ACL surgery, November 4th 2010

by Analiese Michelle
(Texas)

I am 16 years old and am a very serious soccer player, and i have been playing for 14 years. soccer is my LIFE. All day everyday. I play club soccer, and it is the best decision i have ever made! Soccer and fitness is my life as well. Everyday i ran, or did some sort of exercise and to go from this to nothing was heartbreaking. I currently had just moved to a D1 club soccer team in the summer of 2010.I worked my butt off to get where i was-- skills 3 times a week, and practices 3 times a week. It was my second season game, and my first time to get a full game of playing time.It was when i had gone to defend a ball. It happened so fast i can hardly remember! All i know is that i stepped to dive for the ball and planted it completely wrong. I heard all this popping and cracking and it frightened me for a second. I fell on the ground screaming because i just felt my whole entire leg pulling. I wasn't able to unbend it which frightened me even more. In my head i was praying it wasn't what my worst fear was. They called the trainer and she said these exact words " your knee is perfectly fine, it's just a bad bone bruise" When i heard these i was thanking God. I remained there on the bench icing my kneee. As i got out of the car to walk in my house, my knee completely went out on me and i fell. So i thought to myself, well i'll just stay off of it, do the whole ice and elevate thing and i'll be fine! Swelling went down and a week later i was walking perfectly fine! That was when i decided i would go out and play some soccer. I started off with juggling and there was no pain.. however i went to kick and i screamed. It was the worst pain i had ever experienced. After it had hurt with this and gone out a few more times at school, i knew this wasn't a good sign. We went to a doctor and he felt my knee and knew right from there something was wrong. On the car ride home my mom was furious, but more of all upset for me because she knew I had worked so hard to get to where i was. Long story short, i got an MRI and my ACL was completely GONE. There i had it, a torn ACL on September 11, 2010. Nothing was left. It was so hard to compromise with at first, but i had to stay positive. I mean, everything happens for a reason right? We may not know why but hope to find out sometime! I ended up doing pre-therapy for about two months ( i most definitely recommend this if your able to) I then had surgery on November 4th... It was the weirdest thing ever. I hated where i was, but i gotta say i did love the attention! I made sure that i did all my stretches and exercises that the hospital gave me, and sure enough i was on the bike the first day at therapy! My knee bend was a 109 and it was miraculous! Every now and then i would get down and cry for quite sometime, but then i knew i had to have faith in God and know it was in his hands. Time has flown by unbelievably! I am now 12 weeks out this Thursday, January 19th and i just Jogged for my very first time in four months on Monday January 17th!
" God never gives you anything you can't handle"

Last thing! Just recently i started having some pain the day after i ran therefore i couldn't run that day which made me frustrated...kinda had a little set back. Has anyone ever had this? Or just any positive feed back would be great:))