My personal experience

I am a 24 year old male in Southern California. In January of 2007 I was playing in a basketball game in a rec league in college. I was playing in my second game that evening when I went up for a layup to draw contact. As I came down I landed on my right knee and felt the dislocation. To this day it is the worst initial pain to ever feel.

I went through the rigorous rehab after having an autograft. After about 8 months I was cleared to play again with no restrictions. Unfortunately, it did not go as well as I planned. For the first 5 minutes I felt back to normal, cutting, stopping, sliding. Then on a routine play I decided I would change direction while I was dribbling and as I did that I felt my reconstucted knee destruct again. Not as sharp a pain as the first time, but I knew what it was.

In retrospect I knew I did everything I could have to rehabilitate my leg, but I realized just how important that first year post-op is. I had not done any activity 2 weeks prior to that game, so I will never know if it was because of that or just one of those things. I am now on my second rehabilitation after a cadaver graft was used for the second surgery.

This time around I plan on taking my time, not rushing, and being more than 100% sure that I can return to the activity I love.