This afternoon while I was riding the subway in Stockholm, a young girl about nine years old sat across from me with a knee-brace on, while her mother was standing next to her. I asked what had happened to her and thought of my own former knee injury. She said she had twisted it and I could see how much it probably still hurt her so I did my best to comfort her by sharing that I still can dance now anyway. And I thought of the years of fear of getting hurt again and avoiding jumps, but also being able to do a small jeté before the holidays and not worrying today in ballet class, working at the barre with a touch of Isadora Duncan.
I hurt my own knee in 1990 when I was trying an Aerobics class wearing sneakers which felt like getting stuck and made it impossible to do the same footwork I can do on the floor with bare feet like in dance class. I had to wear metal-braces for like a year to keep it in place. What helped the most was to do physiotherapy for about six months three times a week thanks to specialist care for elite athletes in Lund. Later doing arthroscopy my physician found that my front ligament had been torn off but healed itself onto the back one and therefor I didn't have to undergo surgery and also to avoid becoming more stiff in that one in comparison to my other knee which also is stretched out. The same physician also told me that I could never dance again...
We all talked a little about how to heal, well remembering how I proved him wrong. And the little girl was going to try to dance again.
Photo from NordiCare.
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