My Comeback Story: Hannah L.

I played my first soccer game in years, indoors on turf, and was about 20lbs overweight, and jumped up for a ball, then landed on one leg and heard a pop and fell, lots of pain. I sat on the couch for 3 days, and when it didn't get better, I went in. At Shoreline Orthopaedics, they did X-rays and had to refer me to get an MRI. When I got the results, my ACL was torn. They referred me to physical therapy because I had to get my knee to bend more before surgery. I got scheduled for surgery with Dr. Bruce Stewart, and he was great and very informative. I told him I'd torn my quad before, so he said 'let's not use the quadriceps tendon then' but if I hadn't told him that, he wouldn't have asked. So I elected to use the hamstrings tendon after asking opinions from many people I know. Surgery day went well, very painful afterward, but they gave me medicine which helped. I think they did a GREAT job and am very grateful. I did PT after, but I didn't do the full 'get back to athletics' portion until like 2 years later, so I'd recommend doing that even though it's hard and a lot of work. My hamstring, where they took the tendon, still isn't as strong. I'm still working on being able to kneel all the way again and kick the ball as hard as I used to be able to, but it's getting there. One very important thing I worked on in PT is landing without letting my knees cave in, and glute strengthening as well. I wish I had done that before, as a prevention!! The kneeling thing from people I've talked to who've had this surgery is normal. Now I'm actually a lot better at soccer than I was before, after doing PT and practicing! People are telling me I'm really good. I've been playing hockey, too. My knee used to get really stiff after hockey for the first couple of years. I waited the entire 9 months they recommended before fully doing sports again because I didn't wanna retear it, and I haven't had any problems with that. So I'm very happy and extremely grateful to everyone. I'm about 3.5 years post-surgery. I think they did a great job.