evan's right knee injury

by Evan
(Buffalo, NY)

Hello, in june I was playing lacrosse and quickly turning, i planted and this is where it went down hill. I heard a pop and i collapsed. Since i wasnt hit by another play, nobody thought i was injured and my coach was yelling for me to get off the field. I was lying on the grass in great pain and within a few minutes of being on the ground, i was able limp off the field and get to the bench were our "athletic trainer" told me it was only a slight sprain or some garbage like that. Within a couple days the swelling went down and i was able to walk normally again. So over the summer I continued to play sports but i still felt that something wasnt right and it didnt feel as stable as it used to. So I told my mom and she made an appointment with my aunt who is a x-ray tech at her office. This was half way through october and was also half way through my high school volleyball season. After a day or two, my aunt called with the results and she said it wasnt good. She said I had torn my acl and was quite impressed i had played most of the volleyball season with a torn acl. My mother was mortified and quickly called for an appointment with a ortho guy. We scheduled a date for surgery and it was for late november. He also suggested to wear a brace which they had to special order. So i continued to play voleyball for about a week without a brace until it came in. Once it came in, I had to go get it fitted and the next day we had a game against our rivals and the first day i wore my brace, another terrible thing happened. I went up for a kill(spike) and when i came down i planted wrong and felt once again a big pop and it felt like someone had hit me in the knee with a bat. I am not much of a person to cry but at that moment i did a little becasue of the pain. It seemed that the world had stopped and at that moment i looked over at my coach(who knew i had a torn acl but still allowed me to play) and the expression on my face must have indicated that something was wrong and he immediatly called a time out. Within the next couple hours, i witnessed the greatest amount of pain i have ever had and compared to my acl tear during lacrosse this was ten times worse. When my doctor found out he was not supprised becasue he said there was always a risk but the brace would reduce it. He ordered an mri and now didnt i have a acl but know i have a torn meniscus. This is when he said enough and told me to quit the team and opted for a closer surgery date to reduce further injury. I thought this was a good idea and he had an openning the next week so i was pencilled in for almost a month earlier. My surgery date was October 27 of 2009 and I am alomst three months post-op and everything is going great(exept streching in PT is quite painfull).