Sports Girl (35) grabs for the ball from an opponent. The poor girl holding the ball had broke her nose in a previous game. Playing sports can sure be dangerous!
Sports Girl’s first high school basketball season has gone fairly well. She hasn’t set any freshman scoring records or anything, but she has been consistently able to play at up to the junior varsity level.
And while the season hasn’t been completely without incident or injury, remarkably, nothing has involved her knee. And it’s not like she hasn’t taken more than one or two nasty spills onto her knee or knees on the hardwood or tile basketball courts across South Dakota.
The surgery she endured over a year ago where a cadaver ligament was attached to her left femur and patella to replace her MPFL has so far proven successful in stabilizing her knee. She has had no further subluxation or dislocation issues, and she has had very little discomfort in her knee.
She did, however, sprain her left ankle about a month ago, and she has had some pain from shin splints. The ankle sprain has continued to plague her, requiring constant taping during all practices and games to keep her ankle from rolling again, and continued icing afterwards. Now she has developed an allergic rash and a friction blister on her left heel from all of the taping.
These injuries are really incidental. At least I think they are. I say that because I find it odd that all of her weaknesses appear to be on her left side. She had the most trouble with the Achilles tendon pain during soccer on her left leg. And now her left ankle has given out, as well.
Sports Girl has been diligently strength training in the weight room, so I don’t think her left side can really be that much weaker than her right. Can it? Or could it all somehow be related to her knee surgery?
Either way, I still declare the knee surgery a success. At least so far. Sports Girl is gradually regaining her confidence, and she doesn’t seem to worry about her knee any more. The reward is seeing that competitive spark return to her eye … and when she grits her teeth, watch out!
A Country Mom's Blog 
So glad to hear Sports Girl is up and about. What’s the saying “Play Hard or Go Home” most certainly seems to apply to her.
I just wanted to drop a note, I began following your blog because she sounded SOOO much like my 8th grade daughter. Soccer, Bball, Runner. Well, soon after I began reading, ,my dear daughter sustained a knee injury which required surgery and was sidelined 6 months. Happy to report, her surgery was successful as well. Her 3 – 4 days a week PT paid off and she has since been pulled up to the JV level for lacrosse. Gotta enjoy their love of sport. Best of luck to your girl!
hy country mom could you give me the name and email address of the sport’s girl doctor.i am so impressed by this surgery
Hello Parth,
I do not feel comfortable posting this information live on my blog for everyone to see. I did respond to a request of yours via e-mail back on September 1, 2010. The message went to your hotmail.com e-mail account. I will forward that message to the e-mail you just provided, as well. Please check your e-mail …
Country Mom
Hello Country mom, my 13 year old is dealing with a similar issue as your daughter. Was she dignosed as being hypermobile , having trochlear dysplasia or other predispositions? Our Dr said when the patella subluxes, there are usually some factors present.
Yes. I forget the medical terminology, but Sportsgirl’s patella was tilted outward, predisposing her to this injury. The surgeon did improve this issue at the same he attached the cadaver ligament. I wondered if that meant she could have the same problem with her other knee. The Ortho surgeon said that was very unusual for someone to need both knees fixed …
Both of my knees started dislocating when I was six years old because my legs weren’t aligned correctly and my knee cap didn’t sit in the groove, but to the side. The other day I counted how many times my knees have dislocated. On the top of my head I counted 43 times (that’s not near half of how many times they really did dislocate). I can tell you the exact situation and when each time happend. My doctor told me if I wouldn’t have had surgery then I would have been in a wheelchair by the time i was 25. I’m 16 now and I’ve had three surgeries in less than a year. July 25th, 2009 was first surgery that I had done which was on my right knee. They did a fulcerson osteotomy, mpfl, lateral release, and did a biopsy to take cartilage to grow since I have none in my right knee. They did the same for my left knee on October 8th, 2009. I was on crutches eight weeks for each and many months of physical therapy. March 26th, 2010 they took out three of the five screws in my right knee and two of the three screws in my left knee. There were seven screws total. Now i am doing good, playing volleyball trying to be easy on the knees. Soon I am going to need cartilage restoration but not looking forward to it because the recovery is a very long 18 months.