Told it was unfixable — walked down the aisle and danced at her wedding.

Watch Seyward's story

In Seyward's words

"She fixed a thing that I thought was unfixable."

So when I was about 12 or 13 I was playing catch with my dad, and when I stepped to throw the ball my kneecap dislocated. And I saw a series of doctors who basically said, "Hey, some people have trick knees, there's not much we can do — keep your muscles strong, stay fit."

So I came to see Dr. Strickland, and within about five minutes in the appointment she had diagnosed me but also said, "I can fix this. We can make you better." Which was the first time anyone had ever told me that. She couldn't even actively get her leg fully straight because her kneecap was so unstable and so painful.

A major priority was to get her walking down the aisle and dancing at her wedding. All I wanted to be able to do was walk down the aisle, dance a little bit. I really do love to dance. You know — just feel like I was really enjoying my wedding and I wasn't impaired in any way.

I had to break the front of her bone and do what's called the tibial tubercle osteotomy and realign her knees so that her patella could track at the right place. I had to do an MPFL reconstruction — which is give her a new ligament on the inside part of her knee, which is essentially like a leash. And I had to do something about the fact that she really did not have very much cartilage in the front of her knee. She's far too young to have a knee replacement.

About three weeks before I got married, at that point I had just recently gotten out of my huge knee brace that made me look like Iron Man. I was in what ultimately became known as the wreck of Amtrak 188. What was running through my mind initially was, oh, I really hope my knee is okay, because I worked so incredibly hard to get to the point where I was. Theresa, my physical therapist, found out and called me, and then Dr. Strickland called me and she said, "You know, as soon as you're back in New York, come to the office — like, I want to take a look at you." She also did a once-over — you know, look at my back, my ribs, my neck, you know, just all the things that an orthopedic doctor can do — because she really wanted to make sure that I was okay. So I was very lucky not only to have my knee be fine, but to be fine overall.

“She did so with such confidence and compassion, and at no point did I ever doubt — like, this is the right choice.” — Seyward Darby

Words can't totally explain how much she meant to me, because she fixed a thing that I thought was unfixable — I had been told was unfixable. And she did so with such confidence and compassion, and at no point did I ever doubt — like, this is the right choice.