I am a volleyball player on my high school team. I fell on my knee during a game and ended up in the emergency department for severe pain. The X-rays and MRI showed that my kneecap isn’t one piece of hard bone. Instead, it’s two pieces of cartilage. Will this keep me from playing volleyball again?

You may have a condition called bipartite patella. This is a failure of the kneecap to harden into bone during the early years of childhood. This happens in about two to six percent of children in the U.S.

Most of the time, a bipartite patella isn’t a problem. However, the cartilage has a limited ability to heal and it’s easily injured. Falling on the knee can cause a painful separation that doesn’t heal properly. With proper medical treatment, you should be able to return to sports.