Hospital Stay

Oddly enough, staying in the hospital was very enjoyable for me.   The nurses waited on me hand and foot and the bed was extremely comfortable.  The food was pretty good when I got to eat.  I only had a bite of anything that was not a fruit cup because my pain medicine that went through my IV would make me nauseous. The IV system was really what caused my mother and me the most problems.  If I was reading this blog before I had ACL surgery, I would want someone to be honest with me, so I am not going to leave out the bad stuff.
After surgery, I was taken to a post-op room until the hospital has an available room for me.  I wrote earlier about what happened when I first woke up.  The second time I woke up, I thought my ankle was broken.  I had no pain in my knee, surprisingly, but my ankle was a whole other story.  It felt on fire.  They had to give me extra numbing medicine, which still two days after surgery hasn't completely worn off.  The nurse thinks that I had such bad ankle pain because during my surgery, the doctors had to manipulate my foot into odd positions during the surgery.
Once I got into my room after surgery, of course I had to pee.  My nurse (another one of my favorite people) told me I could either use a bed pan or crutches.  There was no way in heck that I was going to use a bed pan.  I mean those things are for old people. I'm only fifteen! Anyway, getting out of the bed for the first time was flat out hard.  My physical therapist did a good job with causing me the least amount of pain, but there was only so much she could do.  Walking on crutches did not hurt, but sitting down, standing up and moving my knee even the littlest bit felt like wildfire. 
Unfortunately for my mom (someone had to help me get out of bed), the IV made me have to pee every hour! I felt so bad for her. She was already sleeping in a chair and then she litterally had to get up every sixty minutes to help me get out of bed.  My whole night and day just went in this cycle: use all my energy walking to the bathroom, take an hour nap, and repeat.  On the bright side, later on into the night, I was able to lift my leg into and out of the bed all by myself.  This seams really simple but it was a HUGE deal for me!  I was tired of feeling so helpless!

Surgery 7/15/13

Yesterday morning at 4:20 a.m., I got out of bed with the fear that I would not wake up after my ACL and meniscus surgery.  I was scared up until I was given an IV which my nurse told me would make him look like Johnny Depp.   Before I was given the IV, my preacher, my parents, and I all bowed our heads and prayed to God asking him for my safety during surgery and a speedy recovery.  This was probably about the ninth time I had prayed in the last five hours (I did not sleep the night before), but I am so glad I kept praying.
Once I awakened after surgery, I tried to remember what had happened before I had been put to sleep.  However, all I could recall was telling the doctor "This isn't how it looks on Grey's Anatomy!" After I collected my thoughts and realized that I had in fact woken up from surgery, I asked the nurse how it went.  You can only imagine how extremely excited I was when the nurse (who was my favorite person in the world at that moment), told me that my meniscus was not torn when they took a closer look! That basically means that my rehabilitation can go much smoother than we originally anticipated! I honestly don't think that I had ever felt as blessed as I had that very moment.

I just thought I should share with everyone what I wrote on my leg before surgery! Unfortunately, my doctor did not find it as funny as all my friends did! I really did not want them to cut into my good leg too!

How It Happened

I am one of those players who never gets hurt. The worst injury I have ever had was a sprained ankle. I never really thought I would ever get hurt because I had gone so long without a broken bone or any serious accidents. Because I had this mind set, I might have been a little blind to realizing that I had torn my ACL. When it happened, my high school team and I were at the Southeastern  Louisiana University Team Camp. As a whole, our team had played around eleven games in two days. Unfortunately, the competition at the camp did not even come close to competing with our team, with the exception of the last team we played. I was excited for that game. We were finally getting to play a really good team  - they have a girl who is being recruited by Stanford. We hung with them for a little bit too! Anyway, we were within the first two or three minutes of the game when I went for a steal and jump stopped. I am not too sure how it happened, but I think one of the opposing teams players hit my leg or my knee just kept going when I stopped. I fell to the ground, not necessarily because of how much pain I was in, but more because of how scared I was.  I had never had knee problems before. After I walked off the court (without any tears I might add), I sat on the bench then tried to go back in the game. Unfortunately, my knee didn't agree with that idea. Our football coach then took me to the trainer, who told me I had an LCL sprain. He was way off, but it's really hard to tell without an MRI. I rehabbed my "LCL sprain" for two weeks. After those weeks were up, I went with my AAU team to play in Dallas. The first play of the first game, I went to cut and my knee made an awful crunching sound. After hobbling off the court, I went back in during the next time out. I played for a couple of minutes and did some positive things. Next thing I know, my knee has buckled and I've fallen on the floor. After that, my dad and I went to visit the trainer. He told us I could have possibly torn my ACL even though I had no swelling around that area. That was the first time I really realized that this could be happening.