Seven years ago I dislocated my kneecap for the first time. I was tumbling at cheerleading practice and landed with a locked left knee. My left patella popped to the outside of my leg, but thankfully went back into place. It swelled almost instantly. My coached carried me out to my mom's car and we went to the hospital. I was in physical therapy for about three months to regain flexibility and strength and then released, good as new. That was my sophomore year of high school; I wore a knee brace for the rest of my high school career and into college, just to be safe.

During my first semester of college I was on the cheer team and continued to wear the brace through practices and games, despite the fact that it smelled like the inside of a boy's gym bag because of the Texas heat. While my coach knew about our previous injuries, there was no reason for her to be on us about taking care of them. Athletes know themselves. So I decided to not wear the brace sometimes. When I wouldn’t wear it my kneecap would slide around like when you try to get the last pickle out a jar. It dislocated so many times, although it would scare me, it quit hurting after a few times.

I moved back to Montana for my sophomore year of college. I made friends and we would go out dancing sometimes. Almost everytime I would be the girl falling over on the dance floor because my kneecap would dislocate in the middle of the Cotton-Eyed-Joe. I made an appointment and went to my orthopedic doctor for a consultation. He told me I had dislocated it so many times the ligament that holds it in place was stretched out and needed to be tightened. He also told me that he would only do the surgery if I was done cheering. Forever. I agreed and had surgery that winter. Crutches and snow are not a good combination, FYI.

The physical therapist I had to go to was not associated with my doctor, but he was the only one around. He tried to release me after two months of rehab, while this surgery has at least a six-month window of recovery. I told my doctor and he gave me things to do on my own. It worked out fine and I was functioning, but only regained 65-70% of strength in my left leg.

Two years later my knee started grinding when I would go upstairs or swivel around a corner walking down a hallway, and running was almost impossible. My previous surgeon had retired so I went to a different one. I did six weeks of physical therapy to make sure I wasn’t just weak. They decided it was more than weakness; Through MRI’s and X-Rays’s, they found out I was born without a groove for my kneecaps to sit in, hence the dislocation. The relation between my hips and legs is 30 degrees hyperextended. Something that wasn’t going to fix itself, so we scheduled another surgery. Again, in winter. Crutches and snow aren’t any easier the second time.

This time, they replaced the medial patella ligament, which holds your kneecap in place, with a cadaver ligament. That released my IT band, which runs from your hip to ankle and works with your quads to provide stability to the outside of the knee joint during movement, to help with flexibility. And for the grand finale, they did a Tibial Tubercle Osteotomy. TTO is when your shin bone is cut into, moved, to the left in my case, and screwed into the new spot to help with patella dislocations and hyperextension.

After five hours of surgery, the surgeon told my parents I needed the surgery seven years ago but better late than never. I woke up in excruciating pain, that they said wasn’t going to happen. But it was fine, I was just thankful I didn’t wake up during the procedure. I’ve been in physical therapy twice a week for the past seven months. But hopefully, I’ll be released at my next appointment in a few days. I’ve learned many things throughout this journey that I hope to never embark on again.

What Not To Do:

- Have surgery in winter.

I went ice skating in my parking lot more times than one, with a knee brace locked at zero degrees.

- Watch Grey’s Anatomy before.

- YouTube videos of the surgery you're going to have.

- 'Forget' to tell your parents about a new tattoo until you put on the hospital gown and are being rolled back to the operating room. They won't be happy.

- Live alone.

I realized how far away the trash can was and sometimes slept with the lights on because the light switch was too far away.

How do you stay positive when all you can do is sit around?

I chose to do it. I could have continued living in pain. The surgery was already done. Yeah, it sucked but, there was no reason cry about it because once the tears stopped I would still be on crutches and in pain. It felt like the pain would never end. It felt like I was never going to walk again. Focusing too much on what is happening at the time, and not what was going to happen in the future really got me down sometimes. But I'm seven months out and can run away from Missoula's homeless just fine now.