Injury-plagued Lalive is "trying to stay positive"

“I’m doing pretty well,” said U.S. Ski Team member Caroline Lalive three weeks after tearing her right ACL and MCL, dislocating the knee and fracturing the tibial plateau in a training crash in Austria. “I’m plugging along with recovery and trying to stay positive."
    It is a common experience for World Cup-level skiers to deal with injury, but Lalive has had more than her share. “This is like my 18th or 19th surgery,” she said Thursday from her home in Steamboat Springs, Colo. “Some of those were Lasik eye surgery, so if you don’t count those, 15 or 16. No one on the team has been through what I’ve been though. I’m in a league of my own.”
“I’M DOING PRETTY well,” said U.S. Ski Team member Caroline Lalive three weeks after tearing her right ACL and MCL, dislocating the knee and fracturing the tibial plateau in a training crash in Austria. “I’m plugging along with recovery and trying to stay positive."
    It is a common experience for World Cup-level skiers to deal with injury, but Lalive has had more than her share. “This is like my 18th or 19th surgery,” she said Thursday from her home in Steamboat Springs, Colo. “Some of those were Lasik eye surgery, so if you don’t count those, 15 or 16. No one on the team has been through what I’ve been though. I’m in a league of my own.”
    This injury, which sounds like a pretty thorough trashing of her knee, she categorizes as “not too bad. The ACL is pretty standard and everything else just goes hand in hand. The last injury was more of a stumper. This one is more in the norm.”
    That, however, does not make facing the rehab any easier. She looks outside of skiing for her inspiration. Ski racing, Lalive says, “is a world in itself. We’re kind of oblivious to some aspects of the real world. It became clear to me two years ago when I got hurt. I had to get a job. I went back to school.”
    A friend who is paralyzed provides better motivation. “We sound ideas off one another and I can gather courage.” She readily admits to having had doubts along the way. “Sure, of course you can think it’s not worth it. The last [injury] was debilitating mentally as much as it was physically. There are points where you go ‘What is happening here? This is too much for me,’ but then you get back. This summer it made sense and I knew why I was there.”
    Lalive had only been back with her teammates for three or four months, but they were good ones. “It was by far the best three of four months [of training] ever. It was an awesome experience and I’m glad I had that time. It was better than I could have imagined. … for a while.”
    So it’s back to rehab for Lalive. “It’s my second home,” she said, “and there are good people in there, so I don’t mind.”