Personal Narrative: Subchondroplasty

The doctor walked in. I quickly ask him, “What is wrong with my knee?” He replied, “Well it is not the worst thing that could have happened, but you did tear your meniscus.” This did not come as much of a surprise because I have had people telling me for the past two weeks that something probably had torn, most likely was my meniscus.

My mom scheduled for it to be in 2 weeks. the day comes and i am nervous, i don't know why because i know what they do, i just was. They put my IV in and put medicine in my system to make me loopy. They wheel me back to the operating room, lay me on a table and put a mask on me. the anaistgyolygest say “ count down from 10 buddy” i say “10, 9, 8-” i am out cold. about 13 hours past, its 8 o'clock, the thing i remember most is how my throat was drier than the dessert. my nurse asks “how you feel buddy?” i reply “it hurts” she told me she would take care of that, i'm not being facetious when i say this, but she turns me on my side and puts a shot in my butt. i rest for another hour then they wheel me out to the car and take me home. getting upstairs was the hardest part,

My neurosurgeon, husband, daughter, and I agreed to a plan. On February 18, he will be removing the right side of my hardware from my skull down to C-2/3 where he will saw the rod in half and leave the rest of my fusion. The right side of my fusion has failed. While removing the fusion, he will be taking four screws out of my brain and one out of my neck. My fusion was placed nine years and two months ago; therefore, it has been in my body for a long time. He is leaving in the left side of my fusion, which is from my skull to C-5 because my neck is not stable enough without it. After he removes the titanium hardware, he will be taking a cadaver bone as well as removing bone marrow from my hip to rebuild my skull. He has to cut down the

Post-surgery was the most difficult part of this journey because it put me in a depressed state. The inability of playing sports and watching my teammates play

I was practicing at my competitive cheerleading gym, when my life was unexpectedly turned upside down. While performing a back walkover back handspring, there was a loud “pop” as I hyperextended my right elbow, tearing both my muscle and my ulnar collateral ligament. I promptly sunk to my knees and began sobbing. The next thing I knew, I was laboriously working through physical therapy at NASA Bone & Joint Specialist instead of relaxing at the beach. This unexpected injury would manifest to be a significant

When I first started playing basketball my seventh grade year, I was playing power forward for the entire year. The team had a tournament one weekend against multiple different schools. In one of the games the team played Ottawa. Our point guard tried shooting a three-pointer and she missed. I jumped to get the rebound, and a girl from the opposing team hit me out of the air and I ended up having my ankle stepped on, causing it to break. This took me out for the rest of the tournament and the rest of the season. I was on crutches for two weeks and then I was put in a boot for a couple more weeks.

I have had a pretty painless life, compared to most people. The only struggles I have had up to this point have been difficult tests, or getting cut from a team. This summer, however I experienced the most humbling moment of my life. One night in the second week of summer, I was at my friend’s house playing an intense game of pickup basketball.  The second game of the night began, I checked the ball in not knowing that my life would change for the next 8 months. As I sprinted toward the hoop I felt something that I had never once felt before.

Just to share some things with you I dislocated my knee three times and I was thinking I will be able

It all started two summers ago when my softball team and I were playing in the championship game. I had already pitched four games that day and my body was aching. My knee caps had been popping in and out of place that day and they were being held in place by medical tape. I started to throw another pitch and then I felt it. My knees collapsed and I fell to the ground in excruciating pain. I knew at that moment that my career as an athlete was over.

First I explained my knee dislocation and operation. Then, in return, she told me about her brain tumor and numerous operations. Her storytelling skills were spontaneous. Although I expected her to be pitiful of her condition, her tone was lovely and she embraced her condition fully. I admired her for her bravery and the beauty of innocence within her character. When my therapist began to approach me, she surprised me with good news. I had, finally, received clearance to walk without crutches. Immediately, I began to walk, but within my first few steps, I began to cry. I was overwhelmed with joy that although my knee still had a torn ligament, I was satisfied with the performance it was doing. After completing a set of balancing exercises, I saw my new friend. She waved at me and in seconds, I felt guilty and embarrassed. Unlike my new friend, who embraced her special qualities, I hated mine. However, I realized that my depression and self-hate were unnecessary and immature. I admitted to myself that I had become desperate for an opportunity to escape my reality. That I wanted to deny the reality of my injury, and live in an imaginary

Spring of my junior year in high school, I joined track with wishful thinking. I’m going to do track, run sprints, and get into great shape for summer. However, with my luck it didn’t work out how I wanted. A week into the track season, I went to our school’s field to play a pick-up game of soccer. In the process of going to the field, I had to climb over a fence. Simple? I really should of thought this through, but didn’t. As I jumped over and landed, a loud pop sound came from my knee loud enough for my friends to hear. I sat there crying in front of my friends for a minute or two, but got up trying to walk it off. As you can see no is not an option for me, as I tried play a soccer game with a swollen knee cap. I was confused what happened, I didn’t know exactly happened. But sharp pains were shooting through my leg as I limped around the field. Little did I know a swollen and bruised knee meant torn ligaments.

I began to get serious playing time my sophomore year and we were having a phenomenal year (we won state in fact). As we moved through our season, the last regular season game came along. In the fourth quarter of the very last game we were beating a district rival with 10 minutes left to play. We had just scored and we kicked off to them. He was running down the side like and as i stopped to make the tackle.i blew out my left knee on a kick off. When i tell you its hard to beat a pain like that i’ve broken every bone you can think of, I've been stabbed,

It was April 2010 and I was playing in the South Atlantic Conference Basketball Championship. I left the ground for a layup and when I came back down, I was in excruciating pain. I couldn’t walk for a few days and when I went to my doctor, he told me my knee was sprained. I spent months reading a plethora of articles online. I nagged my parents for months to take me to a different doctor. They finally

Dr. Nelson began to operate on me immediately. It felt like ages had passed before he finished putting in all seventeen stitches. He wrapped my foot up and got me on my first ever pair of crutches. I hopped around a little, trying to grow accustomed to this new life I would now be

As I sat there and let the doctor examine my knee and diagnosis me with a “left knee sprain”. I started to cry. I already knew the outcome that I had a torn ACL (anterior cruciate ligament). I tried to continue to play on it until one time I was playing in a tournament, and I went up to block a girls shot and landed on my