Vincent Piarulli

In late September of 2022, I sustained an injury in school when I fell playing soccer. It was a major knee injury which also had effects on my foot. The injury that I had was a posterolateral corner (PLC) injury, which involves the tendons and ligaments on the outer side of the knee. When I first had my accident, I had tons of pain in my knee. I also had a shooting pain that felt like pins and needles down my leg to my foot and I could not lift my foot up or go outwards - just down and inwards. All of this occurred and left me confused as my foot wasn't directly in the impact of my fall and not injured directly.

In the preceding days, I went through testing and imaging, which led us to the conclusion that I would need knee reconstruction surgery, as well as a fibula fracture repair and a hamstring repair. As for my foot, I was told that I had severely damaged my peroneal nerve, which left me with a deficit of motion as explained before. I was told to wait out time after my first surgery to see if there would be any regain of function.

Fast forward 8 months, I had wrapped up recovery from my first surgery, which came with a long and tedious recovery, and was still left with the drop foot. I was using a big bulky AFO brace to walk which was getting annoying as this wasn't what I imagined my life to be like as a 17 year old.

This is when I made the choice to visit HSS for a consultation with Dr. Levine to discuss options that would work for me. Bracing was no longer an option for me as I didn't accept it anymore, which opened up the discussion to surgical options. The surgery that we were going to do was a tendon transfer, which would move good strong tendons to the top of my foot from the inside of my foot, in hopes that the muscle power would be redistributed to make me be able to move my foot up and down, and regain a sense of normalcy.

Without hesitation, I booked a date for this surgery. I was excited at what could be again and could not wait to see my foot move once again. In late May of 2023, I had my tendon transfer and went home in little pain. Over the next few days my pain was manageable and treated very well at home, as I was able to go home the same day of surgery. Two weeks later I went back to have my stitches and splint removed and I was placed in a walking boot, but was not able to bear weight for another four weeks (six weeks total). Upon that first visit back, Dr. Levine asked me to try and move my foot when the splint was removed. I gave it a shot and my foot flickered. It wasn't much but for the first time in almost a year, I saw something.

Weeks went by, and every day I got stronger and my foot would move a little more. With therapy and nonstop trying to move and practice lifting, my foot had regained a lot of movement and strength/stability.

As I sit today, my foot is moving, almost to the same level as before, and I can not be thankful enough for Dr. Levine and his team at HSS for what they gave me. I went from a drop foot with no motion in a brace to a braceless foot, which is strong and can move very well up and down.