A different anniversary

Today is the 10th anniversary of when I got my knee surgery.

I have no idea why I remember things like this yet I can't tell you what happened in the last book I read, but there you have it.

For 10 years I've had a pretty big scar on my knee that for a few months caused me to be pretty self-conscious. After another few months I grew into accepting the scar, and now I flat out just don't notice it until people point it out and ask me about it (which, for the record, I am totally cool with). I do notice other peoples' scars, though, and then we bond over being ACL buddies. 4life.

When the surgeon went in to repair my torn ligament, he saw that the cartilage was so messed up that it was beyond repair. And so he took it out. I now have no cartilage in my right knee, which means I am strictly forbidden from running and taking stairs unless I want to have arthritis at 30. I don't. This, along with the fact that there is a tiny spot on my knee that never regained feeling after the operation, and the thankfully very rare bout of pain, are really the only ways in which the surgery affected me. So hip hip to that. Plus, I like to think that the scar gives me character.

If I'm going to have an "injury" for 10 years (as I am forever saying I have a bad knee, because it's sort of, kind of technically true), this is a pretty good one to have.

And in case anyone cares, I tore my ACL doing hurdles at a high school track meet. After I hobbled off the track, I started crying. Not from the pain, but because I was in the lead when I fell and I would have won. Not that it really mattered, since even though I had only competed in one meet, I did well enough (i.e. I came in first out of all 3 schools competing) that I still lettered in track that year. God I'm awesome.