Cleared for Sports

It has now been 8 months since ACL surgery and I'm happy to say that Kaitlynn has now been cleared to play sports at full participation. Yay!! She worked so hard on her recovery. She was cleared to golf back in March which wasn't too hard because it wasn't on the leg that would take most of the stress from golfing. She did well, even making it to state. She did get tired quite a bit at first from all the walking but it was good for her.

As her muscle became stronger and the PT thought that she had developed it enough for an ACL brace, she had an appointment for a measurement to get it ordered. When she brought it home I about fell over..the thing looked like a bionic attachment. Bright yellow and big (in my mind). I told her that if anyone hit her, they would be the ones hurting, not her.

She worked out with it and became used to the feel of it on her leg. She only wears it when she plays or does activities that could compromise her knee. She is still being smart with it as full recovery usually isn't expected until one year after surgery.

I am so proud of her recovery. If you are in the situation of needing ACL surgery, I really want to stress the importance of being pro-active and disciplined in your recovery before and after surgery. It makes all the difference in the world.

I may post again as High School soccer gets underway and post on how she has done, but I believe her recovery is really complete.

I encourage you to do your research when it comes to all aspects of surgery, from insurance to procedure method, to recovery. Be patient but be dilligent.

I'll post a few pics from her recent soccer scrimmages.

 Made it to state in golf this year which was awesome since she hadn't been able to play for so many months.

 Even did some quadding (wearing her brace of course)

 Her second summer soccer scrimmage since being released. Her HS team coordinates some of these during the summer to get the girls out on the field. She did awesome. 

Since this scrimmage she has had 3 more and I have seen her confidence rise with each one. There is always a bit of a hesitancy at first, almost as though a protective mechanism turns on and needs to be forcefully turned off. There's wisdom in that though. She is not going to do something to compromise her knee no matter what the result might be. Her coach is experimenting with some different positions. She typically plays a defender (which she likes). We will see where she ends up come time for the season to start.

I will still attempt to get some videos up here of her PT sessions, it just takes time and that's something I don't always have big chunks of...too bad we didn't get a heavy snow last winter to snow me in.