Right Knee ACL Tear: 10 Years After

Just in time for the opening of this year’s UAAP football season, Facebook reminds me of old photos I’ve shared of my football playing years.  It also occurred to me that it has been 10 years since I got my first major sports injury.  If any of the current UAAP players happen to be reading this, I hope you have a healthy, successful season.  Play hard, give your best during each game and have fun!  We all know playing sports come with its share of risks, and hopefully this post reassures you that no matter what happens, everything is going to be okay, eventually.

I remember bits and pieces of February 5, 2006.  It was a Sunday, and we were doing the second round of games for my second UAAP football season with the University of the Philippines Fighting Maroons.  We were playing against UST at the dusty upper field in Ateneo, I tried to win the ball but I ended up getting collided into from behind by an opponent, and then falling to the ground.  I heard a loud crunch from my knee, my right shoulder was also hurting and I could not get up.

I was carried off on a stretcher and was kept there for the duration of the game.  I think the game ended with a draw, I can’t recall right now.  My knee swelled up, but luckily my family was there to watch the game and to bring me to the hospital.  I get x-rayed at the hospital near my house, and they find nothing broken.  I might have gone to school the next day and saw another doctor, who ordered an MRI and did the drawer test.

I find out about the confirmed ACL over dinner one night, then I consulted with another surgeon, who eventually reconstructs my torn ACL a couple weeks after.

Back then it was the worst thing that happened to me. Playing football was my life and getting injured during the tournament was a huge blow and at that time I was so devastated.   Now, ten years after, I get to look back at that day and answer the question, “Will it matter 10 years from now”?

Kind of, but not really.  I’m typing from my chilly apartment in New York, trying to think of how much that one accident from 2006 impacts my day to day life right now.  Here’s my list.

  • I get knee pain once in a while, when it gets really cold, or if I’m sitting in the plane for a really long time.  On long haul flights I have to be sure to stand up and walk around or else my knees will bother me.
  • On certain days, I can tell if it will rain just by how my knees feel when I wake up.  This isn’t too useful since I check the weather on my phone anyway, but it’s a pretty cool quirk.

After these two points, I realise that since I’ve torn both my left and right ACLs, some effects would have compounded because I’ve had both knees injured and fixed. So these next items have that in consideration.

  • I won’t be trying board sports like snowboarding or wake boarding.  I just don’t want to risk future injuries. Two surgeries and many months of rehab was enough.
  • I need to do lower impact exercise and more strengthening work. When I’m not down with the worst flu I’ve ever had in years, I try to do some dance cardio in my living room but when I do a lot of jumping, my knees hurt the next day.
  • I don’t wear high heels anymore and have to be in comfortable shoes all the time.  If I’m standing all day cooking, sneakers aren’t even comfortable for me.  I have to be in clogs.  I stopped wearing heels after I got injured but would still buy them to wear when I’ve recovered, but ever since getting injured the second time, it’s been flats or wedges only.
  • I still play football for fun once in a while, but I never go all out anymore, it’s just not worth hurt again.

If I could time travel and talk to myself ten years ago during the saddest time of my life, I would say, “Don’t worry about it too much.  Ten years from now it won’t be a big deal, you’ll learn a lot from the experience and those scars won’t be noticeable. You’ll recover from this and play two more years of college football. Then you’ll move away from home, study again, get married and find other hobbies.  It’s a great story to tell, you’ll have minor inconveniences to deal with but overall you’ll be fine. Oh and you’ll tear your left ACL in 5 years, so you’ll still be doing prone hangs in the future.”

Time really puts things in perspective, doesn’t it?