W.A. 1 personal editing

One very emotional experience that I had in my life was having surgery on my knee. My life was going just great up until that one soccer game, when my knee popped; i knew it was all over. There was so much confusion in the decision making of my surgery, and the actually surgery was absolutely terrifying to me, and the aftermath of my surgery was very tough for me to handle.

I tore my ACL, in late October of 2006. I had to go to the hospital to check it out, and of course they gave me x-rays. Nothing was wrong, so they finally told me that I had to go get an MRI. the MRI sounded so scary! They stressed that i wasn't aloud to move at all, or they would make me lay there for an extra hour! My surgeon that was recommended to me worked with Martha Jefferson. He told me, when I went to go see him, that I wasn’t done growing and that if we did the surgery, my legs would eventually grow to be uneven. Due to this set back, I waited two or three months. I had to go to a physical therapist to strengthen my legs so they would be ready for when i had surgery. During this waiting period, my parents found out about a more advanced surgeon at UVA’s hospital. He told me that there was a surgery they could do on my knee that would allow my legs to keep growing without becoming uneven. Another setback, that really took a toll on me, was that I was not aloud to play any sports or even run until i had this surgery and my knee was completely fixed.

I was so afraid, going into my surgery. It was scheduled for January 26^th of 2007. There was so much anticipation and nervousness that was building up inside of me. I felt like I was going to burst. Surgery is a huge thing for me, because I can barely handle getting a simple shot at the doctors’ office. How was I supposed to handle something as big as this? It was about six fifteen in the morning, and one of the nurses came up to me and said the doctor was ready for me. I walked back and just the vibe of being in a surgery facility brought chills down my spine. It had finally sunken in: I was actually about to have surgery! She told me that a huge needle had to be inserted at the top of my leg, to numb my whole entire leg. She proceeded to explain, that the shot was going to be very painful and that they really needed me to be awake during it. At this point, I was in tears. I absolutely hate shots. After much discussion between the doctors, the anesthesiologist came in, and told me that they could do it after I had been put to sleep, but that I may feel numbness after my surgery. I was perfectly okay with that. About ten minutes later, they walked me down to the surgery room. They told me to lie down. They put the anesthetics into my IV, and told me to count backwards from ten to one. That was the very last thing I remembered before falling asleep.

The surgery took about two hours. I finally started to wake up, but it was so hard to open my eyes. I felt like they were glued shut. I think I may have even fallen back asleep. I got home, and was walking on crutches, but barely. I spent most of my first three days post surgery, in bed. I started going to physical therapy about three times a week for a month or two. He even had me off of my crutches a week after my surgery. I could not play sports, or do any running, for six months though. It finally became end of May/beginning of June, and Mr. Rogol, the athletic instructor at our school, gave me an agility test to see if I was capable to start playing contact sports again. I was! I was ecstatic, because before my surgery sports were my life. I loved them so much. I ended up going about nine or so months without playing anything. As you could imagine this was probably one of the hardest things i have ever had to do.

As you can see, having this surgery was a very tough experience for me to go through. My favorite part about this whole experience, was that my friend Katie Werner gave me a banner that really meant a lot to me. It made me laugh when the times were hard, and unbearable for me to handle. The one thing I can remember, and that I will take out from this experience, is just to live your life as full as you can, because you never know what might happen that can set you back a few paces.