My Dislocated Knee


I have always had a problem with my knees. I have a disorder in which the outside of my left knee never fully developed, and the bone stopped short of going all the way up to my femur(active voice). I wish I'd known of this before I stepped out onto the field on August 22, 2006. Although I was extremely sore from the workout on the previous day, I still attended practice. It started off as just a normal practice, we ran the usual drills, and stretched like normal. It started to rain, so we all went inside and sat there for about an hour. Afterwards, we resumed our practice. The ground was extremely spongy and covered in puddles. It was very hard to practice in these conditions but we did anyway. The assistant offensive line coach, Coach Bowen, fat and lazy(adjective out of order), decided to try out a new drill. We were taken to a large metal cage-like thing that stood about three and a half ft. off of the ground; more commonly known as the shoots. We were told to get on the opposite side of the person across from us and get down as low as possible and hit him. I successfully completed the drill about 7 times. However, on the 8th time I lined up from Don Hendrix. Since he is much shorter than I am- he hits much lower than me, so I got down as low as humanly possible. Knees bent, my stance was very poor because I was so sore(absolute). When the coach blew the whistle, I fired off the ball but I didn't make it very far. The mixture of me being too low and my poor stance caused me to put too much pressure on the inside of my knee. This in itself could result in injury but I also have the disorder on the outside of my knee, so my knee was much more prone to fold in. That's exactly what happened. Before I collided with Don, I fell to the ground screaming in pain, that i had broken my leg (participle phrase). Little did I know that it was far worse. Jason, the trainer, and the offensive line coach, Coach Hacker, ran over to me to see what was wrong. They took off my pads and rolled up my pants leg, and that's when I saw it. My leg was bent at an awful angle and my kneecap had been pushed to the outside of my leg, about three inches from where it's supposed to be. Thoughts about never being able to play sports or run again were running the my mind like a Kenyan in the Olympics.
After about three hours, two x-rays, lots of paperwork, and too much Seinfeld my knee was eventually relocated. The doctor told me just to give it some time and it would be fine. It has been over a year since my injury. Since then I have suffered another dislocation, 2 surgeries, and 5 months of physical therapy. I'm now able to participate in weightlifting, and sports. I hope that I sustain no more injuries.