Peyton Ackley - The Beginning of Change

Chapter 4 - ACLs

"Eight hours down, two more to go," I kept repeating to myself as I prepared for my next patient. I'd been at work since 8 am, and it was only 4 pm, I still had two hours to go, but thankfully all my patients today had been relatively easy. Some more strained muscles, and once again people who neglected to strengthen their ankles during training. 

It was honestly quite repetitive, constantly telling people the same exercises to do, and giving massages to loosen their non-stretched muscles. These people call themselves 'athletes', but they really don't care for themselves. The only outcome of these repetitive injuries is that they started giving me ideas for my dissertation. I could study the impacts of certain exercises on CFLs or ATFLs, or look at different kinds of therapy in helping certain muscle strains. There were so many repetitive injuries in sports that I could look at, I just wasn't sure which one.

My next appointment slot arrived so I stuck my head out into the waiting room, "Maya Lewis". A teenage girl stood up from her seat and headed over towards me. "Hi," I greeted her but she just responded with a muted smile.

"Is that your mum?" I asked referencing the women she had been sitting with.

"Yes, but she doesn't need to come," Maya replied.

"Okay, let's head through then," I said leading her back towards my room.

She immediately sat up on the edge of the bed, since it was her first appointment with me I had to ask her some questions before we started. Turns out she was one of Olivia's patients who had been transferred to me when I started here three weeks ago.

"So you were seeing Olivia before?" I asked.

"Yeah, and then they got a new sports physiotherapist and I got moved, simple," she spoke in a very dull tone.

"Can you tell me a bit about your injury? I'm assuming some muscle or ligament related if you're visiting sports physios?"

"Yeah," Maya replied, "I ruptured my ACL about 8 months ago, my left knee." 

My breath hitched, and I think she picked up on it, but I let her continue.

"I've been back walking and running for a while but I'm still here trying to go back to sports."

"Oh yeah, what do you play?" I asked innocently.

"Football."

My heart broke, I knew at some point I'd get a footballing ACL but three weeks into the job was sooner than I'd expected. 

Turns out Maya had picked up on my personality shift, "are you okay?" she asked.

"Yeah, just footballing ACLs are something close to me. So what have you been doing with Olivia in preparation for a return to football?"

"Just some exercises to strengthen my ACL and my entire leg again," Maya replied.

"Do you want to test your ACL strength today then?" I asked out of curiosity. 

Her face visibly lightened, "we can test it?"

"Yeah we can, and depending on how it goes we will see how close you are to a sporting return." Maya immediately jumped off the bed excited to start. We went out into the gym area where we had space to move. I marked a point on the floor and stretched out a measuring tape across the floor before I started explaining the process. 

"I'm going to get you started at this first mark," I said pointing at the spot I needed her to stand. "Now I need you to do the biggest single leg hop you can muster on your right leg."

"I injured my left though?"

"I need to test the right leg first to have something to compare it to," I explained to which she quickly agreed. After taking a second she leapt as far as she could leaving and landing on her right leg. I marked the point at which she landed and made her walk back to the original spot.

"Now I need you to do that again, but on your left." She looked rather hesitant but eventually started to muster up the courage. "I need you to know that I wouldn't be getting you to do this if I didn't think you were ready. The way this works is if you are within ten percent of your original jump you are getting close to full remission."

Her face began to brighten again as she swung her arms to make the jump. She landed as stable as she did on her right leg which was a good start. I measured out the second mark and started doing some calculations.

"Ten percent."

"What?" she muttered back.

"You're at ten percent."

"So what does that mean? I can go back to football?" she asked excitedly.

"Statistically yes, but I want you to continue strengthening your leg for four weeks. It sounds like a lot but considering how far you've come four weeks isn't that much further. I'm going to give you some exercises to help strengthen the specific parts of your leg that you are lacking. When you make the five percent mark, I will let you return to football."

Maya looked rather deflated after the decision to not let her play, but after hearing the plan she began to perk up again. "Can I ask you a question?" she mumbled under her breath.

"Go ahead," I replied expecting nothing big.

"Why are ACLs close to your heart, and why footballing ACLs?" she asked.

She must have seen my change in body language because she quickly retracted her question, but I decided to answer her anyway.

"You're seventeen, right?" I asked which she nodded in response to.

"I played football... from the age of five to, well seventeen. At seventeen years old I ruptured my ACL, funnily enough, my left one just like you. I did physio for what seemed like ages but I didn't seem to be recovering at the normal rate, after around ten months I was finally given the clear to return to football. I did the same test you just did and I was at fifteen percent."

I was cut off, "but you need to be at ten percent," Maya said.

"Exactly. I wasn't at ten percent, and I went back to playing full-out at one of the top sporting schools in Australia. I was going to go professional now that I think about it, I was being scouted left, right and centre. In my first game back I stepped onto the pitch and had a great first half. I'd returned to training for around two weeks before that game and everything felt okay," I continued to tell her with emphasis on 'okay'.

I could tell Maya was stressed but she nodded her head for me to keep going.

"The second half began and I kicked off, I made a break through the back line and with no contact on my body I went down. Everyone was confused at first because no one made contact with me, but I wasn't getting back up. As soon as my captain asked what happened I immediately knew it was my ACL and my career was over. I've never played football again, I've been too scared to, well in actual fact I'm not meant to return to football." Maya looked terrified at that moment, she was slightly shaking so I took her hand in mine, "Five percent and you will be set to return, I promise."

Her smile returned and she gave me a tight hug, "thank you," she whispered. It was the end of her appointment so she hopped up and began to walk out of the room with a newfound spring in her step. 

I stuck my head around the corner and called out, "I've sent you the exercises you need to do, see you next week". She spun around nodding waved goodbye as she left, her mum looked confused but left it as is. If I can help even one person feel that happy about her injury and her recovery, I don't even want to know what else I could do with this job.

WORDS: 1317

a/n: hey guys do we like longer (2000 - 3000 word) chapters or shorter (1000 - 2000 word) chapters, atm it seems like a lot of shorter ones but I'll see what happens later into the book, hope you're enjoying