| Down and Out - ACL Tear | |
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Cheerleading
injury story submitted By Jenn Note: This story is for informational purposes only. If you're injured, you should follow your health care professional's advice. |
ACL Tear
by Jenn
Last September, on the second day of school to be exact, I was demonstrating a toe touch for the freshman who were about to try out, and I landed way wrong-wrong enough where I tore my ACL. I just read the information on knee injuries from the last newsletter and the treatment it tells for the ACL tear doesn't seem too accurate to me.
When I first went to the doctor, he thought I severely sprained my knee. I stayed off of it and did the ice thing like he said, like the article said would work for an ACL tear. After I was released from him, an entire month later, it still wasn't better. I couldn't even do kicks let alone jumps or stunts.
My mom took me to an orthopedic surgeon to find out just what was the problem. He played around with my leg and pretty much knew right away, but he sent me to get an MRI done just to be sure. When the results were back, it said my ACL was torn, not totally, just partially. Therefore, I didn't need an ACL from a dead person put in, but he did need to reconstruct it with part of my patella tendon. I also had 2 tears in my meniscus. He recommended surgery, because if I didn't have it, he said most likely I would be done Cheerleading for the rest of high school ( I was a junior when this happened) and would have arthritis at an early age.
I opted to have the surgery. By the time the operation came, 2 months later, my meniscus had healed itself. The surgery was a success. I went through 3 months of physical therapy, 3 times a week. Now, I am released from everything. I am back in gymnastics and made Varsity this year for my school.
My knee does hurt when I really push it, but it will take up to a year for everything to heal 100%. For anyone in high school who has torn their ACL and isn't going to have the surgery, I strongly suggest to reconsider. With a torn ACL, you can't do anything you used to right away...not for a looonngg time. You don't want to give up what you love in high school, trust me. Plus, with the injury, you can always make it worse and get arthritis early.
The surgery and the physical therapy are a small "price to pay" for the long run of being normal again. It's really not that bad. I know many people, including adults, who had the surgery and they would have it no other way. I also know a few people who didn't and they have nothing but problems. My neighbor put off the surgery for 20 some years, and by the time he had it, he had no ACL left and a lot of problems with his knee, giving out and such. I think that having the ACL surgery to repair it is the best thing you can do for the tear and the article was very wrong in saying you'll have the same results if you don't have it done.
*Note: This story is for informational purposes only. If you're injured, you should follow your health care professional's advice. Special thanks to Jenn for submitting this story.
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