Injury which cannot be healed in couple of days, includes a lot of pain and test a strong will of the athlete.
I have been through torn ACL as well and honestly it sucks. Knee is a join, which holds your entire weight and thats why it is one of the most laden join in your body. Because of daily use, it is difficult to heal or it takes long time (talking about couple of months/years). You must practise the muscles every day to keep your leg as strong as possible and avoid loosing lot of volume/muscles.
Even though you train like hell, you do focus on making the knee stronger and better I hardly doubt it will get as well as it was before.
You have to be careful every day you go sport. A one short moment on a bad landing and your effort can be all gone...
For Tom the injury came in a bad timing. I hope he will get well soon and I wish him all the luck!
