Nina Dobrev is sinking her teeth into her recovery following the motocross accident she suffered in May that left her with serious knee injuries.
The “Vampire Diaries” alum is just over three months into an estimated nine to 12 month recovery, but has already begun walking with a brace.
“I think I'm doing pretty well,” Dobrev said. People Wednesday at the annual Shiseido Blue Project cleanup during the 2024 U.S. Open of Surfing in Huntington Beach, adding that her doctors were “quite surprised” by her rapid progress. “I'm a little bit ahead in terms of healing, but it's still a very long process.”
According to the Cleveland Clinic, recovery from a torn ACL typically takes six to nine months, and full recovery from meniscus surgery can take six weeks to three months. Outcomes vary for tibia fractures, which are rare, but most people need a few months to recover.
The accident happened when Dobrev was riding an electric dirt bike for the first time, she explained last month in a Instagram Video narrating his recovery.
“After losing control and crashing the bike, and a not-so-quick hospital visit, I found out I had a completely torn ACL, torn meniscus and a fractured tibial plateau,” he said. “Not ideal.”
The 35-year-old actress had to wait three weeks for the swelling to go down and her bone to begin to heal before she could undergo surgery, but she finally had the operation in June.
Dobrev had not undergone “major surgery” before, so it was “very scary,” she said, adding that while she was prepared for the physical pain of surgery and recovery, she did not anticipate the “mental toll” the process took on her.
“When I first got injured, I felt a lot of anxiety because I didn’t want to ‘bother’ people or be a bother. I’ve been struggling a lot with the loud voices in my head that keep telling me ‘you’re a burden,’” she wrote in the caption of the post.
“I’m trying to be kinder to myself, to remind myself that this is temporary and it will get better,” she continued. “Since I started walking and traveling a bit, I’ve been feeling a lot more positive; I can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel.”
According to her Instagram Story on Thursday, where she celebrated wearing chunky heels for the first time since April, she walks toward that light in style. The short video was set to the song “Healing” by Gordo and Drake.
Dobrev recently attended the Olympics for the first time with her partner, three-time gold medalist Shaun White, who “arranged in advance to have a wheelchair” in Paris so the actress wouldn't have to walk the long distances between venues, she told People on Wednesday.
Dobrev can generally support her own weight, she said, but the Games require a lot of walking and she doesn't want to rush.
“A lot of times at this point in the healing process, people get injured again because they feel fine and start doing normal things,” she said. “So I have to remind myself that I’m still healing and there’s still a little bit of time ahead.”
