It all started back in 8th grade when I thought I could never get hurt or have a serious injury. It occurred when I was playing indoor soccer as I felt a pop in my knee. This left me scared and devastated lying on the court crying in pain. I wake up on a normal November Saturday morning. My mom is yelling at me “get ready, you have your soccer game! “I am scrambling trying to find all my stuff because I forgot it was the first game of the season. I yell back down to my mom “give me 5 minutes”. I throw my shorts and jersey on and walk down the stairs just to find out I do not have indoor soccer shoes.
I know am panicking more then ever and have to wear normal tennis shoes. My mom tells me I will be fine and to get in the car so I did and we proceed to the game. We pull into the recreational center and I hop out of the car as I see my best friend. We are walking into the court just getting ready to warm up and I realize my shoes have no traction. I am warming up with my feet sliding everywhere. My coach says to me “Is everything alright? ” I reply, “Yes coach, just a little slippery”. We all got stretched out and ready to go. He is calling out the starters now, as I am curious to see if I am starting.
I get a sigh of relief early, as I am the first one to be called! I think to myself that means I am playing center! I watch the referees walk onto the court with the ball in hand and I am extremely anxious. He sets the ball down and blows the whistle. I run up as hard as I can and kick the ball in the corner. The ball is bouncing around, but my teammate gets a handle on it and crosses it to me for my first goal of the season 5 minutes into the game! Then, it happened. I am so excited jumping around with my teammates as I hear a pop from my knee.
I panic and I collapse to the ground crying. My mom comes onto the court and carries me off. She tells me we have to go to the ER as I refuse to move. She then forces me up and then off to the ER we go. Tam now sitting in the ER waiting for my MRI. I hear the door open up as they call my name. I get up and sit in a wheelchair and wheel myself back to the room. As I lay up on the table they give me headphones for music and the MRI begins. This seems to take forever because I just want to know if I am going to be ready to play next week.
The MRI is now over and I sit back down in the wheelchair to go back to the waiting room. The doctor tells me the results will not be back for a few days and he just advises us to go home. The week went by slowly but surely as I hop around everywhere I go. I am lying in bed after school and my moms phone rings. I hear her talking to someone, but could not figure out whom it was. She then walks into my room and tells me that I am going to need surgery because I have an inflamed ligament in my knee. I do not know what to say, as I am scared to death lying in my bed.
I awake from a sleepless night and hop down to my mom’s room I say, “Well this is the day” She replies “I know this past month was awful waiting, but it will be all better in the matter of a few weeks”. We go down to her car together so she can help stable me. I am so scared staring off into a daze on the way there. We get to the hospital, and went to same day surgery to get registered. It seems to be taking forever because I just want to get it over with. The doctor finally calls me back and I prepare for my surgery. He takes me back to the operating room.
I am scared, just looking around at all the different tools and equipment he has. He tells me to take 3 deep breathes into this mask, then I fell asleep, and woke up with everything done. It was a matter of an hour till I feel good enough to go home. The doctor said to me I could leave whenever I wanted, so as soon as he said that I got changed and out the door I go. I am just walking to my mom’s car with crutches and I already hate it. The doctor signed me up for physical therapy the following week and it could not come soon enough.
I continue this everyday for the next week, and then he said I should be able to walk on it and he was right! Everything ended up being perfectly fine and I am aloud to start my conditioning again in January! This experience is definitely one I will never forget. It ended up teaching me a lot, such as to not take advantage of everyday events and to never give no matter what the circumstances are. Some other athletes think nothing bad can happen to them, just like I did, but this made me realize anything can happen when you are participating in an activity.