A Glimpse At the Present

February 2013

Now that the leg injuries are over, I think it is important to know what my status is now in the present before I even discuss how things even got to this point. It will boggle your mind, just as it does mine, when you eventually read the blogs to come that discuss all the various doctors visits, testing, exercises, traveling, mental pressures and difficult, although sometimes humorous hoops, I have gone through that have brought me to this point.

Right now I am 23 years old, and I have been trying to get better for over 7 years. On November 9, 2012 I had my 10th right sided shoulder surgery in Colorado; an anterior capsulolabral reconstruction with allograft (cadaver tissue). This brought my total number of surgeries all together since 2006 up to 22; I've had 1 on my right ankle, 2 on my right knee, both hips, 7 on my left shoulder and 10 on my right shoulder. If not the most, it sure was one of my most painful shoulder surgeries I have ever had. This surgery entailed putting 4 anchors and 2 screws into the bone to secure the donated tendon in the front of my shoulder. The new tendon will help give the front of my shoulder more stability and hopefully prevent it from subluxating. I had a different procedure (open capsular shift) done in Illinois earlier that year in March which lasted 4 months before it started subluxating (partial dislocation) out the front on a daily basis. To most people you would think, "Wow 4 months that isn't long." For me though, it was the longest any shoulder surgery lasted. However, by the time September came, I was dislocating which caused me to have to wear a brace that locked my elbow at my side. This prevented me from moving my shoulder because anytime I moved, I would shift out of place.

My niece Lizzy & I at the pumpkin patch. The white around my waist is
the brace, and the gray straps secured my arm in place.

Below are pictures of how much motion I had the morning of surgery 11-9-12.



Flexion: moving arm forward

Side view of flexion

External Rotation 

Abduction: movement to the side

 Surgery #22 and still smiling and playing cards with my mom before being wheeled back to surgery

(No, I am not on any "happy" medicine but my right arm is COMPLETELY numb)

When you wake up in the morning, you never know for sure where your day is going to take you...


Thursday, January 31, 2013 started as just a typical day. I woke up, ate breakfast, and my mom drove me to physical therapy. The past couple weeks have been rather rough. My shoulders, especially my right, has been very sore and I've been mentally questioning a lot of things with life. Such as, what career I can do with limited motion and what am I going to do with school. I spend a lot of time thinking what if I don't get my motion back and primarily I wonder why my shoulders keep being problematic and requiring surgeries.

For the past seven years, since the time I became injured, I have always said, "It could always be worse." My mom's breast cancer was a life threatening illness; my injuries are not. She got through her breast cancer, I'll get through my injuries.

Christmas 2004 with my Grandma King and Mom cancer free!

At physical therapy, I was placed in a chair directly in front of a young man. I watched as this young man struggled as he got into his wheelchair from the table. His legs don't work well and he has to physically lift them up to get them on the wheelchair foot holders. My physical therapist offered to help him, and in a determined voice the young man, said, "No, I've got this." I sat in my chair thinking, "Oh, he is just like me in a sense." When you are limited in the things you can do, you want to do for yourself the things you can. I know in my case, I appreciate peoples' help; however, when I am asked if I need help over a task I know I can do, I will be stubborn, and sometimes it may sound like I am being short when I decline. It's only because I need help with so many other things and I want to feel like I have some sort of independence.

When my therapist walked by me and said hello, I looked at him and said, "That man has it rough. As hard as my situation is, at least I can get up and walk from point A to point B." My therapist looked at  me and said, "You would know because of the crutches." I agreed, but in my head I was remembering how hard it was when I was in a wheelchair for 6 weeks due to some unidentified virus that made it extremely difficult to walk. Being in a wheelchair absolutely sucks.

When my therapist and I began working on very basic, minimal shoulder motion exercises things weren't going great but they weren't going bad either. My therapist always has his hands on my shoulder to help give stability/support to the joint and help guide the movement. When we were working on flexion (moving the arm forward) all of a sudden there was a loud, audible, painful pop in the shoulder I had surgery on in November. I looked at my therapist whose eyes were wide and I felt my arm just kind of drop from the pain. I am not one to cry. When I started crying from the pain, I knew something bad had happened. As I gathered myself together and composed myself, I told my therapist he could continue. I needed to know if the pop that just happened was a good one that would make the joint feel better. It moved a little but killed. I was officially worried. It's no ones fault and there are no hard feelings. It's like that old saying, "S#!% Happens!"


Little did I know 9 hours later I would be on a 7:15pm airplane heading to Colorado with my mom to see my surgeon Dr. M the next day. It's a 2.5 hour drive from Denver to Vail, CO. My mom has learned to become an experienced driver and this was her first time driving in the mountains when it was snowing!! I must say, she did a very good job. Us and the car got there and home all in one piece.

Driving to Vail 

The following day I had an MRI of my shoulder in the morning, saw the shoulder therapist and then saw Dr. M in the afternoon. Needless to say, it was a long day. At this point there is no definitive course of treatment. Dr. M injected my shoulder with cortisone. I will now wait the next several weeks to see if my shoulder gets better. If it does not, then the next step would be going back to Colorado for an arthroscopy so they can take a peek inside. For now I will continue going to my wonderful physical therapist here in IL to work on strengthening my muscles and trying to gain some motion back. It was highly recommended to me that I stay in CO working directly with the shoulder therapy specialist for a couple months; anywhere from 6 weeks to 3 months to have both regular physical therapy and pool therapy. My case is so bizarre and complicated that these specialists are thinking outside of the box to create a physical therapy protocol for me.

  Funky depressions that appear with minimal motion.
They came back after whatever it was popped in my shoulder.

  Kinesiotape that helps hold my shoulder in the proper position

I am SO thankful to have such a wonderful team of doctors and therapists. Without any of them I would be so screwed. They have put so much time and effort into my care and I am so appreciative. I have an uphill battle against me this year. It is going to test me and push me probably in ways I haven't yet experienced. I have decided to start blogging my journey because I hope it can help people realize they are not alone in their situations and to not lose hope. You have to keep plugging along and get through the hard days. So here's to a year of a lot of hard work and hopefully a lot of progress.

 "On a Mission" tiger I drew

This tiger pretty much sums up what my mentality will be this year.

"NFL Players Sustain This Injury"

August 2006

It's 4 vs. 1. Four say there is a hip injury and 1 says there is not. I tried researching doctors and only found one in Colorado. I lived in Illinois; that's a problem. Not having any success, my dad called the "super-specialist" to see if he knew of any other doctor in the area. He told my dad that he already had his "expert" opinion, but if he really felt it was necessary, he could bring me to see Dr. K who worked at a different well known Chicago hospital. The best decision I made was seeing Dr. K at the end of August 2006. I have been with Dr. K over 6 years now.

My nerves were through the roof the day I saw Dr. K. I didn't have good luck with doctors in the past and I didn't want him to be like the others. I had to bring all of my records starting with my ankle so he could see all that had been injured from this fall. When he walked into the room he introduced himself and was very nice. He then said something that threw me for a loop. He said, "How HARD did you fall? Your MRI shows that you fractured your calcaneus (heel bone)." WHAT?!? Back with the ankle injury I was told there were no broken bones; this explained why I couldn't walk on my heel. I told Dr. K that I landed VERY HARD. He proceeded to tell me, he could see that. When he put my films up, he pointed to the bottom LEFT of the MRI; not the top right like the previous doctor and said, "So, how is the super-specialist?" dripping with sarcasm. "You DO have a detached posterior acetabular (ass-a-tab-u-lar) labrum. NFL players sustain this injury when they land trying to catch a football." When he examined my hip he was able to move it in ways that aren't normal. When I was standing and put all my weight on my right leg, my hip was subluxating (partial dislocation) out the back. He said surgery is needed in order to correct the problem. The first surgery date that was open, was September 21, 2006. Exactly 1 year from the initial fall.



My niece Emily can still make anyone happy when they're having a bad day

My niece Lizzy is still my little sidekick.

September 2006

I missed a week and a half of school. Surgery consisted of tightening the capsule in the hip and putting 2 anchors in the back to reattach the labrum to the bone. There isn't any type of bracing or casting that is used; just the use of crutches for 6 weeks. Recovery was difficult because anytime you go to sit or stand, your hip joint has to move. You don't realize how many times you bend your hip in a day: using the bathroom, taking a shower, getting in/out of the car, using stairs, getting comfortable in bed. It sounds so basic, but getting comfortable in bed was one of the hardest things to do; no matter what you do, you end up having to move your hip. I watched a lot of movies and worked on a lot of homework. When I went back to school, I started having a lot of shoulder/scapular (shoulder blade) pain. I remember coming home from school the one day and telling my mom I felt like I was slouching. She noticed it and said try to sit up straight. I couldn't. There was a lot of pain over both shoulder blades. I didn't want to use a wheelchair so I continued using the crutches. Little did I know, this was one of the first major signs that I had a shoulder injury. Before I could even think about my shoulders though, I had to focus on rehabbing my hip. I started physical therapy 5 weeks out from surgery. As I got better and therapy progressed, I was thrown for a double major loop. My right knee that had already been operated on was "giving way" and my left hip was shifting out of place as well.

November 2006

When I saw Dr. K, instead of him saying "this is impossible" or "you're making it up", he told me I had to once again go for MRI testing. The MRI arthrogram of my left hip showed I had a torn labrum (cartilage) which probably happened from having to support myself on the crutches for so long. The knee MRI appeared normal but when Dr. K examined it, my patella (knee cap) was now shifting towards the center of the body this time. Both my hip and knee would require surgery. It was decided that I should have the right knee done first because I would need at least one stable leg to stand on because I would be on crutches after the left hip surgery. Up until surgery on my right knee in December 2006, I had to always use crutches because I had an unstable joint on each leg. The crutches continued to make my shoulder blades hurt more and more. I eventually changed the way I was crutching by rolling my shoulders forward to get the weight of the backpack to sit differently. This relieved the pain and pressure so I continued doing it; I now know that was the worst thing I could have ever done.

Knee before being fixed

Knee after being fixed. Notice the patella doesn't move in anymore

Luckily with the knee surgery, I had it done over winter break so I did not miss any school. I was on crutches for 4 weeks and began physical therapy once again. Therapy went great. Since I was progressing, and wasn't having issues with my right leg, I was able to schedule my left hip surgery for in March 2007. In February, my shoulder blade pain was getting hard to tolerate. I played the cello in school and would have to stop playing and rest my left arm on the "shoulder" of the cello because it hurt so badly. This whole injury thing was taking a lot longer than I could have ever imagined. I started coming to terms that I was never going to play competitive soccer ever again. This was very hard to wrap my brain around. I needed a new outlet for stress relief so I started to take my drawing class more serious. I started doing more drawing for fun and not because I had it for homework. Drawing provided stress relief and it was something that I had complete control over.

Frog done with colored pencil in 2007

Tiger done with just pencil in 2007

March 2007

When it came time to have the left hip surgery in March I was dreading it. My shoulder blades were screaming at this point and I couldn't bear the thought of having to go back on crutches for the next few weeks. Luckily though, there ended up not being a labral tear in my hip. Instead, it was strictly a very loose capsule issue that needed to be tightened. At my 1 week post-op appointment, I remember Dr. K asking how I was feeling. I was completely honest. I told him I felt awful and everything was hurting. My knee, my hips, and most of all my shoulders were hurting. That day I learned, I needed to be careful expressing how I was feeling. Rather than acknowledge the fact that I had just had 5 surgeries this past year and was still healing, Dr. K said, "Sometimes pain medications alter ones' mood." He then proceeded to ask if I was depressed which I was not. I acknowledged that depression can cause many symptoms but that was not the cause of my pain. My hips and knee hurt due to surgery and my shoulders hurt because I thought they were injured. I then asked Dr. K, "If I don't use the crutches, will I damage the repair in my left hip?" He said, "No, but most people use them for a couple weeks." With the reassurance that I wouldn't harm anything that had just been corrected in my hip, when I got home I put the crutches against a wall and never went on them again. I would rather hurt every time I took a step in my hip rather than experience the sharp, stabbing, awful pain I had in my shoulder blades from having to support my body weight on crutches. I will never be able to go on crutches the rest of my life due to the extensive shoulder issues that were soon to follow.

Doctors Don't Yell At Their Patients...Oh Yes They Do!

June 2006

This really can't be happening is all I thought to myself. I had already had surgery to correct damage in my right ankle and right knee; I couldn't have possibly damaged my right hip too. At first I was in denial that something was wrong. I would go to physical therapy and push through exercises that were very painful. It finally got to the point where I had to tell my physical therapist. We tried working on less strenuous exercises but it didn't change anything. My physical therapist once again told me to go back to the orthopedic.

When I went to the doctor, I was more embarrassed than nervous. I knew it sounded crazy to go in and say my hip is giving me trouble. I was now 17 years old and always attributed hip pain to older people. As I expected, my doctor couldn't believe it. As I sat on the examining table he asked me what my symptoms were. I told him I had sharp pain when I sit, a constant nagging deep pain, and it felt like my hip would shift out of place when I would walk. He told me he couldn't imagine me injuring my hip. I then reminded him that nobody thought I could have injured my knee either and that resulted in surgery. You could feel the tension in the air. My mom was getting aggravated. She started acting like a drill sergeant. She looked at me and said, "You stand up here." She then looked at the doctor and said, "Now you, come over here and examine her when she moves her leg." Well, needless to say that got everyone's attention. The doctor started examining my hip and said there's nothing wrong with the front. I said you're right, it's the back that is problematic. He went on to say that's just butt pain. I told him, well then I guess that's what hurts. I then asked if I might have torn the labrum (cartilage) in the back. He didn't think so. Not quite sure as to what was going on, the doctor ordered an MRI arthrogram.

It was the first time that I had ever had an MRI arthrogram; I didn't know what to expect. A needle is inserted in the front of the hip and the doctor pushes dye into the joint with a syringe. More than experiencing pain, it was more an awkward, full, heavy feeling with a lot of pressure. A few days after the MRI was done, the doctor called my mom. He said, "You're not going to believe this, because I can't believe this. Megan has a detached posterior acetabular (ass-a-tab-u-lar) labrum." Easy terms: the cartilage that lines the back of the hip socket was torn away from the bone. The doctor continued to tell my mom that he had already talked to his associates and none of them deal with this injury. What do you mean no one handles this injury??? He told my mom that he knew of one doctor in Chicago and that we should go there.

Of course when my parents called to schedule the appointment, the doctor was booked out 2 months. Since I had no other choice, I waited until August. On the phone, my parents were told the doctor already read the MRI report and said I would need surgery so they should schedule a date. Tentative surgical date is set for the end of August.

August 2006

First off, to this day, this is one of the most arrogant, and disrespectful doctors that I have ever met. I do not think they taught him bedside manners in medical school. When the doctor walked into the room, he said, "Good news, you don't need surgery". The look on my face, as well as my parents, was probably priceless. I looked at the doctor and said, "What do you mean I don't need surgery? The labrum is detached." He then proceeded to put my films up and tell me that if I were to have a labral tear, it would be here. He pointed to the top RIGHT of the film. When I asked him what am I supposed to do, he got up and said let me examine you. I laid on my back as the doctor picked up my leg and started jerking it around in every direction possible. The pain was insane. He then began to tell me, my hip is fine, there is no tear, and I'm young, move on with life.

As I laid there trying to hold back tears, he proceeded to tell me to go walk in the hall. As one would expect, I was limping. He then told me to walk on my tiptoes which was very hard to do, due to the ankle and knee surgery. The next thing I knew, the doctor literally starts yelling at me, saying "Stop limping! There's nothing wrong with you!" In my head, I was panicked. "Oh my gosh. This can't be happening. I am being yelled at for limping? He thinks I'm faking this. Not again. Why do doctors think just because I'm young I'm making this up??" When the doctor was done yelling at me, he then looked at my parents and said, "You need to yell at her every time she limps! Put her in water aerobics to exercise her hip!" At that, the doctor got up and left. My parents and I sat there frozen, unable to speak.

The 3 of us were shocked, dazed and confused. We gathered up our belongings and left their office. In the car I told my parents that the doctor is wrong. I am blessed to have parents that believe every word I say and don't think I am over exaggerating anything when I am injured. During my soccer playing days, I took some really hard falls. I would always keep playing unless I knew there was something seriously wrong. Of course the last thing I wanted at this point was another injury but I had learned to know my body really well and my gut was telling me there was a problem.

In the car I was crying. I was beyond mad and I had, had enough of dealing with doctors. My mom turned around, and looked me straight in the eyes and said, "Don't worry we will figure this out." She took out her cell phone. I asked, "Who are you calling?" She said, "The radiologist where you had your MRI done. I want them to reread your films." Genius! Why didn't I think of that? My mom talked to the radiologist directly, and explained everything that had just happened. She was told that he would personally reread my films and call her back. Shortly thereafter, the radiologist called and said, "All 3 of the radiologists from this facility reread the film and are in agreement that there is a detached posterior acetabular labrum." He mentioned the view number and the location and then proceeded to ask my mom if the "super-specialist" even knows how to read a film because the detachment is right there."

I cannot explain the emotions that were flying through the car in that moment. We had just waited 2 months (living with pain) waiting for an appointment to see the "super-specialist". We had just spent a lot of money to see him. We had just been yelled at, and we were told he was the only doctor in the area that could fix this problem and now he is telling us there is no problem. Now what were we supposed to do? We were back on our own to figure out what to do and where to go for treatment.

I Doubt You Injured Your Knee...Wrong!



2006

My knee, my knee, my knee. The nurse thinks I'm confused. She tells me that I had ankle surgery, not knee surgery. I tell her I know that, but right now I have no feeling in my ankle and my knee is killing me. She pushes pain medication into my IV and tries to make me comfortable. As the nerve block wore off on my ankle that day, so did the pain in my knee. The pain in my ankle was excruciating, therefore masking the pain I had in my knee. It was not an easy night in the hospital. As if hurting from the surgery wasn't enough, I had a bad reaction to the general anesthesia making it very hard to breathe. I developed strider. Every breath was short and raspy. My oxygen intake was low. I had on an oxygen mask and it wasn't working. The nurses had to give me a shot of epinephrine which caused my heart rate to go insanely high. It felt like my heart was going to beat right out of my chest. Luckily, the one shot of epinephrine opened up my airway, and I was able to breathe normal again. To this day, I never want another shot of epinephrine.

Before I left the hospital the next day, I told the nursing staff the top of my foot was burning. I was told the dressing was probably wrapped too tight. So before I left, the dressing was loosened. For the next week, I watched a lot of movies, worked on homework and tried to recover. The top of my foot was still burning. As my mom usually does, she takes things into her own hands when she thinks something is not right; so, she called my family doctor. He prescribed me antibiotics just in case I had an infection. Good thing! The next day when I saw the surgeon, he took the dressing off to assess my ankle and to his surprise, the top of my foot was infected. I had cellulitis; a type of bacterial infection on the skin. Luckily we caught it early, and I was only on antibiotics for 7-10 days (I have a scar from that darn infection). For the next 6 weeks, I was on crutches and in a cast.




The reality of everything I have been through the past 5 months sinking in

Come the beginning of April, I was transferred into a walking boot and was allowed to slowly get off of the crutches. I was sick of being on crutches and lugging my backpack around, so I was thrilled to hear this news. I was so happy to be heading in the right direction. Things were finally looking up for me. I was progressing in physical therapy and everyone is confident that fall is a realistic goal to set to return to soccer.  


Attempting to play soccer while on crutches

Life sure did look a lot different for me than your average 16 year old. I basically lived at physical therapy and doctors offices. I couldn't drive because the damage was on my right leg. I relied on my parents tremendously. I learned that even though I was injured and didn't feel well, life still goes on. There are still homework assignments, projects, tests, and quizzes that I am responsible for that need to be done. Being injured and needing surgery is not an excuse to disengage from life. At the end of the day, I am the one who has to be responsible and get my assignments turned in on time. Even from missing a lot of class, my grades got better because I made it my "job" since I wasn't able to hold a regular job. It was extremely hard, but I needed to feel like I had some sense of control in my life. I also needed that sense of control because things didn't look up good for long.

As physical therapy progressed, and we tried putting the crutches to the side to work on weight bearing exercises such as walking, squats, balancing on one leg etc. all of a sudden the knee pain I had when I woke up from surgery returned. I thought to myself, this couldn't possibly be happening. I've had enough of being injured; all I want is to get back to "normal". Since my right knee kept swelling by the end of every pt appointment, my physical therapist advised I go back to my orthopedic and have my knee evaluated. So off to the doctor. Again.

I saw my orthopedic a couple weeks later. My ankle was doing great. Yay! However, when I told him I was having sharp pains in my knee, my doctor didn't think it was at all possible to have injured it. He kept trying to tell me that my knee was hurting probably because of my ankle. I wasn't buying this reason. He then went on to imply, I was saying my knee hurt in order to get pain medication from him. Are you kidding me?!? Pain med seeking?? For one, I had medication leftover from my ankle and two, I feel awful on pain medication. Why in the world would I make something up to get medicine I don't feel good on? It was the farthest thing from the truth. Since I wouldn't drop the issue, and kept being persistent that there was something more going on, he told me to see his associate who specializes in knees and dismissed me from his care.

When I went with my mom to see the knee specialist, he initially didn't think there was a problem. I told him I wasn't able to walk without using at least one crutch. I would swell after any exercise, and something was in the joint causing my knee to lock. He decides to order an MRI. Well, would you imagine that. The results showed there was reason for my symptoms. This means back to the operating room for surgery. My patella (knee cap) was being pulled out to the side because the tissue was too tight so the doctor performed a lateral release. There was also an enlarged plica (swollen tissue) that was getting caught in the joint which caused my knee to lock, so that was removed. Luckily, this surgery wasn't nearly as invasive as my ankle. As one could imagine, when I ran into my ankle doctor at the office after knee surgery, I gave him an uncomfortable stare right into his eyes and he put his head down and walked into a room without even saying a word to me. I think his ego dropped a few points that day because he knows he was wrong. Anyways, I wore a knee immobilizer for 2 week but began physical therapy 3 days after surgery. Physical therapy absolutely sucked that soon after surgery. I worked really hard and was off of crutches by the end of June. Success.

I didn't know it then, but the "impossible" medical journey had begun. As I continued going to PT, I found I couldn't do all of the exercises due to sharp pain in the back of my right hip. It turns out when I landed from that jump back in September, I damaged my right ankle, right knee, and right hip all at once. Since I wasn't allowed to put any weight on my ankle for so long I never knew I injured anything else until physical therapy started. It was now only a matter of time before going to the orthopedic to figure out what was wrong with my hip. Now the real fun was to begin because the injuries that were soon to be discovered were certainly rare and bizarre.

Would Someone PLEASE Fix My Ankle

Sept. 2005

As I watched the nurse jog towards me with the wheelchair, all I could think was thank God. As we rushed to the nurses office I kept my head down so nobody would see me cry. Finally, we arrived in the office and I layed on the bed as the nurse put ice on my ankle. The nurse left to call my mom and all I could think in that moment was why in the world did I jump to catch that football. It was automatic regret. The nurse came back and told me my mom was on her way. She told her that I sprained my ankle, that an ambulance was called and continued to tell me how my mom didn't think it was necessary; she would drive me to the hospital. I chuckled to myself because I knew there was no way she would get me to the hospital in her car. A few minutes later, I heard my mom. She took one look at me and said an ambulance was a better option.

As the paramedics got me all buckled up on the cot and wheeled me to the ambulance, they gave me a shot of morphine to help with the pain. It did nothing. In the ambulance, as more pain medicine was being injected into my IV, the 2 paramedics started taking bets. They thought for sure I broke my ankle. Surprise! After I was wheeled into the hospital and had an x-ray, it showed there were no broken bones. The ER physician wrapped my foot up and gave me something that would change my life forever. Crutches. Little did I know, I would end up on them for the next 9 months straight.

The next day I saw an orthopedic who said I would be back on the soccer field in 6 weeks. I then had an MRI done which showed there were no tears, just a lot of swelling. I was placed in a walking boot, began physical therapy the following week, and used crutches as needed. For the next 2 months I went to physical therapy 3 times a week and was stuck using crutches because I could not put any weight on my heel without having terrible pain. The rubber on the front sole of the boot was starting to wear off from "walking" on my toes. At the next follow-up appointment with my doctor, he told me he didn't know what was wrong with my ankle. Then with a voice like a magician ready to pull a rabbit out of his hat, he says to me, "I wish I had a magic wand to wave to fix you". Good grief, I didn't need drama. I needed someone to fix my ankle. His solution was to dismiss me from his care without any suggestions of what to do next.

During this time I was attending school and watching soccer from the sidelines. I was so lost because the sport I loved and played several times a week was taken away from me. I also lost my social support since most of my friends were involved in athletics and I could no longer play. It was a very hard time. I felt like I had no control over what was happening to me. My mom had finished treatments for her breast cancer the year prior, and told me, "Sometimes we can't control what happens to our bodies, so take control of the things you can". From that day forward, I made that my mantra. I threw myself into my academics, learned to cook, and took charge of my own health and began researching ankle injuries.

In the meantime, what am I supposed to do now? I've been dismissed from my doctor without being given any sense of direction. My parents called that doctors office everyday for the next week until they finally ended up calling the physical therapist I was seeing to see if he would talk to my doctor. A few days later we got a referral to go see a specialist. When my parents called to make an appointment with the specialist, they were told he didn't have any appointments for 3 months. Waiting that amount of time was not an option. We were told his associate had an opening in about a week at the end of November so we took it.

On the initial appointment I was given a script to get an ultrasound done of my ankle. The ultrasound showed that 2 of my ligaments were torn. When I returned back to the doctor he put me in a cast for 4 weeks. At the end of December when I saw the doctor again, he took the cast off. I was still having a ton of pain in the outer part of my ankle. Since there was so much pain, the doctor wants me to go see a neurologist. I was so mad. It was an ankle injury. I knew it wasn't a nerve issue. Regardless of what I thought, I had to see the neurologist in order to move forward. It was just another hurdle put in my path. When I saw the neurologist in the beginning of January, he thought I might have RSD. RSD is a type of nerve disorder. Since I had some of the symptoms that correlated with RSD such as: swelling & stiffness in the affected joint, "burning" pain and the inability to move the affected joint the doctor suggested this diagnosis. Well, this diagnosis landed me back in a cast once again for 3 weeks. At this point I have been on crutches for 3 months straight. I hobbled everyday to my classes all the while carrying my backpack with all my books because I didn't have time to go to my locker. When the cast came off again, I still had the same amount of pain so the Dr. sent me for a stat MRI.

The MRI this time showed much more damage than the first. Two of my ligaments were completely torn, there was debris in the joint space and I had longitudinal tears in my peroneal tendons. Even with the results in his hand, the Dr still thinks I have RSD so he sends me to one of his neurologists to confirm. I saw the second neurologist and was told I do not have RSD. The orthopedic called my mom with results. He said, "Even though RSD has been ruled out, I just have a "feeling" that she has RSD". My mom "respectfully" said, "Dr. your neurologist ruled it out and quite frankly your "feeling" doesn't mean anything". The doctor then suggested we go to a pain clinic. Thank God we went there. The pain doctors looked at my MRI report and told me, "Of course you hurt because there are torn tendons and ligaments". They asked if I would be willing to see one more doctor. I agreed and they immediately called another orthopedic surgeon. I had ankle reconstruction surgery one week later. During the surgery my surgeon first used an arthroscope to look in the joint and found I had a lot of debris. He then made a bigger incision on the outside of my ankle and found I had multiple longitudinal tears to my peroneal brevis tendon. My peroneal tendons were also subluxating out of the groove so my surgeon deepend the groove, and he also secured my peroneal retinaculum via drill holes to give more stability to those tendons. He also used 2 anchors to reattach my anterior talofibular and calcaneofibular ligaments. It was a very painful surgery and explained why I was never able to get off of the crutches.

It took 5 months from the time of injury to get a diagnosis and have surgery. It was so eye-opening to find out that just because I was a 16 year old girl, doctors repeatedly thought I was being over dramatic, even with my parents assuring them that this was not my personality. When I found out I needed surgery I would have jumped for joy if I could have.  I was so relieved to find out that my ankle could be fixed. Surgery was at the end of February 2006. I knew I wouldn't be able to play soccer in the spring and I started mentally planning out how I was going to get back in shape in time for soccer in the fall. To my surprise however, when I woke up from my ankle surgery, my ankle was numb from a nerve block and all I kept saying to my nurse was I am having terrible knee pain. Surprise, the extent of injury from that fall was yet to be discovered...

The Jump That Changed My Life

2005

As far as I was concerned, Wednesday, September 21, 2005 was going to be just another ordinary day of being a junior in high school and having soccer practice right after. Boy was I wrong! Little did I know, this is the day my life would change forever. It is the day that would be marked in my calendar like a birthday, but rather than a celebration it represents how many years I've been injured. It is the day that shattered my dreams of wanting to go to college on a soccer scholarship. More than anything though, it is the day that marked the beginning of what has now turned into an over 7 year long medical journey of having to travel to 5 different states, and endure 22 surgeries all in the quest of trying to get back to "normal".

Leading up to Sept. 21st, there was a lot of activity. Homecoming had just ended 4 days prior on Saturday. I ran what would be my last 5k to raise money for prostate cancer on Sunday. I had the last soccer practice that I would ever participate in on Monday. Then for the upcoming weekend, I had a soccer tournament in Champaign, IL; I had my driving permit, so I was looking forward to getting to drive there with my parents. So like most 16 year olds, come Wednesday, I was looking forward to the weekend.

Up until last period when I had gym class, I don't remember much of what happened earlier that day of school. In the women's locker room, I remember telling one of my teammates from soccer, that I was really looking forward to soccer practice. I don't know why, but I just had this urge to play soccer so bad. In gym class we were doing football. It was a hot, beautiful, sunny day, so my teacher told our class to head outside to the schools' new turf stadium field and to begin playing flag football.  Being the competitive person that I am, as usual, I was getting really annoyed with the guys in my class because it was very rare that they would throw the football to any of the girls. I remember I was just kind of standing in the middle of the field when the teachers' yelled out 5 minutes left of class. A few minutes later, there was one final throw of the football down the field. I stood there and looked up at the ball as it spiraled through the air. As I watched it come closer to me, I remember standing there thinking, "There is absolutely no way that I will catch that ball because it is way to high. In a split second, the competitive side of me kicked in and I thought what the heck, it's possible. If you catch the ball it will be a great catch and if you miss it then it's no big deal". So, I jumped up as hard as I could and outstretched my arms way up into the air. I watched as the ball went past my fingertips. I twisted my body to the right while I was in the air to see if the ball had been caught. All of a sudden there was this realization that gravity was bringing me back down. I felt so off balanced. Panicked, I twisted my torso to the left so see if anyone was next to me to grab onto. There wasn't. It was too late. All of a sudden, crash. I heard two audible pops come from my right ankle and I felt this surge of pain run through the outside of my ankle. At that, I hear my teacher blow his whistle to indicate class was over in the background. There I sat on the ground with the hot September sun beating on me unable to speak from the shock. I was all sweaty, tears running down my cheeks, knuckles white from gripping the new green turf as hard as I could hoping somebody would realize I am hurt on the ground.

As I sat on the ground watching my ankle get bigger and bigger, a few classmates gathered around me. One of those classmates was also my teammate. She tried to untie my gym shoe. I remember kind of yelling at her not to because the shoe would help control the swelling that was happening. I told her to get the teacher and to tell our coach I wouldn't be at practice. My teacher came. He and another classmate helped me up. My teammate ran to the nurses office to get a wheelchair. Instead of waiting for the wheelchair, I got up and told my teacher and classmate to help me across the field. With one of my arms wrapped around each of their shoulders, I started hopping. The pain was awful. Blood was rushing into my ankle and I wanted to scream. My teacher tried carrying me and I yelled at him to put me down because my ankle was bouncing up and down. After what seemed like forever, I got across the field and as I looked up I could see the nurse jogging towards me with the wheelchair.

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