To anyone thats suffered a bad injury in the past..

[Justin Metcalf]

Doctors tell you that for two real reasons. First, a lot of them really do care about you. Obviously what you were doing injured you because you had to go see them so they will work off of that to convince you to quit at least for a bit. In regards to "but if you get hurt again, they can make more money" i bring in the second part. Doctors are on a never-ending battle to build up a positive reputation. If you get hurt in the same way again, they look bad. Even worse, if you get hurt again and make their original work look like crap, they look horrible.

P.S. I have a congenital lung disease so doctors are not just things that I have to see when I get hurt. I have a fair amount of experience with how that system works.

However, let me play off of my experience and what they told me after my crash. As background so you know what I was dealing with...50 foot decent/fall down the side of Mt. Baker. I went into a coma that lasted a week, lacerated my liver, and broke my pelvis so badly that my right wing actually broke off. I almost died twice in the hospital and the doctors told my family to look into nursing homes.

I/my family was told by doctors that I wouldn't be able to return to any school for years. When I did return, it would need to be just a few classes (not full-time). Skating again? Haha, they didn't even think I would be able to walk fully at a few points, skating was never even something I was given a hope of doing again.

After 2 months in the hospital, I returned home. I was reading some pretty hefty books, running often, auditing a class in a community college, and acting like myself again. It wasn't something that happened the day I got back but it all happened pretty damn quickly (2 months?). Things got better rapidly and...skating again in the Fall of 2008 on a very light level and then some real skating Spring of 2009. (Crash was May 24, 2008 )

Less than 1 year after the crash that destroyed my pelvis, put me into a coma, injured my liver and almost killed me a couple of times...I destroyed every doctor's expectation by returning to school full-time and starting to skate some of the stuff I was doing around the time of my crash.

Not meant to build up my own story or anything, nothing more than a story about how I got badly hurt and didn't let it beat me. Doctors will never tell you the best possible outcome to work off of. It is 100% on your shoulders and you decide when you are ready for skating again. If you're like me, you'll be telling yourself that you're ready just a few weeks after the surgery. Use your head but never let doctors tell you what you can't do.


Oh, how I made it through...by being pissed off enough to work REALLY hard to get better. I refused to accept what I was told and knew that I would never forgive myself if I simply walked away from skating. "You can still be connected, you just can't ride," is a load of horse manure. You aren't involved in skating to sit on the sideline and watch other people do what you love. Refuse to accept what you are told and do what you think is right, but don't be brash.

[wefunk]

[SpeedFiend]

listen to doctors, they know more and have more real life experience

ever had someone tell you how to do your job?

just call your knee pip