Victoria is high energy and not very good at sitting still for long periods of time. Her days involve balancing caring for her son, running a small business (Victoria's Kitchen), auditioning for TV and film, going to yoga, and working for casting agents.
So when she found out she had a tear in her medial meniscus and that she would need knee surgery and possible be out of commission for weeks, she was pretty unhappy about the whole thing.
Victoria's active past involves gymnastics, dance, circus and other challenging physical activities so I shouldn't have been surprised by what I found out when I visited her 48 hours post surgery last night.
When I came into the house she was sitting on her couch, leg elevated. As a few minutes passed she told what she had done that day. First, she walked two blocks with only one crutch to Starbucks and was really taken aback by all the people just sitting around drinking bevies. Like who has time to sit and do nothing? Not Victoria.
Then she showed me her list of physio exercises that she was supposed to start two weeks post surgery. She had attempted several of them already. And apparently she had made her made up and down her stairs a dozen times that day. To top it all off, she also had been trying downward dog several times and even demonstrated a pretty fine form downward dog before my eyes.
I'm writing this story about Victoria because I'm totally blown away by her determination to get moving again. It's easy for anyone to get down after surgery. Our mortality and vulnerability is hard to ignore after putting our trust in a surgeon's hands. But the outcome after a surgery like Victoria's is going to be largely determined by attitude. How insistent someone is to get moving again will have a major impact on speed of recovery.
I wouldn't expect anything less from Victoria. She puts us all to shame with her determination and refusal to let life get the best of her.
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