Kelly Sabers

In Kelly Sabers ‘14’s case, doctors do not know the specifics of her injury. Some say it could be hereditary while others say it could have been caused by the medicine she took for her seizures when she was younger. But in the past four years, Sabers has had knee surgery on both legs.

“I had this same surgery done freshman year, so I kind of knew what to expect with the surgery,” Sabers said. “I’m not really sure what’s wrong with my knees, they think it’s genetic, but I don’t really know exactly how I got it.”

This past November, Sabers had an anteromedialization of the tibial tubercle done on her right knee. In this surgery, a piece of her tibia where the patella tendon connects was cut and moved up and over to move her kneecap higher in order to not have as much pressure on it. Her kneecap and tibia are now held in place with three screws.

“How [the doctors] put it was, [my cartilage] was like butter and it’s supposed to be like a pillow,” she said. “So it was basically almost down to bone on bone.”

After the surgery, Sabers was out of school for a week, upon which she could not put any pressure on her leg. She was told that she would not be able to bear weight for four to six weeks. Three weeks after the surgery however, she began going to physical therapy three times a week.

“The worst thing was that after the surgery my quad shut off so I had to basically re-teach it to work,” Sabers said. “And so I’ve been going to physical therapy and doing electric stem cell therapy each time for 15 seconds to wake up the muscle.”

Having these surgeries has lead to Sabers having limited participation in sports, mainly track and field. Her freshman year she had her first surgery on her left leg, taking her out for the season. During her junior season she had to have her screws removed and this season Sabers will still be recovering during the beginning of the season.

“This year when I decided I’d get the surgery, I was bummed,” Sabers said. “But then, I had to think of the rest of my life. I know track seems like a big part of my life right now, but I have to think about if I want to be healthy the rest of my life.”

Although Sabers has not been able to fully participate in track, getting these surgeries done will improve her activity in the long run.

“They told me that I’m going to have to limit what I do for the rest of my life, you know, not run marathons or long distances, and no squatting just to preserve my knee as much as possible because if I don’t, I’ll have to get a knee replacement,” Sabers said. “It was a bummer but then I tried to think of people with worse situations than me, I just have to think of the bigger picture.”