I tore ligaments and hair line fractured a bone in my foot in 2010....which didn't get treated at the ER. They told me "Well, since you can walk on it, it's probably not broken. But due to the swelling we can't say there aren't any hairlines."
Well, I sat out for about 4 months, when I returned I had constant pain in my ankle. Went to the doctor who sent me to get an MRI done. Due to waiting to get into the MRI and then waiting for results, about a year had gone by (so around August 2011). Came to find out, that I had a hematoma in my ankle the entire time and they couldn't decipher if the pain was coming from the ligaments or the joint itself.
Orthopedic surgeon I was at gave me a shot of pain killers into the ankle joint which would help reveal what was causing the pain.
Well, I went through the season with this (the pain meds last for about 3 months) and the rest of the time I just fought through it since we had nationals etc.
I finally went back to my doctor early 2012 who told me "Did you go to your 6 month re-check MRI?" "Um, what??" No one had told me I was supposed to go back after 6months to get it rechecked. So MRI #2 was done. After getting the results, my doctor sent me to a surgery center for further consultation.
While talking to the orthopedic surgeon there, she told me that due to all the trauma to my ankle, all of the cartilage etc. in my ankle joint had died off and the problem was that the bones were rubbing on nothing.
A few weeks later, I had ankle surgery (July 2012) which removed all of the dead tissue in my ankle, cleaned up the torn and frayed ligaments and drilled a hole into the bone in my leg which should generate regrowth of something to replace the removed tissue. I'm not exactly sure how it all works, but afterwards I was on crutches for 8 weeks, with physical therapy. BTW, my surgery was with local anesthesia, so I got to watch everything on the screen! Haha, that was weird but cool.
I still have no returned back to cheer, but hoping to get into open gym starting next week. We'll see how my ankle takes to being back in.