Whenever I think back to highschool I am always reminded of the fun times I had playing sports. The friendships I built and diciplines I learned still affect my life today. Playing volleyball helped me learn good time management skills especially when I started playing for the local club team. The highschool team was demanding but when club season started that became your life. School, practice, homework, sleep was my weekday schedule. The weekend tournaments didn’t allow for much of a break either. A minimum of 4 matches and if you won the bracket, you could expect atleast 2 more.
Putting in hard work and dedicating countless hours wasn’t all for nothing though. After a very successful season of volleyball and great year in school, summer was approaching and soon after club ball. The anticipation for the club season was huge especially because junior nationals were taking place in Reno, Nevada that year and with the team we had our chances at gold were very strong. Tryouts took place about 3 months before nationals and with the teammates that participated we formed a very young but strong 18’s team. This meant that nomatter how young we were, there could be no one over 18 years old.
At the time I was 16 and to my surprise after tryouts I was placed in the starting team. This was a great accomplishment for me and one of the very first breakthroughs I had to become a starting player. Throughout the next few months practice took place every weekday from 5pm-9pm. Starting off with either an hour of cardio or weightlifting we slowly began to form a strong team. The friendly compitition pushed us all to become better and often times stay hours after practice ended to work on the smallest details of our game.
The final week of practice was upon us, Saturday we would leave for nationals and every practice was now scrimmaging and gameplay scenarios. With only 3 days until our trip we were in full throttle gameplay mode and I was on the starting team’s side. Our coach decided to put the tallest and strongest hitter on the team on the other side of the court and had us try to block his hits. I was of course on the net ready to block and when he jumped into the air I followed putting everything I had into the block to stop his monster hitting power.
Bam! In mid air I had managed to cover his hit but when I came down to land I had stepped under the net and consiquently landed on his foot sending me tumbling to the floor. Instantly I knew something was wrong and I crawled to the bench in agony. I was given a bag of ice and some tape to wrap it up my swollen foot. At first the injury only seemed to be a small ankle sprain, so in hopes to quickly heal and get back to playing I bought a pair of Mobilegs Ultra crutches. These would keep the pressure off of my foot and keep the pain at bay.
Since the tournament was only a few days away now I didn’t have time to see a doctor about the injury and hoped it wasn’t anything serious. For the next two days I sat on the sideline watching my teammates play and would use my comfortable crutches to cruise around the gym grabbing the stray balls. Saturday arrived and on the way to the airport I was still favoring my hurt foot but I borded the plane in hopes I would be healthy for the tournament. I used my Mobilegs crutches to get around Reno and used them as we walked through the arena watching the other volleyball games going on.
Once we got to our court I set my crutches aside and tried to play through the pain but it was not looking good. The pain that had started in my ankle had gone away but was now much more prominent in my foot. Against my will I sat on the sidelines for the entire tournament and had to use my crutches whenever I walked around. This simple ankle roll had turned into my worst nightmare preventing from playing completely. I found the injury/medical tent inside the arena and had them check out my foot. After a few tests the trainers had concluded that I had probably broken a bone due to my fall.
This was a huge surprise considering that there was only a small amount of swelling and bruising. Since the tournament was almost over and we were heading home in two days I decided to wait out my injury and use the crutches to keep off of my foot for the time being. Despite our promising team we only won one game out of eleven during the tournament. With our spirit’s diminished we flew home and reflected on our mistakes. Not being able to play and see my team struggle so hard was extremely stressful but as we landed all I could think about was my foot.
The next day I went to the local foot doctor to get my injury examined and x-rayed. After two weeks of walking on crutches the immediate pain had subsided but it was time to get to the real problem. The X-ray and examination had concluded that I had snapped a small bone on the outside of my foot and would need to wear a boot for the next 4-6 weeks. Since it had been so long since the initial injury the chances that my foot would need surgury was very high. Luckily I had picked up the Mobilegs crutches which allowed for me to keep stress off of my foot and also get around efficiantly.
The crutches saved me from a long recovery and allowed me to get back out on the court in a very short time. Playing volleyball throughout highschool and in a club as well taught me many great lessons. Due to my injury I learned it is important to take every situation seriously and take these types of things seriously. I was lucky enough to buy a pair of crutches that saved me from surgury and shortened my recovery time. Being able to get past this bump in the road helped me learn that patience and dedication can be applied to any situation in life and are important to future success.