A decade ago, I was riding a motorcycle and slid it sideways on some gravel in a turn. The weight of the bike crushed my ankle, shattering it to pieces, while my knee got split open.

I had a metal plate put in my ankle, my knee was stitched closed, and I was bedridden for a month while recovering. Then I was hobbling around on crutches for several more months after that.

Unfortunately, I was serving in the US military at the time and they wanted me to get back to work ASAP, so they pushed me to do physical therapy and start exercising as soon as I could. We have to maintain physical fitness standards to continue serving, so I was on a limited medical waiver and was expected to get back in shape quickly.

Part of our fitness standards included running 1.5 miles in a certain timeframe based on our age. I kept getting extensions to my medical waiver because I couldn’t run, but they pushed me to hurry up and get back into running shape. Suffice to say, I was eventually able to pass my fitness test, but my ankle and knee would be throbbing in pain for the next day or two after.

A couple years later, I had the metal plate removed from my ankle, as it was restricting movement. I felt almost a jolt of pain every time I ran on that ankle. Removing the plate did make it less painful to run, but I was still barely passing my fitness tests. I just couldn’t make myself run any faster, no matter how hard I tried.

On top of that, both ankles and knees started hurting. Turns out, I had been favoring the good leg so much, I was over-exerting it and causing stress. I got an MRI and they said I had worn away about 1/3rd of the cartilage in my good knee.

Eventually, my doctor gave me a cane to help with walking and before long, I found myself using it all the time. I was continually going back to my doctor to receive more advice and care, and I was in and out of physical therapy for years.

Finally, my doctor considered me for a medical board. This is a process to review one’s medical ailments and decide whether they were fit to stay in the military, or if they needed to be medically discharged. My doctor asked me how close I was to retirement and I said I had 4 more years left. She then asked what job I did and I told her I worked in an IT role. She said I didn’t need my legs to do that, since I sat at a desk all day long, so she recommended to the board that I continue serving on a permanent “no walk/run” medical waiver. This would mean that I’m exempt from any run or walk fitness tests and I could basically just coast to retirement as long as I could pass my other fitness requirements (pushups and situps).

I managed to make it to retirement, although the lack of cardio in my diet meant that I gained about 40 lbs in those 4 years. I used my cane pretty much every day. Fortunately, my ankle pain pretty much vanished, now that I’m no longer running all the time. It’s easy to get a twinge of pain in my ankles if I’m not careful, but they don’t ache regularly anymore.

Once I retired, I registered with the VA and they immediately claimed they could fix my knees with a simple operation - something the military claimed would be a fruitless endeavor. I had minor knee surgery on both of my knees last year and surprisingly, I have almost no pain now!

I no longer walk with a cane, but it’s still easy to over-exert my knees and get sore/tired. I’m still within 6 months of my last surgery and they said it might take up to a year for me to fully recover, so I just need to be patient. But I’m excited at the prospect of being able to run again without pain. I’m hoping, by this summer, I’ll be able to get outside and exercise more and hopefully remove these extra 40+ lbs that have been weighing me down. It’s definitely not good for my knees to have extra weight on them.

Unfortunately, I’m about to turn 40 in a few months and every single one of my friends who hit 40 has claimed that that’s the year their body starts aching for no reason and it starts getting harder to do simple physical tasks. So I may be on an uphill battle from here on out.

As a kid, I was extremely active. I was constantly running everywhere, climbing trees, bicycling, swimming, rock climbing, canoeing/kayaking, and just constantly bursting at the seams with energy. I had never spent a day in the gym, but I had a natural 8-pack abs just from being so physically active. The military actually made me less muscular because they told me to slow down and stop running everywhere/climbing on everything. It didn’t help that I had a desk job, so I was told to sit still at my desk and work. If I wanted to exercise, they told me to go to the gym. But I hated the gym. It was so boring to just sit there and pick up/put down weights. Or run in circles on a track. I wanted an obstacle course, or something with a goal to reach, not just a boring, repetitive movement.

I was in great shape but still lost a lot of my strength/abilities while serving, because the military’s idea of fitness didn’t align with my own. Then my motorcycle accident severely crippled me for the rest of my service. And now, at nearly 40 years old, I’m hoping I can regain at least a little bit of that physical fitness back one day. I had built my whole life around the idea of being in excellent shape, and being crippled/broken has severely damaged my own personal image of myself. I feel like I don’t even know who I am anymore; my fitness and physical activity pretty much defined my personality and without that, I’ve had to seriously redefine who I am, which unfortunately comes bundled with insecurities, depression, and anxiety. But I’m hopeful that I’ll be able to be more active in the future.

My father walked anywhere from 2-10 miles a day just to stave off the symptoms of his Parkinson’s disease and he was a huge inspiration for me. Heck, he was a local celebrity in my town; he was known as the guy who would be out walking every day, rain or shine. Unfortunately, he passed away this past Friday, finally succumbing to his Parkinson’s. So it’s my goal, starting this spring, to pick up his daily walks in his stead and get myself back in shape. I’ve been living with him for the past 2 years (in my childhood home), so it’ll be easy to pick up his old route. Here’s hoping I can continue to improve, even into my middle-age years.