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TORE MY ACL - How the injury happened + the diagnosis
April 31 2003 - I was playing soccer in my co-ed rec league. My league is pretty much just for fun - I wasn't playing that hard. I've played competitive soccer (both indoor and outdoor) for the last 15 years of my life in high school and in other leagues. At one point, I was playing almost 6 days a week. Playing in a recreational league should a piece of cake right?
Well, I was just jogging down the field like I had 1000s of times before. My team had just won control of the ball, so I stopped to turn and run back up the field. As I planted my leg, i heard a small popping noise in my knee and I fell straight to the ground. I didn't quite understand why I fell - maybe the ground was uneven or I just stepped funny. I immediately tried to get back up again, but discovered that I could not. I hopped off the field with the help of a teammate, After resting for 30 minutes, I was helped to my car and drove home on my own.
I was able to limp around for a week and my knee steadily got better. I thought that the typical regiment of rest, ice, compression, and elevation would have me back to normal in no time. But after a few weeks, it never fully healed, and I still could not run, jump, or even stand for long periods of time.
I went to the doctor and he did some tests that involved feeling my knee, twisting it, and having me bend my knee. The doctor was pretty confident just by these simple tests that I had a torn ACL. I couldn't believe it. I thought I was so healthy... why me?
When I went to get an MRI the week after, I was in disbelief and was irritated - convinced that the doctor was wrong. By that time though, it had been 3 weeks and I was still limping - so I slowly started to accept the possibly that I a torn ACL. By the 4th week - I still wasn't better and I got the results of my MRI. It was confirmed and I reluctantly accepted it. MRIs don't lie. I just couldn't believe that a little pop in my knee that didn't hurt that much resulted in a broken torn ACL.
It is amazing how many people have injured their ACL. I didn't know just how many people until it happened to me. In my short time in Austin (1 year at the time of this writing) , I have met at least 10 people that have had ACL surgery. I have also heard countless friends outside of Austin saying that many of their friends had torn their ACLs too. I think it is probably one of the most common sports injuries.
Because I did have insurance that would pay for the entire surgery at the time, and because I wanted to continue to live an active lifestyle, I decided to opt for surgery. I was worried about a difficult recovery and scarring, so I was glad when my doctor said he would do an arthoscopic procedure, that was much less invasive than the old method where they had to cut the knee open. Also, I opted for an allograft (donor tissue) over synthetics and harvesting my own tendon because synthetics have some structural integrity issues that I heard about, and an allograft would negate the risk of a slower recovery and more scarring. Looking back, an allograft might not have been the best choice because I've heard reports about poor testing and shady sourcing of donor tissues on the black market.
Also in retrospect, I think that I should have stretched more before I decided to play the day I hurt myself, especially since it was very cold. I was late that day and didn't get to warm up or stretch for very long. My tendons and ligaments were probably a bit stiff when I hurt myself. I was also wearing brand new cleats that were a lot grippier than usual so that probably contributed to the twisting of my knee.
Coming soon: stories about my surgery and recovery...
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