When you hear the word “surgery” many thoughts go through your mind.

Personally, I was very uneasy and concerned about how I would have to be wearing a very immodest hospital gown and was told by multiple people that I could NOT wear any of my clothing under it.

I wouldn’t have had to worry about this, but an unexpected event happened and changed everything. On June 8, I was taking my sisters dog ‘Bean’ out to go to the bathroom before we headed to Worlds of Fun for the night. Little did I know that my night would be ending very different from my original plans.

Bean ended up getting loose, so I was running to chase after her and the next thing I know is that I am on the ground crying. I tried to stand up but every time I stood up and took a step my knee felt like it would crumble, and I would go down. Luckily my neighbor was outside, and she came to my rescue.

She brought bean inside and she got my dad. He came over and tried to help me stand up and walk back home but that was just not happening. I was so upset and worked up that I didn’t feel like I could do it. So, my neighbor gave me her husband’s crutches to borrow and my dad pulled his truck around, so I could hobble with the crutches into his truck.

On we went to North Kansas City Hospital’s ER. My mom met us down there. I didn’t really know what to expect. We first went into an exam room and then into a bigger room with a tv. I waited there until the nurse came to take me back for x-rays. When I got my x-rays finished I got wheeled back to “my room”.

We waited for three hours which felt like an eternity. I didn’t have my phone, so I couldn’t  play games or anything, I did happen to be wearing my apple watch, so I could text my close family members what was going on. When they finally got the results back on my x-ray readings they came back to tell us the news.

I didn’t break anything, but I had a lot of fluid in and around my knee, so they couldn’t tell if anything was torn or sprained. They wrapped me up super tight with an ace bandage and gave me some new crutches and we were on our way. I was told to make an appointment with my Primary Care Physician.

My appointment was that following Tuesday. Long story short she told me I needed to do some Physical Therapy so I started PT that week. The day after my PCP appointment I could walk without my crutches. It wasn’t a good walk, but it was something. I ended up doing PT for six and a half weeks before we noticed that it was not doing very much long term.

So, I went on to get an MRI, once we got the results back from that I had an appointment with an Orthopedic Surgeon. He didn’t think anything was wrong, so he wanted to start with a hinged brace for six weeks.

After the six weeks and still not any better, he referred me to an actual surgeon. That’s when the ball really started rolling. I had my consultation with him and then three weeks later I had my surgery.

Sitting in the waiting room all these horrible thoughts go through your head. Will this really fix the problem? How long will I be asleep for? Could I have to have more surgeries? The list goes on and on.

I am sitting in the waiting room chair cuddled with my favorite fuzzy blanket crying. I did not want to go back there. After the surgery I felt super out of it, turns out my mom sent a video of me to her friend and I guess I also video called my sister while in the recovery room. After they gave me some pain meds and removed my iv I was finally able to go home.

Turns out the hospital gown was not that bad.