Abby Breitschuh
Abby Breitschuh is a collegiate-level soccer player. She plays on the women’s soccer team at Kent State University, which is an NCAA division one school. She is going into her junior year and tore her ACL during her sophomore soccer season. She is currently twenty years old and has been playing soccer for sixteen years. Her only prior injury to the ACL year was a broken ankle in 2022. She tore her ACL when she was running during a drill at practice. Abby describes the initial sound of the tear as a loud popping sound. Her leg went fuzzy and became very stiff. After reflecting on what had just happened, she had doubts that she would not be as good of a soccer player as she was before the injury. She adds that since surgery, things have been going well, so it is nice to be positively progressing through her healing process. She did not have her ACL surgery until four weeks after the injury occurred. Dr. Matthew Prince performed her ACL surgery and it went better than expected. Dr. Prince explained to Abby that the recovery process would be long and rough in the beginning, but everything would be okay because he had created plans for her recovery. After the surgery, Dr. Prince discussed with Abby that it would be four weeks before she could walk, six months before she could run, nine months before she could run with cutting or unpredictable motion, and one whole year before her overall recovery. Her recovery protocol, at first, was to move as little as possible and to ice the knee as much as she could. A week after surgery, Abby began physical therapy three times each week. She also used a stim therapy machine that would bend her knee up to ninety degrees. She would do exercises such as single leg lifts, quad flexes, quad stretches, and hamstring stretches. Her physical therapist would stretch and massage the leg. This would help to work on her range of motion. Abby is still in her recovery process and continues to gradually improve each day.
Maggie Maher
Maggie Maher is a high school soccer player. She is going into her junior year and has been on the varsity girls' soccer team at Notre Dame Preparatory since her freshman year. She is sixteen years old and has been playing soccer for thirteen years. She tore her ACL when she was fifteen years old, and she had no prior injuries. She tore her ACL while she was playing in a soccer game. She says that her initial feeling of the tear was similar to a rubber band snapping. She heard a loud popping sound. Maggie describes that she had doubts after tearing the ACL. She was timid when going back to playing soccer because she had fears of retearing the ACL. Her surgeon was Dr. Thomas Perkins. Dr. Perkins explained to her, prior to surgery, that recovery time would be about six months or more. She would also need to do physical therapy for about five months. In her initial MRI, before surgery, a meniscus tear showed up on the scan along with the ACL tear. When Dr. Perkins performed the ACL surgery, there was no meniscus tear present. Maggie underwent physical therapy after the surgery. She explained that the physical therapy began with a slow bike ride for about five minutes. Then, she would use rubber bands and do hip workouts. She would also use a blood flow restriction machine that would squeeze her leg while she worked out. This helped to work on strengthening her knee. Maggie also did exercises such as wall sits and box step-ups. Lastly, she would ice the knee. As her knee became stronger, the workouts increased in difficulty. She adds that she sometimes worries about reinjuring the same knee and even the other one. She says that it can affect her playing ability at times. During these moments, she will play more timid and less aggressive because of this. Today, she feels that her knee health is much better. She states that sometimes the knee can feel a bit weird at times, but overall it is stronger. Maggie believes that it took about nine months before she became one hundred percent confident in the knee.