In elementary school, I was always on a mission to prove something. Most of my time was spent singing boy band lyrics with my best girl friend or playing any type of sport imaginable with the boys in my neighborhood. We played football, flashlight tag, sharks and minnows, basketball, biking, war, and would even make up our own combinations of sports. I had a small chip on my shoulder. I always wanted to prove I was just as good as the boys were. At recess one day, I finally realized my strength. Besides being great at catching a football, which as a girl wouldnât get me anywhere, I learned I could kick. I kicked a home run after being chosen last in a pick-up game of kickball. I felt invincible when kicking the ball. It was a skill that gave me recognition at recess in elementary school and made me feel important and accepted by my peers. A cute boy became one of my new friends and began to mentor me and build up my soccer skills and confidence until he finally convinced me to join a soccer team. Being part of a sports team was incredible. I was very competitive and this fueled my need for excellence even more. After a few years of playing and having a blast, I finally made the commitment to join a more competitive league. It was 2004, I was 14-years-old and I had just joined my first select soccer team. I was ecstatic and determined to work hard and become a great player. We played year-round and we traveled to regional tournaments. Soccer became my life and my biggest goal was to play on the high school soccer team and go on to play college soccer at my momâs Alma Mater, the University of Tennessee.
That first season came to an end and we were at our State Cup tournament. Our goalie was injured and when the coach asked me to sub in as goalie because he knew I could catch the ball, I was flattered. I stepped right in and after ten minutes of him coaching me on techniques I was ready. He told me to be aggressive and if someone dribbled the ball into the box I should challenge them head on which would minimize the angle for the shooter to score. Without hesitation, I did exactly that. The forward entered the goalie box and I charged, diving for the ball and closed my eyes as I collided into her. I stole the ball and this sudden rush of exciting emotions filled me up. But almost as instantly as my excitement emerged, I also felt a sharp, pinching, stabbing pain in my knee. I thought nothing of it and stood up to punt the ball back out to my teammates. The ball hit my kicking foot and flopped to the floor like a pancake. Coach screamed in fury and I was frozen. Not from embarrassment but from pain. I flagged at the coach to get me out of the game but he didnât understand that I was hurt and became instantly distracted following the ball to the other side of the field. There were only about ten minutes left in the game so I decided to tough it out and be there for my team because they needed a goalie. I told my defense that something was wrong and I needed their back-up, and as luck would have it, the ball didnât come to me the rest of the game.
I hobbled to the center of the field to shake everyoneâs hands and Coach yelled at me for limping. We had won the tournament and the entire team went out for celebratory ice cream! I staggered to the car assuring myself and my father that it was just a little twist and it would feel better soon. By the time we made it to the ice cream parlor ten minutes later my knee had quadrupled in size. My dad had to carry me inside. On Monday morning, I went to school on a pair of crutches that my neighbor lent me. I had just started my freshman year of high school and getting on and off the school bus on crutches was extremely difficult and embarrassing. After a few days, my pain subsided and I stopped using my crutches. I noticed my knee felt different. It didnât hurt but it just felt weak and unstable. I figured those symptoms would eventually subside so I continued about my normal life. One day, getting off the school bus with those large stairs, my knee buckled under me and I toppled down the stairs landing on the street next to the school bus. As a new little freshman, this was extremely embarrassing and to make matters worse, the juniors in the back of the bus starting laughing, pointing at me, and making fun of me for being a klutz. I did my best to walk the rest of the way home but I could feel something wasnât right. A few days later, I was emptying the dishwasher, one of my nightly chores, and as I turned to grab a plate from the dishwasher and pivoted to place it up into the cabinet my knee buckled underneath me and I accidentally dropped the plate. It went crashing down onto the floor and shattered. I caught myself before falling but told my mom I needed help. Something didnât feel right.
We scheduled an appointment with an orthopedic surgeon very close to our house. It was a very large practice with different surgeons of different specialties. I was terrified. Why did we have to see a surgeon? My mom explained to me this doctor was specialized in sports injuries but not to worry because we just need to find out what is wrong with my knee. After talking to nurses and physicianâ assistants we patiently waited for the doctor to see me. Suddenly, he walked into the room chuckling a little bit. After examining my knee very quickly he told me my ACL was torn and I needed an MRI and surgery. He exclaimed, âDonât worry, the guy next door had ACL surgery with me last year, and he just came back in with a torn ACL on the other knee!â I looked at my mom. I wasnât even sure what to think. I was trying to understand what ACL surgery meant and why I needed surgery. And then I began wondering how likely this could be for me to end up like the man in the room next door, and why the doctor seemed amused at this information?
ACL surgery? What is an ACL, and why do I need one? Surgery with almost a year-long recovery; how was I going to do it? And what is this doctor talking about, a man coming to see him with a second ACL tear? How can this be possible? I was extremely upset. I was at a new school and hadnât made a lot of friends yet; I just knew that joining the soccer team would help me meet new friends and would be so much fun. It turned out the first available surgery date was on the same exact day as soccer tryouts.
At first I was angry, upset, and annoyed. Why me? Why do all the other girls get to try out for the soccer team and I must have surgery? Why couldnât this have happened to someone else or later in the year after I had at least joined the team? What was I going to do? In the moment, it hit me. I still want to play soccer. There will still be a tryout next year. I decided I was going to do everything in my power to recover, rehabilitate, and comeback from this surgery as a better athlete than before and I was going to try out and make the high school soccer team! As soon as I came back to school after my surgery, I crutched into the JV soccer coachâs classroom and announced to her my mission and my dedication to my high school soccer team and that I wanted to be a part of it even without the use of my leg. I enlisted to be the team manager. The position was not exactly what I had expected; there were some fun leadership roles but for the most part I was cleaning up after practice and shagging balls for all the girls while on my crutches and then limping around with my knee brace. It was not ideal but I was part of the team and that was worth it.
Rehabilitation was grueling. I went to a physical therapy office down the street from my high school so my mom had time to take me and still get me to school before starting her own work day. I was excited to work hard in order to recover but sometimes I felt very alone in the process. Most of my peers were playing sports and couldnât relate to my life or the recovery road ahead of me. It hurt me a lot to hear girls on the soccer team complaining about going to practice. I thought I wish I was healthy enough to even play! My physical therapist was juggling three or four patients at a time and I hardly knew what I was supposed to be doing. As I started to progress and stopped wearing a knee brace, my physical therapist actually had to ask me which knee was the injured one. I absolutely couldnât believe he wouldnât know which knee was injured after all the months I had been strengthening my right leg with him. Very soon after, my insurance visits ran out and I was discharged from physical therapy. I was only about three or four months out of my surgery; we hadnât started running yet or even doing any heavy strength training. It seemed odd to me that I could be finished with rehab already but the therapist told me to take things slow and that I was on my own now.
I taught myself how to run again and I started running everywhere. I would run every day when I got home from school because I knew I had such a long way to go to get back in shape before next yearâs soccer tryouts. I wasnât as strong as I used to be and running hurt me a lot of the time but I just shrugged it off and told myself I would progress and it would all be fine. I began going to the local elementary school four days per week after school to practice ball handling skills and running sprints. I had good days and bad days. Some days I felt halfway normal again and other days I felt like I could barely make use of my legs. It was like I had all of these fancy moves in my head and as I relayed the signals down to my legs somehow the signal got lost. I felt helpless but again I blamed it on the surgery and kept pushing forward.
By the fall of my sophomore year in high school, I was about eight-months out from ACL surgery on my right knee. I knew I wasnât even close to the level I used to play at and I knew that meant I couldnât keep up with my old select soccer team. I reluctantly joined a rec league thinking that any competition is competition and maybe it would help me to progress and prepare for high school tryouts in the spring. It was great! I was playing again! I felt invincible, unstoppable, and elated to play. I was a normal soccer player again! It was everything I had missed for so long while I was injured and I was so happy to be back in action. But deep inside my tough, determined exterior a small part of me was terrified to tear my ACL again. It happened so fast the first time and it still seemed so fresh despite my yearlong recovery. I didnât share those feelings with anyone else because I was scared saying them aloud would make it a reality. I still had a blast playing soccer again and the fall season flew by. I continued my daily runs, ball handling drills, and sprints. My focus was on the high school soccer tryouts and even the fear inside me wasnât going to stand in my way of accomplishing this dream. Spring season was fast approaching and I continued to play on the same rec team because I needed playing time to get back to being 100%.
Before I knew it, it was time for high school soccer tryouts. I was ready and I had worked so hard to get there. Tryouts were not exactly what I had expected. All of the girls from the freshmen team were trying out again, of course, but the coaches didnât seem to even be paying attention. They were treating it almost like a practice and any time I had a drill or touched the ball it seemed they werenât even watching. The next day they posted the team on the locker room door. My palms were sweating as I read the list of names. I wasnât on the list. They had chosen every single girl from last year and that was it. All the work I had done flashed into my eyes in a moment of grief, disgust, and outrage. I canât believe they didnât notice me or all the hard work I had done. I didnât want to be left with nothing after all of that, so I halfheartedly joined the track team.
Track was not the same. I hated running. I treasured running when I knew I was training for the sport I loved but running for nothing wasnât exactly as motivating. One day at track practice the soccer coach was walking around and talking with some of the athletes. I ran the 100m and 200m while he was standing there and was, of course, wearing my soccer gear because that is all I owned. He walked right up to me and announced I was fast and he didnât understand why I hadnât tried out for the soccer team. My stomach fell to the floor. I couldnât believe what he just said. That was my biggest dream. I explained to him that I was the girl in the knee brace and he quickly remembered and told me he was sorry for my injury and walked away. It hit me; I was never going to be the same after that and no one was going to think of me as the same either. But the state soccer tournament was that weekend and my rec team needed me. I headed to soccer practice after school later that afternoon.
Practice was very easy that day because coach didnât want to wear us out before the tournament in a few days. He had us warm up, work on ball handling drills, and then he let us just play for fun. My friends and I were excited and starting acting out our plays as we did them, almost like we were our own announcers. âJenna has the ball! She dribbles down the right field and veers over into the corner! She has the perfect setup with two girls open in front of the goal! AndâŚâ I planted my left foot to kick the ball with my right and it happened. I knew instantly what it was and what had happened. I was in such disbelief that I laid there face down laughing. Did this really just happen to me again? Is this on my good knee? I donât have a good knee anymore? Are you kidding me?! I didnât get back up, I couldnât.
Pain started to irradiate from my knee to my entire body. I began to sweat, shake, and it felt like time had frozen and turned into super slow motion. Coach ran up to me and I was in such shock that I wasnât able to tell him I knew I had torn my ACL. Even worse, I knew I had torn my ACL on my good knee days before the state cup where my team needed me. I donât think I had managed to say anything yet but he knew something was wrong by the look on my face and desperately pleaded for a doctor. Surprisingly there was a doctor on the field and he quickly came over to help. The doctor and my coach told me to stand up and I was finally able to speak. âNoâ, I mumbled. âI canât walk. I canât put pressure on it or I will fall right back down again. Are you going to catch me?â
They said I was overreacting and they would catch me if I fell. Reluctantly I placed my left leg in front of me to take a step and sure enough my entire leg buckled underneath me and I fell to the ground. They did not catch me. But they quickly realized I wasnât faking it and carried me to the side of the field. I instructed them to lay me on the side of the field where there was a hill so I could begin to elevate my knee before the swelling took over and instructed someone to call my mom and bring my crutches. I knew what my diagnosis was, I could just feel it. I knew what journey was ahead of me and how difficult it would be. I knew nothing I could do could change any of this and I felt so helpless. I just laid there looking at the sky thinkingâŚThere must be a solution. This happened way too easily to be uncommon. There has to be a way to prevent this and a better way to treat these injuries after they happen.
My pain was a lot worse this time. I kept thinking maybe my leg was broken. Maybe thatâs why it hurt more. Maybe it isnât my ACL and itâs just a leg break. That would be okay. That wouldnât be as bad. My mom got to the field and I was shaking. She asked why I was shaking and all I said was âitâs from the pain.â We knew what was in front of me and there was no reason to go to the emergency room when we just needed to see my surgeon. She drove me home and we stopped at Steak-N-Shake for a banana milkshake. I told her in that drive through line that I wanted to change the world of knees!
It turns out I tore my ACL, MCL, and meniscus which would explain the increased pain levels. I had surgery and began the long road to recovery again. But this time it didnât go as well as planned. I wasnât progressing quickly enough and everything I did was very painful. My surgeon had no explanation for me so he sent me for a second opinion to a very highly regarded athletic trainer in Atlanta. I didnât know it at the time but this would change my life forever.
After my first visit with Terry Trundle I knew he was different than the rest. He was extremely knowledgeable and loved to talk so I learned a plethora of information just in one visit and he was a Tennessee graduate; something was meant to be. But he didnât bring good news. Unfortunately, because of the lack of stability in both of my knees Terry had to refer me to another surgeon. After MRIs, and many long talks with the new surgeon and Terry, it was decided that the first surgeon didnât do the most appropriate placement for my ACL in both of my knees which created a large degree of laxity. This basically means my knees were way too loose to be functional and if I wanted to decrease my pain and lead a somewhat active life I needed a revision surgery on both of my knees.
I couldnât believe it. How could this happen? I had already endured an invasive surgery on both of my knees but now I had to do them both again. My athletic career was over and I had only just turned 15. I wouldnât be able to play high school soccer and I certainly wouldnât be skilled enough to become a Lady Volunteer on the University of Tennesseeâs soccer team. But I had to do it anyway. As much pain as it would cause and as much time as it would consume from my normal high school life; both surgeries had to be done in order to preserve the integrity of my knees.
We discussed our surgery options. This time, approaching my second ACL surgery on each knee, I began to question my new surgeon more. Because I had a Patella Tendon graft for my first surgeries on each knee, my surgeon explained to me it would be much easier to use a cadaver graft for my next ACL surgery on each knee. He said there wasnât any of my own tissue left to harvest (which I later found out was not true) and using a cadaver would make for an easier recovery process. A cadaver, you mean a dead person? Where do you find this dead person? How do we know they were healthy and disease free? How on earth is a dead personâs tissue going to help my knee heal? Does the graft arrive in a FedEx envelope and if so, why is the one for me? Do you wash it? Does it smell? I couldnât bear the thought of some dead personâs tissue inside of me so I just trusted my surgeon and tried my best not to think about it.
We carefully planned each surgery and which knee was the most symptomatic so we could operate on it first. It was a huge risk because each knee was very loose so whichever knee we chose, we still had to hope I was strong enough on the other knee in order to navigate on crutches and get to high school, and my after school job.
The biggest blessing in all of this was spending so much time with Terry during my rehab. He genuinely cared about my well-being and he started to teach me why we were doing what we were doing and why it was so important. It all just clicked for me. I realized how amazing and resilient the human body is and understand there had to be a better way to approach ACL injuries and surgeries. There had to be a better quality of care than the surgeon who put both of my ACLs in at the wrong angle or the physical therapist who didnât even remember which leg I had injured. These are devastating sometimes career ending injuries and surgeries and no one was taking it seriously enough, except for Terry.
I decided to become an intern for Ter...