day of my life. The injury occurred at 6 am, and I was in the ER for 12 hours. After they put my knee back in place, I had to be sent in for a CT scan to ensure I didn’t have vascular damage, followed by an MRI to determine the severity of the tendon/ligament damage.

As I waited in the hospital bed for hours, I was optimistic. My knee was feeling better after it was put back in place (it turns out that was just the morphine), and I was hopeful that my years of strength training and regimented diet were going to make my outcome different from what the doctor told me to expect. When the results came back a few hours later, I was left looking at a piece of paper saying that I had torn every major ligament in my knee that I had heard of and even some that I hadn’t.

To be transparent with you guys, I cried. Being physical, especially playing basketball, is something I have been doing my whole life. It has been a source of joy, growth, and venting for years. Since having a child, I have become even more motivated to keep myself healthy so I can play with him as he and I both get older.

That was the next thought that crushed me.

Will I be able to play ball with my son when he gets older? What about the next 12-18 months? Will I be able to keep playing with him in the yard and help him develop himself physically while we bond together? This thought was the hardest to manage.

Safe to say, over those first 24 hours, I was pretty down. I slept, I numbed my pain with the meds the doctors gave me, and I distracted myself with phone scrolling and video games. Anything to keep me from thinking about the injury, the pain, my son, the burden on my wife, what the next 12-18 months are going to look like, and whether or not I will able to play sports again.

When I saw the doctor yesterday, he told me that I was fortunate to still have a leg. In the past year, another athlete in the area lost his in a very similar injury. This was the bit of gratitude I needed to stop feeling sorry for myself.

Today, I woke up and decided that enough was enough. Am I really going to let this misfortune turn me into an unmotivated, distracted husband and father? Am I really going to just numb and distract myself until this knee gets better?

Hell no!

I have trained myself in the Stoic teachings, which are chalked full of anecdotes and mindsets for getting through hard times. I believe in God and know that any struggle I am being put through is only meant to make me stronger. I know that every time I have been knocked down in the past, I have found a way to come back stronger. And that is exactly what I am going to do this time.

Epictetus said, "It's not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters." I could easily react in a way that leads to me becoming depressed, unhealthy, and a bad partner and father. Or I could react in a way that leads to growth even in such a trying time. Epictetus also said, "We should always be asking ourselves: 'Is this something that is, or is not, in my control?” The injury is not in my control. But my reaction is.

But how do I adopt this mindset?

By focusing on what I can control. Like fueling my body with foods that will actively support my recovery and prevent me from gaining a bunch of weight during a period when I will be less active. By loading my reading list with books that will speak positivity and motivation into me. By listening to music that is upbeat and mood-boosting. By understanding that I am happiest when I am experiencing growth and development and finding new ways to do that during this recovery. By playing an active role in my post-surgery recovery so I can look myself in the mirror and know I did everything I could to get healthy and maybe even set a great example for my son along the way.

I believe that these actions will not only lead to a stellar recovery but can also allow me to be happy during a time when it would be easy to be depressed.

We live in a world full of adversity. The adversity I am experiencing doesn't hold a candle to what some of you are experiencing, while others may not even be able to fathom what I am going through. We all have our own struggles, and the hardest thing each of you has ever gone through is still the hardest thing you have ever gone through, regardless of anyone else’s experience.

As humans, we have to develop a resiliency to this adversity. We have to be able to take one on the chin and remember that if you’re not getting punched every once in a while, then it’s because you’re not in the ring. I don’t know about you, but I want to be in the ring…

Thanks for reading,

Chris Irvin “The Ketologist”