My body finally said yes. My mind whispered no.
When the Body Can but the Mind Can’t
Even though my body finally had the capability to bend, my mind didn’t know it yet. For twenty‑two years, that knee had been a fixed point. It was a straight line my brain had learned to protect and never challenge. So, when the CPM machine showed me that bending was possible, it didn’t automatically translate into movement I could create on my own.
My History with the CPM Machine
Part of the reason I reacted so strongly to not being placed on a CPM machine was because I knew exactly what it was and what it could do from personal experience. I was one of the early users. The machine had been invented by Dr. Salter, the same surgeon who fused my knee when I was ten, and the same man who had guided so much of my early care at SickKids.
When my right knee began to swell at fourteen and nothing else brought relief, I eventually underwent a total synovectomy. This was long before the procedure could be done arthroscopically, the way it often is today. It was a major surgery, and afterward, I was placed on a CPM machine to keep the joint moving while everything healed. I remember the slow, steady rhythm of it. The gentle bend, the gentle release, and how it helped prevent stiffness from taking hold.
So when I woke up from the fusion takedown and saw my leg lying straight, unmoving, it wasn’t just confusion I felt. It was history. It was memory. It was the knowledge of what had helped me once before, and the instinct that it might help me again.
That’s why I questioned it. That’s why I pushed. And that’s why, when Dr. Gross paused, thought it through, and went to get the machine, it felt like a moment of recognition. Not just of my medical past, but of the fact that I knew my body and my history well enough to speak up.
When My Mind Wouldn’t Follow
Try as I might, I couldn’t bend the knee voluntarily. My brain simply refused to send the signal. It was as if the pathway had been paved over long ago, and now I was standing at the edge of a road that no longer existed.
And the pain! The pain was off the charts. I’ve lived a life that built an extremely high pain tolerance. The kind you don’t brag about. The kind you earn through serial casting at 2 years old, surgeries, flares, recoveries, and the quiet endurance of chronic illness. But this was different. This was pain with a purpose; pain tied to possibility. Pain that asked me to push into a movement my body hadn’t made since childhood.
It was overwhelming. And it was the beginning of a whole new kind of work.
Those first days of physio were their own kind of awakening. In the hospital, the focus was simple: reminding my body that bending was possible again. The movements were tiny, only a few degrees at a time, and each attempt felt both foreign and monumental. When I transferred to the rehab hospital, the work deepened. Hours were spent coaxing the joint to remember what it had once known and teaching muscles that had been dormant for decades to fire again. It was slow, repetitive, painful, and often exhausting. But it was also the beginning of reclaiming something I had lived without for most of my life.
And even with all that work, I still couldn’t do it alone.
The Friend Who Carried Me Through
Luckily, another important piece of the puzzle was already in place: I had an incredible support system. Family, friends, the people who show up in the quiet ways that matter most. And for this, I am eternally grateful. At the same time, I was a single parent to an eleven‑year‑old who had school, activities, homework, and a full life of her own. She needed and deserved my presence, not the weight of what I was carrying. Without the support around us, she would have felt far more of this season than I ever wanted her to.
But there was one friend in particular whose presence during this time still leaves me humbled. I will always be grateful for what he gave me, and there truly aren’t enough words to capture it.
He showed up in the way some people do when life decides you need them. If you believe that people come into your life for a reason, a season, or a lifetime as I do, he was unmistakably a reason. He arrived in my life at the exact moment I needed someone who could hold space for the fear, the frustration, the pain, and the stubborn determination that came with relearning how to move a knee, that had been frozen for twenty‑two years.
There were also the practical things. The mechanics of moving through the world that I suddenly had to relearn. A stride that now began with my heel instead of the flat, rigid step I’d used for so long. Stairs taken one after the other instead of one at a time. Getting up from a chair, sitting down, getting in and out of a car. None of it was simple, and none of it felt natural yet. But he understood that this phase wasn’t just about learning new movements. It was about unlearning the ones that had kept me steady for so many years.
He didn’t try to fix anything. He didn’t offer platitudes. He simply stood beside me, steady, and unshaken through the hardest stretches of rehab and the moments when my mind still didn’t believe what my body could now do. His support made the impossible feel slightly less impossible. And in a journey defined by grit and self‑advocacy, having someone like that in my corner made all the difference.
Learning the Physio Together
He wanted to learn everything. Every exercise, every stretch, every possible way he could support me when the real work began. While I was still trying to wrap my mind around the idea of bending my knee again, he was already preparing himself to help me through it. Not because he had to, or because anyone asked him to. I believe because he cared enough to step into the hard parts with me.
Thank You My Friend
There’s a kind of generosity that can’t be repaid, only acknowledged. And his was exactly that. He showed up. Fully. With a willingness to learn the physio right alongside me, so that when the time came, I wouldn’t be facing it alone.
Thank you, my friend! From the bottom of my heart. You were a reason in my life at exactly the moment I needed one.
I’ve mentioned the Reasons, Seasons, and Lifetime idea a few times in this post. For anyone who hasn’t heard it before, or for those who know it only in passing, here is the full version. It has stayed with me for years.
What These Seasons Taught Me?
Reading the Reasons, Seasons and Lifetime passage always reminds me that the people who walk with us can change over time. Some stay, some drift, some arrive when we least expect it. Support shaped this part of my story, but I also know not everyone has someone beside them when life becomes difficult. Support can look different for each of us. It can be a friend, a partner, a parent or a neighbour. It can also begin within. It can be the way you speak to yourself, the way you rest, the way you decide you are worth the effort it takes to heal. No one moves through these seasons in the same way, but everyone deserves something that steadies them as they step toward what comes next.
Rehab pushed me past every limit I thought I had. In Part 5, I’ll share the moment my body surprised me and moved on its own for the first time in twenty‑two years. Part 5 will be published on July 8th at 10 AM.
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FAQ
Why does this part of the story matter?
Because this is where movement stops being an idea and becomes daily work. Part 4 is the chapter where hope meets effort. The early days of rehab, when every inch of progress feels both fragile and hard‑won. It’s the part of the journey where possibility becomes practice, and where the future starts to take shape one careful bend at a time.
What is a synovectomy?
A synovectomy is a surgery that removes the synovium, the thin lining inside a joint that helps everything glide smoothly. In inflammatory arthritis, that lining can become swollen and destructive, causing pain and long‑term damage. When mine was done, it was a major open surgery, before less‑invasive options existed. It shaped how I understood joint recovery for the rest of my life.
What does “arthroscopically” mean?
Today, many joint surgeries can be done arthroscopically, which simply means using a small camera and tiny instruments through a few small incisions instead of opening the whole joint. It’s gentler on the body and usually means an easier recovery. When I had my synovectomy, this technology wasn’t available yet, which is why my surgery was far more invasive.
Why did my past surgeries influence how I approached rehab this time?
Because I had lived through strict, old‑school recovery protocols and then watched them evolve. I knew how much early, gentle movement could help, and how much immobility could set me back. Those experiences taught me to advocate for myself, even in the fog of recovery, and they shaped the instincts that surfaced the moment I woke up from the takedown surgery.
Why was the CPM machine so important to me?
The CPM wasn’t just medical equipment. It was a memory of what had helped my body once before. After my synovectomy, that slow, steady motion protected my healing tissues and kept stiffness from taking over. So when I woke up without it after the takedown, it felt like something essential was missing. Asking for it wasn’t about nostalgia; it was about knowing what my body needed based on lived experience.
Why did my brain struggle to bend the knee even when my body could?
For twenty‑two years, bending wasn’t just discouraged. it was physically impossible. So my brain did what any brain does when a movement can no longer happen: it closed the old pathway and built a new one that said, this knee does not bend. After the takedown, the physical ability to bend returned before the neurological pathway did. Relearning movement wasn’t just physical. It was asking my brain to reopen a pathway it had archived decades ago..