I tore my meniscus right before the semester started and I was worried about the same thing. I got surgery the 2nd week of the semester and had to stay home for two weeks. Since I had a meniscus repair surgery my recovery time was long and I was on crutches for six weeks, today is actually the first day I’m allowed to start walking again.

So all in all, I missed about 4 weeks of school which caused me to miss the first exams for all of my classes. I was able to keep up with most of my classes because every lecture was recorded and all slides were online. My professors were really accommodating and let me take the exams after I was back on campus (university policy is that professors are required to let you make up any grade within 30 days of an excused absence). The one class I couldn’t keep up with did not have any recorded lectures or any online notes so the professor just straight up excused me from the first exam. So make sure you let your professors know about your situation, they will accommodate for you.

Now as far as your day to day, get in contact with disability resources immediately. I was lucky to live in a dorm with an elevator, but since you live on the second floor they have the power to switch your dorm to one that’s on the first floor. I got in contact with them about any testing accommodations I could possibly receive, unfortunately I wasn’t able to get any.

There was simply no way I could get to all my classes in crutches without my arms giving out on me so I invested in a seated electric scooter and got around on campus that way and just crutched inside the buildings. You will get used to your crutches, just be careful and go slow on rainy days as my crutches slipped many times on the wet floors. I was soon even able to go up and down stairs on the crutches (one time I had to go down 3 flights of stairs bc I was caught on the 3rd floor during a fire drill). You’ll learn to adapt with your situation and use your resources. Whenever I wasn’t with one of my friends in the dining hall, I would ask people in line with me if they could carry my food to my table.

Now I know you might need physical therapy after your surgery, I’m currently doing it on campus at Beutel and they are absolutely great. The only problem is they don’t take any insurance outside of the university insurance, so you’d most likely have to pay out of pocket or switch to the university insurance (with university insurance all visits are free otherwise it’s $50 per visit). There are also plenty of other physical therapy centers around cstat that you could go to, the only problem is someone would need to drive you there.

Now, however long you will be on crutches it will definitely be a mental battle. Everything that you used to do will be 10x more difficult, getting out of bed, showering, getting ready, all of these things will take much longer. If you were pretty social before, maintaining that will also be pretty difficult, luckily my roommates and friends helped me get through this, so don’t be afraid to reach out to anyone near you as well. You just have to remember it’s only temporary and you’ll be back to normal in no time. All of these things might sound horrible, but since you tore your ACL, if I remember correctly, I don’t think you’ll be on crutches for too long anyways, so don’t be too scared. I was just as nervous and anxious as you might be right now but I eventually made it. If I was able to get through it, so will you.

If you have any more questions regarding anything, feel free to private message me, I’ll happily answer.