Aliya Mustafina….
Obviously I feel terrible for her, considering I just did THE EXACT SAME THING to myself. Torn ACL and torn meniscus. I’m looking at a return to the gym around September, apparently. Clearly I’m a knee expert now (HAHA) so I’d guess she could be back in the gym around Christmas. Do not listen to the people who say “Oh but she’s young and motivated and she can get back really quickly from this” NO. People, the knee needs a LONG time to heal and get stronger and just because she’s motivated will not make her body heal faster. She needs to be at 100% before they clear her, and the only way that will happen is in TIME! So I’m making my prediction now - she’ll be making her return to the gymnastics world (training, probably not competition) around Christmas. Since she’s a high level athlete I imagine they MIGHT let her do some bars work (no dismounts) before then but if she had something go wrong and fell she could seriously screw her knee up again and be out even longer so if I was her doctor, I’d take the super cautious route and be very conservative in clearing her to train.
Poor Aliya. This is such a painful injury and even more painful post-surgery, so I really am praying for her to have as pain-free a recovery as possible, and that they give her some good meds to keep her doped up for the first week or two post-surgery. Trust me, the Percocet made me feel like I was on another planet and I HATED it, but it WAS nice not to feel any of the pain. One day I got off on my pill schedule and there was about a 3 hour window where I was trying to catch up and believe me….chasing the pain is NOT GOOD!
OK enough rambling now. I know Aliya Mustafina will not ever see this, but even still…..Go Aliya! This is a really tough, long road, but you can do it! :)
