I thought I'd share my story of my injury and recovery. Might inspire some people and show some light towards the end of the tunnel.

I tore my ACL in September 2014. It was just another game of social touch at my local fields and before I subbed I thought I'd have one more run. Took the ball and put a step on and BANG! I felt like I'd been shot in the leg. Ive never broken a bone or any other type of massive injury and I deadset thought I broke my knee cap or something. It was horrible.

I went to the doctors the next day and he told me to have 4 weeks off and then get back into running. I feel as though I should have done some of my own research at that stage because 4 weeks later I went straight back to touch and ran one ball up and heard another snap. So looking back on it now the first tear must have been a partial tear, which wouldn't have required surgery. The next snap was a full tear.

I read over and over about ACL tears and read it was really hard to come back from (that's from elite athletes who have access to state of the art equipment and physio). So my outlook on ever playing sports again was very low.

I had my surgery in February 2015 through the public system. Everything went well and I started my physio. 2 times a week and exercises at home. Returned to work after 6 weeks off and continued exercises at work.

I began running again September 2015. I looked up heaps of forums and studied ACL tears everyday. Learning everything I could to make sure I could play sports again. Whilst running and doing agility and plyometrics by knee was still sore. It just didn't feel right. I then paid for an MRI to just clear my mind and it brought up a meniscus tear. This required surgery and at that stage I had private health so went in a month later. This recovery was no where near as bad. I walked out of the hospital and continued more rehab. knee length lace wedding dresses

I returned to league in March 2016. My next step of recovery was the mental game. It's really tough running into players and not thinking about your knee. But after about 4-5 weeks I was back to my old self. I had a follow up in April with my surgeon who repaired my meniscus and he said my meniscus was great and my acl was perfect. It had intact healed bigger then my original acl. So my knee clicks all the time and that's the acl hitting the inside edge of my knee.

I played touch again in September 2016 and everything was great. I played league again this year and won my first ever grand final with our local team that I love. They provided a good support base for my when I did my knee and wanted my involved in the team no matter what. So getting a grand final win after all the shit was awesome.

I went from thinking I'd never play footy again to playing in a grand final and winning. It is a tough slog but stick to your exercises, get your legs nice and strong and don't push yourself and you'll get there. Slow and steady wins the race with this injury.

If anyone has any questions I'd be happy to answer any!

Good luck to Sandor and anyone else starting rehab!