My white shoes are tied tight on my feet.  My long hair is perfectly pulled back in my sparkly blue and gold cheer bow.  My game face is on.  I step on the mat ready to accomplish a perfect back tuck.  “I know it’s going to be amazing, I can feel it, I have done this a hundred times”  I tell myself. 
“You got it Ju!” Elizabeth said to me. In my mind, I knew that it was going to be okay, but why were the butterflies still crashing around in my stomach?  I get in my ready position.  I take a deep breath and blast out a count with my loud cheer voice
“5,6,7,8, Let’s Go Blue,”  I pivot my body to the side, tight as can be.  I shoot my arms down to my side and bend my legs, with all my energy I jump high in the air.  I quickly pull my knees up to my chest, with flawless perfection.  I saw the blue mat below me so I pulled even harder.  Flipping through the air gives me a natural high, it gives me so much enjoyment, I feel like I’m flying.  As I come closer to finishing the rotation I thought I was going to finish my perfect tuck, but my legs unfold from beneath me as they reach for the mat.  “Snap, Crack, Pop!”  I felt my knee explode out of place.  I fall on the mat with tears running down my face as I grab my knee and pull it to my chest. 
“Julia!” My coach screams, the pain was intolerable.  As I laid there, I think of every worse possible scenario.  My coach is at my side yelling,
“Julia, are you okay?  Can you get up?”  I knew that I couldn't.  I reply in a crackled voice,
“I don’t think I can get up coach.”  My two best friends rushed over, their faces inches from mine. 
“Julia are you okay? Do you need ice?”  I was in so much pain, I started to sob,
“I’m in a so much pain.”  As my coach and my friends slowly lifted me up from the mat, I looked down to see my knee, it was humongous and the pain was unbearable.  I knew in the back of my mind that I wouldn't be stepping on this mat again for a long time.  Elizabeth helped me sit on the ground,
“I’m going to get Katie.”  Katie is the personal trainer at the school. 
Elizabeth and Katie arrived which seemed like hours for them to come, Katie bent down and touched my knee with her cold hands.  Chills ran up my spine,
“I’m sorry my hands are so cold.  Could you tell me your pain level with 1 being the lowest amount of pain and 10 being the highest?”  She looked at me with a very concerned face.  I was sobbing but I had to tell her, I tried to calm myself down,
“Umm about a 10,” I stuttered.
“Good,” She said fake smiling at me, “Could you give me your moms phone number I am going to call her just to tell her what happened.”  I gave her my mom’s number, she stepped away from me to make sure that I wouldn’t worry. I placed my head on my black and blue knee, tears rushing down my face.  I could hear Katie talking to my mom,
“Hello Laura, I’m Katie the trainer from Clarkston High School.  I think that Julia hurt her knee pretty bad, I recommend taking her to the doctors,” She looked back at me and I sobbed even harder. I knew that my mom was on her way.  She hung up the phone and came back to talk to me,
“Julia, your mom is on her way, I think you should go home and rest tonight and go to the doctors in the morning.”
“Okay, I will thank you Katie,” I replied.
Waiting for my mom to come pick me up seemed like hours but it was only a few minutes, I couldn’t wait to go home.  My mom came rushing in, I knew she was frightened.  She knelt to my side,
“What happened? How did this happen? How much pain are you in?” I cut her off,
“Mom I’m in a lot of pain, I don’t think that I can get up.  What am I going to do about cheer, I don’t want to miss out on anything.” At that moment I didn’t even care about how much my knee hurt I just cared about cheer.  So many thoughts were rushing through my head. “What if I couldn’t cheer? Would I have to get surgery? How long would I be out? What about my team?”
“Come on lets go home,” my mom said helping me up.  As I was walking out everyone on my team was wishing me luck, telling me that everything was going to be okay, no matter what.  I felt so bad letting them down, but I knew that this was something serious.  I waved and said,
“Thanks guys.”
Limping and sobbing out of the doctor’s office the next day was devastating, with my
mom on one side and my dad on the other, they tried to calm me down,
“It’s going to be okay Julia; we will get through this together. You are going to be able to come back better and stronger for next season.”  That’s it all in a blink of an eye my life changed forever.
Although I had to take a year off of cheer I came back better and stronger for the next year, I learned a lot from my surgery.  I learned not to take things for granted, respect what you have and be grateful for the people and things you have in your life.