*I wrote most of this essay two years ago, after my second knee surgery in nine months. Jill was my knee Physical Therapist, extraordinaire.
It was 4:30am and I was up and getting my day started. The coffee was brewing, the fake fireplace was crackling on the tv, and it was time to work on my knee. In two hours I needed to be out the door to head to my physical therapy appointment with Jill, and I couldn't wait. It was officially Thanksgiving season, and I stopped and took a moment to say a great big, whole-hearthearted thank you to Jill.
For over a year Jill had been a constant in my life. Less than twenty-four hours after my first surgery I was back at the Surgery Center/Physical Therapy Facility--shell shocked, drugged up, and awkwardly manuevering on crutches with one leg. My leg was wrapped and braced and twice its' normal size, and I was overwhelmed, loopy, and in a great deal of pain. Just about the last thing I wanted in that moment was to be back there and to have someone messing with my leg. And then I met Jill.
To be fair, my first meeting with her is pretty fuzzy, but my big takeaway is that I immediately felt safe. I was in competent, compassionate hands and I knew it, even through the fog of drugs and pain.
Come to find out, Jill was the big cheese--the big cheese for knees. She heads up the PT team for my surgeon, and all she does is knees. She rehabs knees, she studies knees, she trains and oversees other PT's about knees, and she travels around the country and talks about knees. If I was lucky to get the surgeon I had, and I was, then multiply that luck x 1000, and that's how lucky I was to have Jill.
For the first two months following my first surgery I couldn't put weight on my surgical leg at all. I made twenty-four visits to the phycial therapy group at the Vikings Training Center during that time, and the majority of those visits were with Jill. She was tall and athletic and confident, and I was certain when I met her that she had to be a former WNBA star (I was wrong--she was a volleyball star). She was a perfect blend of no-nonsense and warmth. She clearly did not suffer fools, and I was clearly not the typical athlete (young, elite, talented!) she worked with, but as soon as she was certain of my willingness to show up and do the work, she was my number one champion in recovery.
For fourteen months Jill guided my rehab--through surgery, a set back, another surgery, and another round of therapy, until she finally set me free. Jill was compassionate through the pain, yet kept the accelerator on progress. Her knowledge about knees and her knowledge of how every single solitary part of your entire body worked together and affected your knees was something to behold. She educated while she rehabilitated. But mostly Jill believed in me. Her devotion to knees and her devotion to my knee almost made me glad to be injured.
Maybe, truly glad.
Because, even three years out from that first surgery, and especially on the days I can't seem to find the gumption to continue slogging up the comeback hill, I remember that if this hadn't happened I wouldn't have met Jill. Not only do I continue to lean into all the tangible tools and knowledge she gave me, but I carry with me the best gift of the whole experience: meeting a person who greets her work and her patients each day with joy and curiosity and care; who is endlessly enthusiastic about the minutiae of the workings of the knee; and someone who truly inspires the desire to do your best and give your all.