ACL injuries

Birthdays are supposed to be a nice pleasant day, not for me. As I felt the excruciating pain of my ACL and MCL snapping from my knee, I fell to the ground clinching my knee hoping the pain would stop. It didn’t. As I’m dragged around like a rag doll I could barely stand on my own two feet - I looked like a deer on ice. The Athletic Trainer, Athletic Director, and my parents with the help of our assistant coach lay me on the table. Clenching my mom and the assistance coaches hand I begged and pleaded for it not to be my ACL, I knew whatever I did, the future didn’t look bright.

Megan Scott, the school Athletic trainer did all the tests for different parts of my knee to get a feel for what might’ve been torn or tweaked. One of the first tests she did was the ACL test, she told me to bend my knee, but to me that was impossible; however, I sucked it up and put all my strength into it, finishing impressively. As she placed her hip onto my foot to keep it stable, she gripped the back of my calf just short of my knee, pulled forward, and as she did this, I felt the lower half of my leg gliding with her. I saw what my leg did. Looking at everyone's face in that moment, I knew what it meant. She did the other tests as required, saying I may have had MCL damage too. Not too many people know what the MCL does, it’s for stability and strength to a joint. But, most importantly it connects the shin bone(tibia) to the thigh bone(femur). She also thought my meniscus was torn, which could also lead to more problems with the knee.

Licking Memorial was able to get me in for an MRI sooner than most could, so my family and I went there. My MRI was at eight o’clock at night. And to my surprise, everyone was ready for their shifts to be over and the night to go faster, it was blatantly obvious. As the hurry to get me into the ginormous, loud scanner in the bone-chilling room, my knee was shoved in the spacers. I held back the tears of pain, but thought to myself, “it’s over with now”. I lay on the cold table in the freezing room with little to no blankets on the hard surface of the MRI table. Still, in pain from my fall, the nurse aggressively placed my knee in position for the scanners, knowing that this MRI would take hours to get my results back.

I impatiently waited for the day to come when my family and I hauled to Grant hospital to get the new information from my very blunt doctor, Doctor Tesner. All I could think about what was next and how do I overcome what obstacles that are going to be thrown at my face next, how long the road to recovery will be? The day is finally here and we go to Columbus getting into every part of construction we finally make it. As I lay in the cold bright room with my parents we wait until Tesnet burst through the door with his assistant. He comes in the room with a very distinct look on his face and just flat out says, “you tore your ACL with MCL damage but it’s only a 3 out of 4 tear, which is good but still bad.” I broke down in tears because I knew I did something to my knee but just hearing it set in stone really took a toll on me. I had my knee drained and it was most definitely the best feeling in the world to me, the only painful step was the needle part, and watching the blood or fluid filling up the syringe.

Through my long painful yet expansive journey I learned how to overcome lots of adversity in my life and tell my self to “suck it up” because not everything in life is going to be handed to you so do things with an open mind and do things with passion and that great feeling you get when overcoming a setback or an obstacle.