Unique Problem Essay, Research Paper

Three years ago, I sustained a serious knee injury to my right knee. I was playing with a couple of my friends at my school during open gym. When I planted my foot for a cut to the basket, I was pushed from behind causing my body to turn. As my body turned my foot stayed firmly planted to the floor. Because my foot did not turn this caused my knee to become dislocated turning the bottom half of my leg to be one hundred and eighty degrees backwards. Feeling and hearing the popping and ripping I immediately knew that something terrible had happened. I looked down at my leg seeing my toes pointing the opposite way and my calf where my shin should be. It was horrible. Feeling the pain and hearing almost made me vomit. I began to yell “Oh S#*T!” repeatedly as I slide myself off the court using just my arms. The pain was very intense causing a feeling of pins and needles piercing me up and down my leg. The coach who was there came over to calm me down and sent one of my friends to call an ambulance and my parents. When the ambulance arrived they put my leg in an immobilizer and drove to the hospital where my parents were waiting for my arrival. When I got there they popped it back into place and took x-rays but it showed nothing was broken. The next day I went to a knee specialist. He said there was a lot of damage and I would need a MRI and then surgery. The MRI showed that I had completely or partially torn every ligament, tendon, and carteledge in my knee. It also showed that my kneecap had been cracked as well. The next thing was to do was have arthroscopic knee surgery to fix the damaged parts of my knee.

After that I was informed that they were unable to fix my ACL, which supports the knee when side to side movements are made. The only way to fix it would be having a reconstructive surgery done. My doctor also said that he did not want to perform the other surgery unless it was absolutely necessary. He said that I should do intense physical therapy to strengthen my leg. This would help compensate for my lost ACL. So for six months I worked hard and built my leg up so I could play baseball my senior year. With the help of a knee brace, I was able to successfully play and complete the season with no knee complications. After my first year of college, my knee was starting giving me problems. It started to pop out a lot and giving out when I made side to side movements. Lately it has been swelling up if I do a lot of walking or playing any kind of sports. This causes me a lot of pain. So recently, I went to the doctor to see what could be done. He informed me that I would need the reconstructive surgery to repair my knee. We then set a date at the end of the summer to have it done. In this surgery they will replace all of the ligaments in my knee and insert a plastic kneecap. Afterwards I will have the physical therapy, but for a longer period of time. I am not looking forward to this whole process, but it needs to be done. I just want my knee to be fixed so I can be active and not have anymore problems with it. I am looking forward to that.