Of the many concerned murmurings going on the background of my own ragged panting as I writhed on the ground, that made it through to the forefront of my consciousness and blazed itself across my mind in concert with the glittering pain super-nova’ing from my left knee. I’d come down after a spike in volleyball and with a sickening sound like someone breaking a handful of carrots, my knee had buckled at 90° from the angle it’s meant to articulate.

My friend Sarah brought my bike back after I’d caught a Lyft, helped me take off my shoes and socks, and sat sympathetically while I held a bag of ice to my swollen knee. The stunned silence after all the noise and adrenaline and pain carried with it a gravity of a sentence. “Shit.”

I was supposed to ride my bike 187 miles to Vancouver that weekend. I was supposed to be getting on a plane to Peru in a month. I was supposed to...you know: be able to walk and stuff. “Maybe it’s just sprained…?” A nerve-wracking week and a half later after finally getting my MRI approved yielded the verdict of a completely ruptured ACL and torn medial and lateral menisci. “Uh...OK.” A sort of floaty, dull numbness settled over me as I slowly limped around the vacant microkitchen at work, processing what my doctor had just relayed over the phone.

Share this Story