Injuries...

...They never happen to you.

Until they do.

I've never broken a bone, never sprained anything, never had to use crutches. But at the last practice before Southwest Womens Regionals back in April, I had the unfortunate experience of tearing my right ACL (courtesy of UCI's shitty sports fields).

ACL stands for anterior cruciate ligament. It is a ligament in the center of your knee. It connects the femur (thigh bone) to the tibia (shin bone), and prevents the tibia from sliding forward with respect to the femur.

If you tear it, you most likely don't need serious medical attention right away. You can live with it torn. The thing is, you need it for activities such as cutting, sprinting, changing directions quickly, and to some extent jumping-- i.e. a sport like ultimate. So, the solution is to get surgery.

ACL reconstruction surgery is fairly common. The thing with that though, is it takes a long time to fully rehabilitate the knee to where one can play ultimate again, about 6 to 9 months.

Tearing it hurt. But not as much as watching my teammates play at one of the most important tournaments of the year, and not being able to do anything to help. It also hurts that I can't play club over the summer, nor in Singapore, where I will be studying abroad this coming fall semester.

After I get surgery I'm looking at playing again in January 2010 at the earliest, but hopefully this December in time for Beware-O (if there is one). But that would be about 9 months (or more) without having played, without having cut, skyed, layed out, handled...

I can't wait to destroy teams on the field, but at the same time I feel like I'll be the rookie once again.


Shout out to my triplets, Mia and Lisa. I will be joining you two on the long road to recovery soon. Heal up!

Also want to thank Sara for letting me borrow her brace and crutches, KG for taking me to my MRI appointment, everyone who expressed their concern, and especially to the Nightlife boys who during Regionals, carried my things for me, stopped me from playing and likely injuring myself even more, and/or just asked me if I was okay.