Road to Recovery: Dimitri Rucker ACL Knee Rehab

I'm Dimitri Rucker and I attend Whitfield School. I'm currently in my junior year in school and I am also a part of the basketball team. The season is now officially over for us but even before districts, my season was over on the seventh game of the season due to a serious injury.

I remember the day. December 14th, 2012 was the day where I hyper-extended my knee playing against Ritneour high school. That's the day when my junior year changed, and also my basketball career. The week after the injury, I went to the doctor to get it checked out. The doctor did all the general tests to see what the diagnosis would be. The original thought of what the injury would be was a torn meniscus, but then the MRI came in. Everyone, even myself, couldn't believe how serious the injury was; even the doctor was puzzled. Resulting from the injury from the previous week, I tore my ACL in my left knee.

I couldn't believe what happened, especially since I was having a good start to the season. Everyone kept coming up to me saying, "Oh my goodness! I'm so sorry to hear about your incident! Hang in there!" I didn't want people to feel sorry for me. It just didn't help me and the state of mind I was in. Instead of feeling sorry for myself, I took this experience as something to grow from. I wanted to have surgery as soon as possible so I could get back to what I love to do. That passion that I miss so much is to play Basketball.

I underwent surgery on January 2nd, 2013. I was in bed for about four days, but when I had my first rehab session following those days, I knew it was time for me to start on a long road. Ever since that first day of therapy, I have been dedicated to school, supporting my friends and what they do, and of course most important of all, getting my knee back to normal and even stronger than before.

It is now February 21st, 2013, and I never thought I would be where I am today. Today I went to physical therapy, and I finally see the results of how this past month and these few weeks have paid off. I finally have full mobility of my knee with a total of 141 degrees of extension. This was my first milestone that I planned to reach, and I did just that. This hasn't been an easy journey and it's far from over. I just wanted to take the time today to thank everyone who has supported me and has encouraged me to get better everyday.

My high school basketball coach, coach Mike Potsou, gave me a speech just last week about how I will come back better and stronger. He told me as I sat in our locker room after our last home game feeling very upset and distraught because I can't stand watching basketball games anymore since I cannot play, "Remember this feeling that you have and how angry you are. Let that drive you to work hard everyday and motivate you to come back even stronger as a person and as a basketball player." Of course this injury has set me back a lot and made a conflict in my life, but I don't focus on the negatives of the situation, just the positives. This has truly been a special day for me and I just wanted to express myself on how blessed I am to have such a wonderful recovery from this injury. To everyone who has supported me from the jump of this journey, I just want to let you know it's far from over and it will only become better.