Our lovely Star has badly injured her knee while sparring in her Taekwondo class. A black belt student accidentally kicked her with so much force it’s ruptured the ACL, torn cartilage, bruised the bones, and sprained another ligament. She’s spent a week in a splint from her hip to her ankle, another week going around to medical appointments, and is now in the care of a physio and walking short distances. The knee has begun to seize so she’s on a program of gentle exercise, rest, and ice to squeeze the fluid out of the joint and regain some of her range of motion in preparation for surgery. 

She will need a reconstruction of the ACL, which is done by harvesting from her hamstring muscle/s. Until then she is not able to do any sports or other activities apart from walking. 

This would be tough for any young person but there’s an extra dimension for Star. She’s been struggling with back pain since she came into our family, and we found a gentle and skilled osteopath to support her. Her assessment was that the pain was being caused by chronic muscle tension – related to trauma and anxiety. (On a small level we all do this when stressed – grind our teeth or get tension headaches. Some of us hold more tension through all our body and unless we take care to tune back in and ease the muscles, we can suffer terrible pain as a result) Star’s osteopath eased the pain with massage and recommended a regular exercise program. 

It took a long time for Star to find something she felt comfortable with and we were surprised to discover she turned out to love and excel at Taekwondo. She’d recently graded, getting 94% and progressing to yellow belt. She was in the process of arranging to train an extra day a week, as well as taking on a yoga class with me every fortnight, and with the regular exercise was no longer needing to see the osteopath.

I can’t emphasize how essential care of your body is when there’s trauma or anxiety. I didn’t know this when I was young and went on to develop fibromyalgia and suffer intense pain for many years. Posttraumatic stress is a risk factor for fibromyalgia. I’ve been thrilled to see Star’s back pain reduce and her sleeping improve, and I’m daunted by how we’re going to manage now she’s only able to walk.

It’s looking like it will take a couple of years for her surgery on the public system wait list, so we are currently exploring ways of funding it privately. It will cost about $9,000, plus rehabilitation. Unfortunately when I sought private health cover we were unable to include her in our family cover because she is not our biological child, and she was too young to sign herself up independently. So we expect to have a little cover through the sports club insurance, but most of the cost we’ll need to arrange ourselves. We’re still figuring that out. After the surgery she will still be off sports for another year while her knee strengthens. 

It’s been a big blow for her and us. But we are doing our best to support her through it and scaffold her with the resources she needs to recover. She’s had the most incredible response to it, from using breathing techniques to deal with the initial severe pain while waiting for the ambulance, to her resolution to practice life skills for when things don’t go according to plan. Her willingness to accept and embrace her own real, painful feelings but also look for the positives is admirable. I am so proud of her. We never choose life experiences like this, but we can learn a great deal from them, especially with some support to process and reflect. So that’s what we’re doing!