It was September 3 2013 when I tore my ACL, I remember the day like it was yesterday. It was an early Monday morning with slight over cast and was five days from my first high school football game. After we did stretches we went right to team. We were all fired up because game day was right around the corner. I got set on the line, and was anticipating the snap because my responsibility was to pull and kicking out the end. When the ball was snapped, I flew down the line and took on the defensive end. As the whistle was about to be blown another teammate feel on the back of my leg. I screamed in pain, held my knee and couldn’t get up, but my coach calmed me down till the trainer got there. The trainer helped me to my feet and I was able to walk off the field. The trainer said that there was too much swelling so he couldn’t assess me and that I should ice it and come back tomorrow. He did all sorts of tests to try and diagnose me to the best of his capabilities. When he was all said and done he believed that I had hyper extended my knee. I went to the trainer’s office to do exercises every day until I was capable to return to football. I had to order a brace that had hinges on the side and would help stabilize my knee. At the three and a half week mark I was able to return to football but had to fight for my starting position. I eventually got it back and finished out the season. Towards the end of the season my knee had started to buckle but there was not really any other problems beside that, so I really didn’t think much of it.
During the winter I played lacrosse and I snowboarded with out many issues, then regular lacrosse came. In the beginning of the season I didn’t have much trouble, but it was the third or forth game and my knee had buckled again. I then went to the trainers and had to do more exercises. After that game it had become more and more frequent. It started to happen during practice and started to hurt more as it buckled. At the end of the season in May I decided that there had to be something wrong with my knee. I told my parents all of the events that happened after the initial incident and was taken to the doctors a couple of days after. The doctor recommended that I get an MRI and see a better doctor for my surgery. I ended up meeting Dr. who was an orthopedic surgeon at Columbian Presbyterian. The first time I meet him he knew my ACL was torn but to confirm it he had me have a second MRI. The day that the doctor called to confirm that I had torn my ACL I had a long boarding incident that had cause me to buckle it, which had been the worst time. After that I had gone back for a checkup and to pick a surgery date. He saw that it was swollen and asked what had happed so he had decided for me to have a third MRI. This one depicted that I had a torn ACL and three separate tears in my Meniscus. I also had decided that my surgery was going to be on July 17 2013 and it was going to be in Columbian Presbyterian in New York City.
On the day of my surgery my parents and I drove into New York City at 10:00 for an 11:00 check in. I had to wait a long time before I meet with the doctor and an even longer wait to get in the operating room. The surgery was 6 hours long and they took a graph from hamstring to make a new ACL and part of my Meniscus. They made sure I was fully awake before they sent me home. The
