- March 11, 2019 I am so thankful for the fantastic work Dr. Brian Cole has done over the past two years. I can't say enough about how lucky I am. After each of my last two injuries, Dr. Cole fixed and rebuilt my knee even stronger.
In fall 2017, I tore my ACL and LCL while playing football and underwent surgery with Dr. Cole to repair both ligaments. I had just finished the recovery process from this surgery when I injured the same leg again after successfully returning back to football. As a football player, any injury can be devastating, but this second injury jeopardized everything.
The game was wet and muddy, and I was running with the football when I heard a click. I watched my leg snap backward and sideways. I prayed that somehow it was just an awkward landing. As I tried to stand, the worst pain I've ever felt shot through my leg into my foot. I knew at that point it was happening again. I tore my LCL off of the bone, broke my fibular head, tore my ACL, and severely sprained both my MCL and PCL. I felt my heart shatter and my mind go blank. I was nothing but an empty shell.
Four months after surgery with Dr. Cole to repair these injuries, I am already jumping and running stronger than before. I even reached 18 mph on the curve treadmill after completing a workout prior. See my video to prove it! I know I have a long road ahead of me, but I couldn’t ask for anything more than my loving family, faith, friends, and a determination to prove I can do it and come back stronger than before.
Dealing with losing the rest of my senior football season and possible career was the hardest part of the injury. It felt like 17 years of hard, dirty, emotional and painful work was stripped away like it was nothing. The hardest thing was accepting the fact that it would take a lot of time to become an athlete again. Being told to slow up or take a break from working out drove me insane, but if anything was learned from this whole process, it is the virtue of patience.
Now I am interested in the recovery process and I have a passion to help others who are going through the same challenges required to recovery from injury. I made the choice of attending Olivet Nazarene University to major in exercise science and have been blessed to be a member of their Track and Field team!! Thanks to Dr. Cole and his entire staff for their expertise and their caring hearts they showed me and my family.
I will be forever grateful!!
