ROCHESTER, N.Y. — Wearing a brace every day was something 12-year-old Celene never thought about until about five months ago.

“I remember feeling this pain like shot through my leg and I was like, 'oh what was that?'” said 12-year-old Celine Arikkat.

She was running down the basketball court when she tripped and tore her ACL

“I didn’t even know what an ACL tear was,” Celene said. “I was like, 'oh it’s probably not that.'"

“It was only when we were referred to Dr. Lander, when we met and talked to her, that’s when we realized how long the recovery would take and what recovery entails and even that there are two different options when it comes to the surgery itself,” said Anu Arikkat, Celine’s mother.

Dr. Sarah Lander, an orthopedic surgeon with UR Medicine, has seen a rise in ACL injuries, especially in preadolescents who she says have growth plates within their knee, which can be affected by the ACL surgery performed on adults.

“The adult ACL procedure involves drilling through both the thigh bone as well as the shin bone and then we secure the graft to replace the ACL that’s torn, through those drill holes," said Dr. Lander. "In the pediatric procedure, we take a different graft but from their own body, so still has all of that great healing potential, and we pretty much replace it by weaving it through the joint system and so we can avoid those growth plates."

“I think the biggest pro is that it doesn’t affect her growth plates,” Anu Arikkat said. “It's bad enough that she sustained an injury. We don’t want the injury to have a permanent effect on her growth or whatever it is.”

And since her pediatric procedure, Celine can see and feel the progress she’s making

“After surgery, the first four weeks was very slow for me, I could barely do anything and I had crutches, but after that, it started to get faster and now I feel like I can do a lot,” she said.

“I think she will make a complete and full recovery and we are looking forward to the day when she can return to playing basketball. I think we’ll have a celebration,” Celene’s mother said.