melissa's torn acl.

by Melissa
(British Columbia)

I was told on Tuesday by a specialist that I will have to have surgery, or live the rest of my life in a brace. Well, if you know me, a brace just won't cut it for my lifestyle. I opted to get the surgery right away, get put on the waiting list and wear a brace for a few months and see if the brace magically repairs my ACL. I'm betting my money on it won't! Anyways, I have been reading up on tears and surgeries, and the recovery and that sort of thing. I have noticed that aloot of the injuries are caused from soccer/ baseball/ or football. Even rugby. I have yet to find a similiar story to mine! It was my first time on a dirtbike and I got cocky, lost control and the handlebar fell down, FULL force onto the side of me knee, as i had planted my knee into the ground to stop the bike from falling. So if I could make that clear imagine a 5'2 girl on a 250 kawi.. turning, starting to fall so down the leg goes to stop me from falling, and then the bike stalls and it smashes into my leg. For about the first 20 minutes.. the pain sucked! But i got up stretched it out, you know- i was with the boys. I couldnt show any weakness infront of them. Noo, ofcourse not. My buddy picked up the bike and we walked back to the truck.. man that was a PAINFUL walk. I sat in the box with my leg elevated because the size of me knee

literally tripled in size. And when I got home I kept telling myself to suck it up, that its nothing. But a pack of frozen veggies on it to take the swelling down.. and I'll be darned! It actually worked! Fast forward about 2-3 weeks ahead.. not so much the case. I was playing soccer and was running after the ball and went to turn on my knee, and what do you know, my knee buckled. I thought the initial injury was bad.. ohhhh man was i mistaken. But the pain didn't last that long.. I just got up stretched it out and tried to take her easy. Well, it buckled abour 4 or 5 more times before I finally ate my pride and went in to the doctor for it. She referred me down to the big city, and the doc bones down there said that basically if I dont get the surgery I will have life long problems. AHhhhhh stupid pride!. SO anyways hahah.. what I was really wondering was for anybody that has had the surgery, did you feel it was the best decision? And how was the pain, what kind of pain did you feel ( burning etc), how long did it last for.. um just general information like that. I'm happy that I'm going to be getting the surgery and getting it reconstructed, Im actually really terrified of the whole thing but I know its something that needs to be done. SO thankyou for reading my novel of a story lol :) ( if you did i owe you a sucker! ) and thankyou for any help!