One Family, Three Injuries: A Torn ACL, a Hip Fracture, and a Mom Who Put Herself Last
/Two kids. Same family. Same stretch of life.
One was a dancer who had finally made the competitive team she'd wanted for years. The other was a baseball player with college dreams.
"Am I ever gonna dance again?"
"All I thought about was, 'Wow, I'm not gonna be able to play baseball.'"
This is the story of Gina and her two kids, Taylor and Alyssa. Three people, three very different injuries, and one physical therapist, Dr. Wayne Wu, who helped all three of them find their way back.
When sports are who you are
Taylor is a high school senior who plays baseball and played football for three years. Alyssa is a high school sophomore who has danced since she was about two and started cheer in 9th grade. Their mom Gina is a second grade teacher, a dance mom, and a baseball mom.
If you want to understand why an injury hits a young athlete so hard, listen to how they describe their sport:
"Sports are kinda my identity." (Taylor)
"Dance is definitely like a safe space for me." (Alyssa)
When an injury takes that away, it doesn't just take away a game. It takes away a piece of who they are. Good care has to treat both.
Two days, not six weeks
The family first found HealthFit when Taylor hurt his back lifting weights as a freshman. Gina started calling around.
"Everything was like a four to six week wait, and we called HealthFit, and they got him in two days after. And then from that point on is when we met Wayne, and we haven't left."
That gap matters. Getting seen early lets a clinician understand the injury while it's fresh, and it helps a young athlete learn how to move and lift the right way before bad habits settle in. As Dr. Wayne puts it:
"It's okay to take care of yourself, it's okay to slow down, it's okay to do the right things to get you where you wanna be."
Alyssa: the hip that popped
Alyssa was already feeling stress in her hip from dance when she ran the mile in PE and felt a pop, followed by intense pain.
Here's the part of her story we're most proud of: Dr. Wayne didn't try to treat it right away.
During his exam, nothing he did was helping. So he sent her to a doctor for imaging. It turned out to be a fracture.
"I'm not going to be egotistical and say, 'Hey, I can still fix this just because it's an acute injury.' I know where my limitations are."
That's what good physical therapy looks like. Knowing what you can do is important. Knowing when someone needs a different set of eyes first is just as important.
"The world's not over"
Alyssa had just made the competitive team. Her first thought was that her season was finished before it started.
Dr. Wayne's first move was a joke. His second was a calendar. He asked for the competition dates, looked at the injury, and set a real goal a few months out, with small milestones along the way.
"There's always a light at the end of the tunnel. We just don't know how long that tunnel is. But you have to trust me that we'll always get there."
Sitting on the sidelines was still hard. But Alyssa kept learning every piece of choreography from the side of the room, because she knew she'd be back.
Fixing the leap, not just the hip
When Alyssa returned to dance, one movement kept bothering her: pushing off her right leg into a leap.
So Dr. Wayne had her show him the exact part of the routine. They recorded it and watched it back together. Then they changed small things: keep the knee from caving in, load into the hip a little more, push off the toe.
"It wasn't just specific exercise to get her there, 'cause I knew she was strong. It was just she wasn't aware of her body."
They repeated it over and over. Then came the light bulb moment: "It doesn't hurt anymore." A little later, she texted him the same thing from practice.
Her biggest takeaway? Patience. A small ache after an injury doesn't have to mean the injury is back.
Taylor: a torn ACL and a baseball dream
In the third or fourth football game of his junior year, Taylor tore his ACL. He was angry. Baseball was his main sport, and he wanted to play in college.
"I didn't think I was gonna have the opportunity other people were getting to be seen by colleges."
He figured he'd be out a year or longer. He started with Dr. Wayne a couple of weeks after surgery. And before building any exercises, Dr. Wayne asked him a question: do you want to play football next year, or focus on baseball?
"I had to know what his goals were to kinda get him where he needed to be."
Not a guessing game
Here's how Dr. Wayne describes Taylor's rehab:
"A lot of it wasn't just a guessing game. It was laying out a plan. It was testing his quad strength, and there are certain numbers that you have to hit with your quad strength, your hamstring strength to make sure that you can jump, you can run, you can cut, you can pivot."
But numbers weren't the only test. He also watched how Taylor moved, looking for compensation and for fear of using the knee.
That approach is backed by research. In a 2016 study in the British Journal of Sports Medicine (Kyritsis and colleagues), professional athletes who returned to sport without meeting all 6 return-to-sport criteria had about 4 times the risk of re-rupturing their ACL graft. The same study linked weaker hamstrings compared to the quads with a higher chance of re-tearing.
In other words: when it comes to going back after an ACL, test, don't guess.
Taylor did the work at home and in the clinic, early mornings and late nights. He's back playing baseball, and his confidence came back with him.
"You put in this work. I'll put in my work, and then at the very end, we know we can get you there. And there's gonna be some bumps along the road." (Dr. Wayne)
Every ACL recovery is different. Timelines depend on the surgery, the athlete, the sport, and how the testing goes. The goal isn't to beat a calendar. It's to pass the tests that say the knee is ready.
Gina: the mom who put herself last
Gina isn't a competitive athlete. She does Pilates, stands and bends all day in a classroom, and spends her afternoons at games and practices.
One day she missed a step getting into her car and jammed her hip. She figured she was strong enough to stretch through it. It kept lingering.
"Working around their schedules, I didn't have much time to think about myself."
If you're a parent, you've probably said that sentence too.
What changed?
"A relief. I definitely had a lot of relief from the first 10 minutes with him. I realized this isn't gonna be forever."
Dr. Wayne explains that her day (standing, bending, then Pilates on top) pulls her body in different directions. Aches pop up. That's normal. What matters is having the right tools to bounce back.
"I throw out my back every once in a while, and that's a normal thing, but it's how we really get back from that."
What a mom saw change
When we asked Gina what she saw change in her kids, she had to stop for a moment.
"He went from thinking he couldn't do anything anymore, to building the confidence to be even stronger. When he comes home, he's a different person. You can tell that the self esteem is there."
And about Alyssa:
"Through just a little bit of patience and hard work, I saw her grow into a beautiful dancer."
PT doesn't have to feel like punishment
Taylor expected physical therapy to be someone bossing him around. What he found was different:
"I look forward to it every day 'cause I built a great friendship with Wayne."
Dr. Wayne's reply? "No, I still boss him around." Then the real answer:
"You wanna make a place enjoyable for the kids, 'cause if it's not enjoyable, they're not gonna get better. They're not gonna put their heart into it."
And from Alyssa, in her words: "1,000%, I would recommend it."
If your athlete is hurt
If your child is facing a torn ACL, a fracture, or an injury that has them scared their season (or their sport) is over, here's what to look for:
Someone who knows when to refer out, and doesn't guess.
A plan built around their sport and their goals, not a template.
Objective testing before return to sport, plus a look at how they actually move.
Care for the mental side, because the fear of getting hurt again is real.
And parents: your aches count too.
Ready to find out what's actually going on?
Visit www.healthfitinc.com to see how we care for athletes and families under one roof.
Book online at healthfitinc.com/book or call 626-365-1380.
Ask about a sports injury evaluation. We start by finding the source and the cause, then build a plan for your athlete.
HealthFit Physical Therapy & Chiropractic 145 Vista Ave, Suite 103, Pasadena, CA 91107 | 626-365-1380
Source: Kyritsis P, Bahr R, Landreau P, Miladi R, Witvrouw E. Likelihood of ACL graft rupture: not meeting six clinical discharge criteria before return to sport is associated with a four times greater risk of rupture. British Journal of Sports Medicine. 2016;50(15):946-951. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27215935/
The information in this article is intended for general guidance only and should never be considered a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician, medical provider, or physical therapist with any questions regarding a medical condition. Individual results vary.
