A Year in Review

Last year proved to be a challenging one. While it started well, it quickly fell apart when I injured my knee. Since then, it has been a long and arduous process, full of new and painful experiences. From spending a month without putting any weight on my leg to having trainers force my knee to bend a few more degrees, by no means has this been a year I look back fondly on. That being said, I have definitely grown throughout this process. I've learned my limits, tested my patience, and come to appreciate some of the things I took for granted in the past. Nine and a half months after my injury, I have been fully discharged from physical therapy. In this post, I plan on briefly reviewing the whole recovery process, from start to finish, and hopefully draw some lessons from the whole experience.

The injury occurred on March 3rd, 2018. It was Saturday morning, and we were playing BYU in the first round of the Stanford Invite. With the score being 2-3, the game had literally just started. We were on for our 3rd O-line point. We're near the end zone, my defender decided to position himself on the completely wrong side of me, so I run to the force side cone, hoping to score. The throw was a little behind me, so I planted on my left leg to jump back to grab the disc and my knee pops out. I felt 3-4 pops and a whole lot of pain. I could barely think straight. The trainer, Ken, relocated my knee on the field, after which I was helped off the field and into a car to be taken to the Hospital.

I had suffered an anterior tibial dislocation--a dislocated knee. I skipped out on my team's spring break trip to Yosemite to fly home and get checked out ASAP. I wasn't able to put any weight on my leg without severe pain, so I decided it was best to not delay the forthcoming doctor's appointments. I left on Sunday night and landed early Monday morning. I had my preliminary appointment that afternoon, where X-Rays and visual exam were done. The X-Rays didn't show anything was broken, so they scheduled me for an MRI the next morning. After a few hours of waiting, my doctor called me with the results from the MRI. A torn ACL, a complex tear to the medial meniscus, a partial tear to the lateral meniscus, a partial tear to the PCL, sprained MCL, and bone bruising. It wasn't pretty. They scheduled me for a preliminary appointment with a surgeon for the next morning. After meeting with the surgeon, he agreed that there was no reason to delay the surgery, and happened to have an open slot that coming Friday. 48 hours later, I was shipped off to the basement of UPMC Mercy where my knee was to be surgically repaired.

All said and done, it was 6 days between injury and surgery. I missed the first week of classes after spring break to recover from the surgery and then spent the next month crutching around a snowy Pitt campus. the next few months of PT would be the most difficult. Before they can start working on getting back the strength in my knee/leg they had to work on getting back the mobility. Both my flexion and extension were not up to par, so my trainers spent the majority of my two-hour twice-a-week appointments putting me in increasingly painful positions to force my knee to move as they wanted it. It was horrible. There were times where they had me count out loud to ensure that I was still breathing.

After a month I got to the point where I could walk, but things didn't get much better. My mobility was still not great, but I needed to start working on strengthening my leg to ensure that I wouldn't reinjure myself it if I took a tumble. That meant that while my appointments started to shift to more muscle-building exercises, I now had to work on all of the mobility stuff at home. I spent as much time as I could handle switching between flexion and extension exercises. My least favorite was propping my leg up on a chair and hanging my backpack off my knee with ~15 pounds of whatever household items I found lying around. I was supposed to sit there for an hour, but I'd usually have to break it up into 10-15 minute sessions to make it bearable.

I struggled with the mobility for what seemed like forever. I needed to get to 135 degrees of flexion before my trainers would allow me to start running. While I had hit the 135-degree mark a couple of times, it was always with the "help" of my trainers (by "help" I mean they basically held me down and forced my leg to bend to the point where I couldn't see straight). For comparison, a normal amount of flexion is somewhere in the 150-160 degree range.

Once I finally managed to hit the 135-degree mark, things sped up quickly. I was no longer doing any mobility exercises and instead shifted entirely to running and strengthening. I had lost a LOT of muscle in the first few months post-surgery. I was 15 pounds lighter than I was when I got injured. My leg looked like a honey pretzel twist. But the shift in focus at PT made my appointments a million times more enjoyable, and my general quality of life improved drastically. I still struggled walking on uneven ground or up and down stairs, but I was able to stay on my feet for reasonable amounts of time and no longer noticeably limped.

The running phase went very well. I started off by running 2 miles in 0.1 mile intervals of on/off walking and running. After only about a week I shifted to running for 10 minutes straight. A week or two later it was bumped up to 15 continuous minutes. My strength was also improving dramatically. My knee extensions and leg presses were quickly improving, and within a couple weeks I was over 90% in comparison to my good leg, allowing me to move into the jumping phase.

I was getting very excited. After a while of feeling like I was behind schedule, things had really started to ramp up. Jumping turned out to be a different story. Right off the bat, it was tough. Unlike strengthening, it was difficult for me to just push through. It seemed less of a mental barricade to overcome and more of a physical one that I had to relearn. My form was pretty bad, and I could only do so many reps before my knee was tired and I’d have to stop for the day. After only a few sessions, my trainers noticed my double leg jump had improved a lot, so they decided to test me to see if I could move on to the final phase of my PT—cutting and sprinting. I was not expecting to get tested so soon, as I felt like I there was still improvement to be made on my single leg jumps.

Turns out I was right. While I passed the double leg jumping section of the test, my single leg jumps were not even close. Failing the test meant at least 2-3 more weeks before they could test me again. I worked hard to improve my single leg jumps. At PT we focused primarily on the single leg jumps, and I put extra time in at the gym working on them as well. When it was time to get tested again, I was feeling much more confident.

They started me off on the double leg jumps. While I looked good to start, they noticed my form was deteriorating as I fatigued. The second test wasn’t similar to the first. There was much more focus on durability and fatigue, and it quickly showed that  I wasn’t prepared. Before we even got to the single leg phase of the test I was exhausted. Soon after I learned I had failed yet again.

I was frustrated. While I hadn’t expected to pass the test the first time, I was feeling much more confident the second time around. Failing again meant another delay. I was right around the 7-8 month mark at this point, which is the original timeframe the doctors gave me to be back to full health. It was obvious I wasn’t very close to that.

Two more weeks came and went and I finally passed my test. My trainers promised me that this last phase of PT would go by quickly. They started me off with some continuous hopping drills, followed up with some sprinting. Due to the limited space we were working with, there wasn’t much room for cutting drills. We did what we could, but it was hard for me to ever really push myself. I couldn’t get to top speed in the space we had, and I always had to be on the lookout for other patients or trainers who would be walking through the space we were using.

That final phase lasted less than a month. After only a few appointments they decided they it was time to discharge me. It came almost as a surprise. While I had just started partial participation in practices, I definitely didn’t feel ready to be fully back. My knee still feels sore after running around. We hadn’t done any exercises that included reactionary cutting, or anything with cleats on. I hadn’t practiced cutting at full speed, and I looked like an idiot the few times I had tried it out at practice. It felt like while I still wasn’t 100%, given the space we were working with there wasn’t anything else my trainers could do for me. They told me to ease into practices, and to be cautious for a while, but that I was in good enough condition that they were comfortable leaving me on my own.

It’s a scary position to be in. A while ago I realized that while the pain of PT was tough, the mental barrier of convincing myself I can play again was going to be much harder. Do I feel 100% healthy? Absolutely not. It only takes a couple of minutes of minimally strenuous activity to start feeling a difference between my knees. I’m scared shitless that I’ll make one wrong step again and it’ll be back to square one. It’s not like my injury was due to someone diving into me. I literally just planted on it like I had a million times before. What’s to stop that from happening again?

So here I am. A day over 10 months since I injured my knee. With classes starting soon, so will practices. The goal I set for myself at the beginning of all of this was to be able to fully participate after winter break. I don’t quite think I’m going to be able to do that. It’ll be close, but I think I’ll need at least a few practices before I’m comfortable enough to start scrimmaging and playing at full capacity.

It’s been a very long road. I’ve realized how much love my friends and family have for me who have been there supporting me along the way. In no way was this something I could have done on my own. Without the ongoing encouragement, the excitement to see me improve, and the just the general love I’ve received has kept me going this whole time. If you’ve actually read to this point, thank you so much for being a part of this. I can’t really put into words how much I appreciate all the support I’ve gotten over this last year. It’s been incredible.