A little bit longer and I'll be fine (hopefully!)

Waitin' on the cure

But none of them are sure

A little bit longer and I'll be fine!

But you don't know what you got till it's gone

and you don't know what it's like to feel so low...

~A Little Bit Longer by: The Jonas Brothers

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SD3T4OK3R5Y

First off, I can't believe I'm about to relate my life to a Jonas Brothers song! I'm definitely no fan of theirs, but when it comes to this song, the lyrics strike a deep chord within me. No I don't have diabetes like lead singer (and author of this song) Nick does, but I do have serious knee and leg issues. In fact 2 days from now, I'm going to have my whole left leg realigned. But before we get into that, I'd better start from the beginning...

You don't even know!! (No, no)

It all started during the winter of '08. I was halfway through my freshman year of high school and I was loving it! I had it all; friends, family, and lots of joy! Life was great except for one thing. Gym class. My worst nightmare. Why? Well, though apparently I look like a natural athlete to others, I'm about the farthest thing that there ever was from someone athletically gifted. People seem to think that because I'm 5'10 I can instantly slam-dunk a basketball or spike a volleyball at every given moment. In truth, I'm the girl that got a broken nose and a concussion during warm ups for a volleyball tournament. And that was before I even touched a volleyball that day! Enough said. Anyways, second semester had just started so I had a whole new schedule. Gym was my 2nd hour and I was pretty nervous. I hadn't done anything really athletic since tennis season had ended a few moths ago, so who knew how out of shape I was going to be! Well with my luck, the first unit we were forced into doing was running. Obviously God didn't have in mind for me to be a pro runner when He created me, because no matter what I do I can't run a mile in under 10 minutes. I was determined to try though. The first two laps went great. I was tired, sweaty, and loathing every second of this torture, but I was keeping up with my friends and the rest of the class. The only problem was that the small ache in my right kneecap that I had felt when I first started running was growing by the second. Halfway through the third lap I was walking. By the end, I was limping considerably. I thought that maybe since I hadn't run in awhile that I had just pulled something. Later that week however, I would find out differently...

Got the news today...

Plies were nothing new to me. After all I'd been doing them since I was four. Yet for some reason, in dance class that night my knees were refusing to bend the correct way. Seeing my frustrations, the new ballet instructor walked over to me and attempted to give me a lecture about focus and proper ballet technique. Plies are one of the first things you learn as a dancer and I was in the most advanced ballet and pointe classes Dance Tracks had to offer, she reminded me. When she looked at my legs though, she spotted something I had failed to see. She looked up at me with a bewildered expression on her face and simply said, "Do you know your right knee turns inward??"

Doctor said I'd have to stay

A little bit longer and I'll be fine!

Those words essentially changed my life. My right knee did turn inward a little. Though my parents were skeptical at first, it soon became apparent that this was a bigger problem then any of us realized. Within the next month, it was visibly apparent that the knee was turning farther and farther inward and with every day it was giving me more and more pain. When it got to the point where my gym teacher made me sit out of classes because I couldn't do anything without pain, my parents agreed that I needed to see an expert. Going to the knee-surgeon's wasn't the experience my parents and I expected. In fact, it was a big fat waste of time. He looked at my right knee and abruptly told me that that was simply the way that I was made and that there was nothing he could do about it. He told me that knee-caps rotating inward was an extremely common problem for teenage girls and that physical therapy would take care of it all no problem. That was it. Case closed. Well, though we were a bit frustrated after that 5 minute appointment, we decided to trust his diagnosis and follow his instructions regarding physical therapy. Turns out that we shouldn't have. A month after that appointment, my left knee was completely inward too. By the end of the school year and after months of therapy, I couldn't even stand for 3 minutes without excruciating pain...

Waiting on a cure,

but none of them are sure,

a little bit longer and I'll be fine!!

It was at the point when my knees started popping and locking on a daily basis that even my therapist decided that I needed a second opinion from a different surgeon. So right before I started my sophomore year of high school, we went to see surgeon #2. The difference between this surgeon and the first being that this time we went to a surgeon who specialized in teenage girls. She took a long had look at my legs and I waited. Waited to hear that she knew exactly what was wrong. Waited to hear that she could fix it. Waited to hear that I could begin to be a normal teenager again. When she finally spoke, it wasn't exactly what I'd hoped to hear. She told me that I had extreme tibial torsion in both legs. (Aka the bones in my lower legs, my tibias and fibulas, rotate outward at a hugely abnormal angle.) That was what gave the appearance of my kneecaps going inward. Normally when girls kneecaps appear to go inward it's because their femurs (upper bones in the upper half of your legs) rotate inwards. (After a girl hits puberty, her hips widen. If her hip muscles aren't strong enough, her femurs will rotate inward) Normally, physical therapy can be used to strengthen the muscles and solve the problem. In my case, because my tibias and fibulas were rotated outward, the surgeon said she didn't think PT would help. However, she couldn't tell if I actually needed surgery or not because my hips weren't as strong as she thought they needed to be to accurately judge the problem. It was back to therapy for me. I was devastated.

When I thought it all been done,

when I thought it all been said,

a little bit longer and I'll be fine!

As I expected 2 months came and went and there was no difference. My hip strength had increased quite a bit but, if anything, my knee pain was worse. So it was back to the surgeon's office. but instead of seeing the surgeon I had seen last time, I saw her partner. The first thing surgeon #3 said to me after she took a brief look at my legs was, "How have you been living like this??" She told me that I most definitely needed surgery if I ever wanted to get back to the things I was used to doing before, but she could only do the knee portion of it. I'd have to find another surgeon to do the work on my tibias and fibulas. So not only did I have to schedule an appointment with another surgeon, I'd have to undergo multiple scans and MRIs before we could put a date on the calender for my first surgery. I knew that it would take at least another couple months to get all that done, but it didn't matter to me. I was finally getting somewhere!!

But you don't know what it's like to feel so low,

and you don't know what you got 'till it's gone...

Before I knew it, I was walking into the hospital on March 4 ready to undergo a major surgery on my right leg. While I was off in la-la land, one surgeon cut my tibia and fibula in half and rotated them to where they needed to be. Then he screwed a metal plate and 7 screws into my tibia for support. He also cut my heel-chord a bit to lengthen it. The other surgeon cut the triangular shaped bone of the top of my tibia, moved it over, and screwed it down with 2 more screws. Then she cut a few tendons underneath my kneecap so it would slide over. Finally, she repaired a tear in my MCL. The surgery went off perfectly except for one thing. When I woke up we realized that I don't react very well to general anesthesia or pain medication very well. Once I got over the nausea and was home for a couple weeks, everything really started to sink in. I couldn't really use my right leg at all, and my left wasn't much support either because that one still needed to be corrected. I was a mess. Getting up to get myself a drink of water or go to the bathroom felt like running a marathon. I was forced to miss school for over a month and when I was finally able to come back, I needed to use a wheelchair. It was the most humbling/ humiliating experience of my life. I hated all the long stares I got from people in the hallways and the fact that I couldn't do anything by myself anymore. I had lost almost all the muscles in my right leg, so rehab was slow. After about a month, I ditched the wheelchair and opted to use crutches much to everyone's surprise. I began to heal much faster than the doctor's thought I would. By the end of the school year I was walking without a limp, 3 months before they estimated I'd be able to.

All this time goes by,

Still no reason why,

a little bit longer and I'll be fine!!

Before all this happened to me, I never realized how much I took walking for granted. I never thought that I would long for a chance to be able to run a mile. That I would actually miss gym class! This knee thing completely changed my life in many more ways than I could ever imagine and still no one knows why it happened to me. There's no explanation for it. I can see now though that there were some hidden blessings within all this. I realized what an amazing family I have and what an awesome group of friends I've surrounded myself with. I appreciate physical activity so much more than I used to. And I've learned to count my blessings everyday for everything. There's not much I take for granted anymore when it comes to using my legs.

My right leg is doing great. It's almost completely healed now. Yeah I have scars running up and down my lower leg (The pic above is my leg. There are a few small scars on my kneecap, and a couple on the side and back of my leg that you can't see) So what! At first when I saw them, I thought I would never wear shorts again, now I see them as "badges". They represent a big part of my life so why not show them? And besides, they'll fade over time anyways.

I still can't believe that I only have 48 hours before I have to do this all over again. I'm terrified. It's going to be a lot of therapy and a few months before I'll be able to walk unaided again. I keep telling myself though that this is the last thing I have to undergo before I'm completely better. A little bit longer and I'll be fine!! And when I can run again, I will run the mile in under 10 minutes! :)