The doctor says, "Nathan, we think we know what's wrong with your knee." A thousand thoughts are going through my mind, Finally, they're going to find out what's doing this. But also, What if it's really bad and they can't do anything to fix it? Adrenaline from both excitement and terror rushes through my body.

A fellow football player tosses me the ball; it's my turn to do the drill. There are six hitting bags lined up side by side. The point of the drill is to work on agility and tackling. What a player needs to do is run up to the first pair of bags and hit the other player and do this until the last pair. At the end the player with out the ball will try to tackle the player with the ball.

The coach yells, "Hut!" and i take off. My opposing player is huge for a twelve-year-old. He is at least five foot nine and maybe up to two hundred pounds, whereas i am at five foot five and one hundred and fifty pounds; a big difference. I go to the first bag and the other player hits me hard. The second pair of bags, I hit him harder. At the final set of bags, he goes for the tackle. I feel like I'm moving in slow-motion. I take a step to the left and then quickly to the right. This is called a juke. Unfortunately, my move doesn't work and he tackles me at the knee, which bends awkwardly sideways. I stay on the ground for a while but then decide to walk it off. Within a couple of minutes I am running again and the rest of my practice goes smoothly.

The morning after practice, I wake up with a great deal of pain and swelling in my left knee. I sit out of practice for the day and go to the doctor the following week.

The doctor thinks I have ligament damage in my knee and orders an MRI to be sure. The MRI takes over forty minutes, which seems like hours and hours. The MRI specialist says the results will not come back for a while.

The results come back with only a minor injury to the ligament and cartilage and the specialist says it shouldn't hurt very bad and that the pain will probably disappear it the very near future.

After two weeks, the pain gets worse and my mom brings me to the E.R. The doctor gives me crutches and gets me an appointment with Dr. Stuart at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota; eight miles north of the city of Stewartville in which I live.

Dr. Stuart goes over my MRI results and catches a glimpse of a spot in the upper right hand corner and finds a lump my knee's relative spot. He orders another MRI right away and schedules it a week after the appointment. With another long, boring MRI they capture the lump by using a marker to know where to look. The MRI results are frightening.

The Dr. Stuart says, "Nathan, we think we know what's wrong with your knee." A thousand thoughts are going through my mind, Finally, they're going to find out what's doing this. But also, What if it's really bad and they can't do anything to fix it? Adrenaline form both excitement and terror rushes through my body.

"Nathan, you have Pigmented Villonodular Synovitis, or PVNS. PVNS is a one in a million disease. Basically, it acts like a cancer, not deadly, but it is uncontrolled cell growth that is destroying you joint lining.

"this disease will require surgery and we can schedule it now." My parents and Dr. Stuart now schedule the nearest date possible.

The surgery went well and I had to stay out of school for a week. All I could think about was how much it sucked. However, overtime and now, almost three years later, I feel stupid for feeling so sorry for myself. I am more aware that there are people and kids my age and younger in this world have it far, far worse. I just need to tell myself that sometimes when I start feeling sorry form myself. I hope you realize that also, no matter who you are or what's happening to you, it could always be worse.