My ACL Injury and Diagnosis story

Back in September of 2013, I was playing basketball. I jumped, landed, heard and felt a pop, and fell to the ground. My knee fell tender, but felt pretty okay afterwards. I experienced several episodes of knee instability after the injury. I even fell trying to get into my minivan because I slightly pivoted on my foot. I knew something was wrong and asked for knee doctor recommendations on Facebook. I knew I was looking at an ACL injury. We had a high deductible insurance and we had already spent enough money on medical bills during the calendar year. So, I ignored it and moved on. My knee strengthened up over time and I was even able to return to Tae Bo class. While all seemed well, I did notice that my lunges and other such moves were significantly stronger on one side. On March 10, 2014, I went to Jumping World with my neighbor friends and kids. While jumping, my knee warned me it didn't like what I was doing and I had to sit out the rest of the session. Right after Jumping World, we went to play basketball. While playing, I jumped, landed, felt and heard a pop, and fell. I had a strong pain that kept me on the ground for awhile. I scooted myself to the wall and gathered myself together. I was able to get up and play a very tame basketball game with my youngest son. I even came home and mowed the lawn. The next day I woke up absolutely toasted. My knee was swollen and very mad at me. I returned to the Facebook post from September and messaged my physical therapist friend. She came and checked out my knee and suspected I had injured my patella. She was able to get me an appointment with a doctor she recommends. I got to that appointment about a week after injury. The swelling was down and I was comfortable. Upon examination, the doctor also suspected a patella injury. I asked if my knee instability fit the diagnosis. Because of this question, I was given the directive to get an MRI. I got the MRI and was told the results would get to the doctor a couple of days later. After my doctor got the results, I made another appointment to get the results. I was diagnosed with a complete ACL tear, a grade 3 tear, and a meniscus tear. I was told I could choose to brace the knee when active or choose surgery. At this point, since I was feeling so comfortable, I chose to get a brace. Once I spent a couple of days knowing what was going on with my knee, I quickly realized I was not going to lead the inactive life an ACL tear would require. I made another appointment with the doctor to sign up for surgery. By this time I had talked to many people who had lived through ACL injuries and reconstructions. Through these conversations, I had decided that I wanted mine fixed and I wanted a cadaver graft. To me, it made no sense to injure another part of my body to fix a different body part if I didn't have to. So, I went back to the doctor to find out he didn't do cadaver grafts. He referred me to another doctor. He was happy to do surgery with a cadaver graft, even gave me a surgery date, but, my insurance wouldn't pay for the hospital the surgery would take place in. So, I was off to doctor #3. Doctor #3 could do the surgery, my insurance would pay for it and we were set. As it turned out, I really liked doctor #3 & will probably always choose sports medicine orthos from now on. Originally I as after whoever could get me into surgery the fastest. I had to wait for the surgery for doctor #3, but, as I soon learned, time is good. It takes time to prepare a family of 4 for Mom to go out for this surgery.