Patient Experiences

Successful ACL Reconstruction for 11-Year-Old Athlete

I tore my ACL playing football on 10/16/10. For an 11-year-old, the last thing you want to hear is an 8-month recovery and surgery. Oh yeah, and I can't play any sports in that time period. It really stunk, especially because I played football, basketball, swimming, baseball, and Tae Kwon Do. I had surgery December 1, 2010, with Dr. Cole. Surgery is a bummer, but I had some of the best doctors and physical therapists I could have hoped for. Today, I'm back to doing everything that I had been doing, thanks to them.

I went to physical therapy two or three times a week for six months, along with leg exercises at home. Not exactly easy, but I really didn't have anything better to do. Over time, I had occasional visits with Dr. Cole, and every time I did better than the last, so the procedure went well and so did physical therapy. Thank goodness.

Nowadays, I'm running every day I can, along with fully participating in physical education at school. Also, I'll be able to participate in sports fully without a brace. I barely even think about my knee or injury anymore, though some things are a little awkward after not doing them since October.

The key to sticking it through is to keep a positive outlook, and think about what you'll do when you're recovered.

What I learned from this experience was that you don't know how good you have it until it's gone. I heard it before, but I always thought it was kind of pointless, that you did know how good you had it. Boy was I wrong. When I couldn't run, I wished I could, to say the least. That was all I could think about; running again. But thanks to Dr. Cole, now that's a reality.

Thanks one more time to Dr. Cole, the best doctor I could have asked for to get my knee back to normal.

    — Sam Wittwer

From a Mom's Perspective

As a former patient of Dr. Cole's, I knew he was the first person I was going to contact when we got Sam's torn ACL diagnosis. I emailed him to ask him if he would be able to help Sam, being that Sam is so young. Shortly after I sent my email, Dr. Cole called me to discuss Sam's diagnosis.

From diagnosis to recovery, I could not have hand-picked a better team of people to care for my son. Seeing your child injured is one of the most difficult things to experience. With Dr. Cole there is no question in my mind that Sam had the best care available, which put my mind at ease throughout the entire journey.

I now watch Sam running around and doing all the activities and sports he loves, and I can't fully express my gratitude to Dr. Cole for everything he and his team at Rush have done for us.