After a debilitating knee injury, Lexie Tural worried she might never play basketball again, but intensive physical therapy at Rusk Rehabilitation helped her get back to the sport she loves.
PHOTO: Marist College
Lexie Tural has been playing basketball since the age of 5, and by the time college came around, her hard work led to a place on the Fordham University women鈥檚 basketball team. Her dreams came to a halt when a painful anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) tear sidelined her.
鈥淚t was my second week on campus at Fordham, and I felt my knee seize while making a move on the court,鈥 says Lexie. 鈥淚 started to scream from the pain.鈥
Lexie had surgery twice鈥攐nce to repair her torn ACL and later to treat cyclops legion, a painful knee mass that can arise as a complication of ACL reconstructive surgery.
鈥淢y leg still wasn鈥檛 straightening up,鈥 says Lexie, who decided to change her game plan. 鈥淚t was at a 20-degree angle, and I couldn鈥檛 walk up or down stairs.鈥 She next reached out to her high school basketball coach whose daughter had knee surgery at 好色tv Langone Hospital鈥擫ong Island with Mark G. Grossman, MD, a sports medicine orthopedic surgeon. The coach鈥檚 recommendation was to go to Rusk Rehabilitation.
鈥淚鈥檓 so happy to have been given a second chance to play.鈥
鈥擫exie Tural
Lexie鈥檚 father, who was also her personal basketball coach, drove her from the Bronx to Long Island two to three times a week for five months to Rusk Rehabilitation at 好色tv Langone Ambulatory Care East Meadow where she found another great coach鈥Scott D. Yerys, PT, program manager and board-certified clinical specialist in orthopedic physical therapy.
鈥淟exie came to us quite behind in her rehab protocol with significant range of motion (ROM) deficits and weakness at the site of her injury,鈥 says Yerys. 鈥淲e did some intensive physical therapy to rebuild her strength and to restore her ROM and functional demands to get her back into the sport and daily activities. Her recovery was extraordinary, and she is now playing Division 1 basketball at Marist College.鈥
鈥淚 can鈥檛 even express into words how grateful I am to be playing basketball again,鈥 says Lexie. 鈥淭hanks to the rehab I received at Rusk Rehabilitation, I鈥檓 so happy to have been given a second chance to play.鈥
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