When my mom picked me up from practice I told her what had happened we decided that I needed to go see a doctor but since it was Saturday we had to go to the emergency room. Once the doctor finally saw us he just gave me some anti-inflammatory medication and a straight leg brace and told me to take it easy for a while. This defiantly pleased me very much, I would just have to be out for a week or so and then life would be dandy again…little did I know that this would haunt me for the next three years or more!  A few days later after sitting watching practice and tossing balls the swelling still hadn't gone away so my mom and I went to see my pediatrician.  She looked at my knee and played around with it for a while and then concluded that I had a torn meniscus and could return to play as long as I did some physical therapy and the pain wasn't too bad. I was so excited about this. I did about a week of physical therapy with the Athletic Trainer at my high school and was back out on the court the next weekend!

Saturdays practice was going great; we were scrimmaging the 18’s team in a little tournament when the next bad thing happened. Their middle hit the ball just out of my reach so I dive for it.  As soon as I panicked it and popped it off the floor I felt a huge pop in the back of my knee and massive pain. I cried for a minute and then got myself off the ground and onto a bench. We got some ice but we all knew there was no stopping it…it was already huge.  Rather than going to the ER again we waited until Monday and got me an appointment with the best orthopedic surgeon in Colorado.  The weekend went fine, it didn't hurt at all it was just really swollen, then came the moment of truth, finding out what had happened.  Dr. McElhinney came in and did his own special tests, sent me for an x-ray, came back did more of the same special tests and then he told me, “Megan you have torn your anterior cruciate ligament.” I didn't’t know what an anterior cruciate ligament was but I knew of people tearing their ACL and those two seemed awful close in their lettering. Even though I pretty much knew what that meant I asked anyway. It was just as I expected, a torn anterior cruciate ligament and an ACL were the same thing…and I knew what that meant, surgery! I was devastated, this meant no more playing for the rest of this season; I would have to watch my amazing team play without me. While I tried to choke back tears he nicely told me about the surgery and what he would do and how long I would be out for. We set the date of the surgery for February 11, 2003, about three weeks later. The next day I had to go to practice to tell my coach and team that I would not be joining them for the rest of the season. I also had to tell my high school coach that I will not be able to play until the first day of tryouts, which just so happened to land exactly 6 months from the day of my surgery. For the next three weeks I went to practices and helped coach wishing the whole time that I could be playing with them.

Then finally the day of my surgery came! I made sure to get there nice and early on that Tuesday morning, we filled out tons of paper work, they asked at least 10 times which leg it was just to be sure they didn't mess up, and then they kicked my mom out and prepared my knee. Once back in the surgery room they finally gave me the anesthetic. The next thing I knew I was in massive pain, crying for no reason and itchy all over! Defiantly the most interesting feeling I have every felt. They gave me more medication and I slept for a while. When I finally woke back up they moved me into another room and sat me up in a chair. People came a left visiting me and bringing me flowers. I eventually went home and the next few days were kind of groggy, I slept most of the time and did homework the rest. That next weekend my team had a tournament only two hours away and I wanted to go support my team. My mom set up a little area for me and my leg in the back seat and we drove up to Greeley to see my team play. This was one of the hardest things I have done, I had to sit and watch my team playing, winning, and having fun without me. After that I cried the whole way home upset that I would not be able to join them. Eventually watching their games got easier, my knee became healthier, and I was able to do more productive things. The summer went fine, high school tryouts were good and I was finally playing again. Life was pretty good, the only thing was that I had to wear a huge knee brace while I played, but that seemed to slip my mind as long as I was playing volleyball again.

The next year went by fast with no more injuries I could concentrate on playing; I finished high school season and finally started playing with my club team again. All was good until the summer came. My knee started to hurt again, but not in the same place as before, this was in the front just under my scar. I just ignored it for a while, then I started to be able to feel a little bump coming out of my bone. I went back to my doctor again and he told me that the pin he had put in to secure my new ACL was starting to work its way out of the bone. He said not to be worried he could easily take it out whenever I wanted or whenever the pain became too much. I opted to wait to have it out because I was in the process of training for my senior season. I had lots of pain throughout the season but it was worth it; we had a blast and won a lot.  Then in the winter after our season was over I went in and had my pins taken out. This surgery was not bad at all I was up again in a matter of days. Even though everything was going pretty well with my knee I decided to take the winter off of club volleyball to give myself some time to heal up; I was going to need to be as healthy as I could be if I was going to play volleyball in college.

The winter went fine, I played on an adult team to keep my skills up, and in the summer I played in a coed adult fours grass league and did the workouts that my college coach had sent to me. Every thing seemed to be going fine until I started to feel that pain again, the same pain I had felt when I tore my ACL the first time…not good! I ignored it for a while and only did the workouts I could do with out pain, which was not much. By the time I finally got to New York for school and volleyball tryouts the pain in my knee was too much to handle so my coach sent me to the Athletic Trainers. For a while no one knew what was wrong with my knee, none of the special tests were positive. They eventually decided to do an MRI, when the MRI came back it was settled, I had torn my ACL…again…on the same knee.  This was absolutely devastating, once again I was going to have to spend my time doing rehabilitation and watching my team play, win and have fun without me. In October I went home, had my surgery and returned to do rehab and work on being able to play volleyball again. Currently I am still doing rehab, getting stronger every day and hopefully getting my self ready for next season.