Have you ever broken a bone? Fractured a bone? This is a short story about my experience when I fractured my patella. Damaging any of your bones is something that you want to stay away from as much as possible. If not you will experience pain and a lot of recovery time.

 I was in 6th grade when i experienced fracturing my kneecap. It was a cool, fall day in my neighborhood. My friend Logan and I were riding scooters down a sloped asphalt road when out of nowhere my front scooter tire dug in a pot hole and launched me forward. Before I could think, my right knee slammed the ground and absorbed all the damage from the fall. Right after the fall, i got up and tried walking back to my house cautiously but I could not control the limping that was occurring. When I finally arrived back at my house it felt like it had been at least 10 minutes when in reality it took me 1 minute.

 When I walked through my front door I immediately sat down on a chair and started to bend my leg. Here i am sitting here trying to bend my leg non-stop, not knowing that my kneecap is fractured. After about 5 minutes of trying to alleviate this pain I made my way downstairs to lay on the couch, one of the worst decisions I have ever made. As soon as I was on the couch i knew something was wrong with my knee. Every time I would move my knee, it felt like something was tearing inside and I was in agony. I let myself cool down for a little bit and finally looked down upon my knee to find out it was at least double the size of my left knee from being swollen. For the next 2 days I was on the couch in my living room and I did not get up once, I had my family there to help me.

On the third day we decided that I was going to need to go to the hospital. First I tried to get up myself to make my way to the car but i did not even make it off the couch. Now my mom had called the paramedics to escort me to the hospital. I was really nervous at first because in my mind I knew i was going to experience a lot of pain. I forgot how well trained paramedics actually are and they were able to transfer me to the stretcher and to the back of the ambulance with almost no pain. I cannot recall to much of the ride to the hospital because of how late it was but I do remember arriving at the hospital. When we got there, the first thing they did was get x-rays and then transferred me to a waiting room. After about 10-15 minutes the doctor came in and told me that I fractured my patella.

After discussing with the doctor, which felt like forever, they transferred me to another hospital. Here they told me just about the same material that the last hospital told me and applied a brace to my leg so i could go home. The next day I went in to get a cast put on my leg and unfortunately I had to get a full-leg cast. The good news that I received was that at the moment i did not need surgery and we were going to wait it out and let my knee recover on its own. Now this was very good news but for the next 3 months I had a cast on my leg being switched every so often, partially immobilizing me. After 3 months of walking around with crutches, they did more x-rays and my fracture was healed but that was just the beginning. While i was in a cast for three months I did not use my leg at all and this caused something called atrophy. My right leg was indisputably half the size of my left leg. They gave me a brace to start my recovery and physical therapy.

Here’s to another 3 painful months of recovery. I went to physical therapy sessions 2 times a week and worked on my leg. After my physical therapy, my leg still took some time to get back to its normal state. Today I still have occasional pain in my right knee and I will unfortunately have that pain for a long time.