Sports.

This is what two-thirds of all high schoolers and even middle schoolers lives are based around. Besides their social life; which includes friends, family and school. Sports can fill a lot of their social life. I was included in that two-thirds. I participated in four sports, volleyball, soccer, swimming and track and got all A’s in my classes. Life was surprisingly good. Until one fateful day, June 14, 2013.

That day started out to be a very special and memorable day. It was the day of my soccer tryouts. I had been playing soccer since before I can remember. On that day, I was trying out for different club, called “Chicago Fire.”  I was super pumped to be trying out for a new club and to have a chance to play with a new team, and play on a higher level club team. When I got to the turf field, from a distance, I noticed some people I knew. I found my friend Gabby from school, and we started to pass the ball back and forth. Just a effortless warm up before we got started with the tryouts. Then another girl, Hannah, also from school came to pass with us. After a little bit, the coach came over to gather everyone up to start the tryout. We started off with some easier passing drills. Later on, we started a one-on-one drill. I felt like I was doing pretty good, which made me more confident. When it was my turn, I pulled a move on the girl, and it was a success. Next time I was up, I tried the same thing, but this time something went wrong. I twisted my knee to the right and heard an outrageously loud pop. I found myself on the ground with my knee in killer pain. I scooted myself off the field to take a rest. I got up when I heard the coach say it was time for a water break. I saw all the sweaty girls jogging over to the huge pile of soccer bags. But, when I got up to follow them, I fell right back down. I was so confused and had no idea what was wrong. I saw my mom coming towards me, wondering what happen. I told her what was going on, almost in tears but trying my best to hold in the pain. Then Gabby’s mom came over to see what the problem was. From there, she got the trainer. The trainer felt around my knee and asked what had happened.

He said to me ”It’s probably just a sprained knee cap, I think you’re okay to keep playing.” Doesn't sound that bad, right? So I sucked it up, and ran back onto to field, ignoring the sharp pain coming from my knee.

The drill we did next was a two on two with scoring goals in between the cones. I was doing okay, besides the fact I was limping around, trying to keep up. All of the sudden,the ball rolled down into a ditch and I ran after to go get it. As I was jogging down the ditch, my knee collapsed and I fell! I felt embarrassed because all the girls in my group were watching and started to giggle, so I quickly got up and shook it off. My knee did the same thing a few more times in that drill. I tried my hardest to ignore the massive pain in my knee, but I really just couldn’t. I jogged over to my mom to tell her, and of course, I fell again on my way over there. When I finally reached my mom, she explained to me in worried tone, 

“You can do what you want because you know your pain.” but like every mom, she said maybe we should just go and get it checked out and I shouldn’t go back onto the field. But I loved soccer and I didn’t care what my level of pain was, so I went back out. Tryouts were almost over, so the coaches split us up into two teams and we started to scrimmage. When I was put in, I was playing mid. I tried to keep up with everyone and the ball, but it was just super difficult. Not to mention, I was falling a ton!

Once tryouts were done, I started to sob because of the harsh pain on my knee. But of course, I had another tryout right after this one. So, my mom took me straight to the Vardar tryouts for my old team at  Douglas Walker Park.  I sucked it up, again. and got onto the field and started to play. You probably would of never guessed, but I fell about twenty more times during that tryout. Each fall just hurt more and more and put my knee into dreadful pain. By this time, I knew there was something really wrong with it. I tried to hold back the tears but I honestly couldn’t any longer. At the end of the tryout I was just so done with everything and wanted to go home.

A couple weeks later…my knee was still not feeling the way it normally would have.

so my mom took me to an Orthopedic walk-in clinic, where the doctors checked out my knee. We scheduled an appointment for me to get x-rays the following day. The x-rays didn’t show anything though, which I thought was a good thing, at the time. But the doctors wanted to run some more tests.  So a couple of weeks after that, I had to get an MRI, and if you have never got an MRI before, let’s just say you lay in a tube for forty-five minutes to an hour doing nothing. Just laying there while obnoxious loud noises go on and off.  Sounds fun, right? A few weeks after that, I got called back into the doctor’s office for the results. The doctor tried to soften the results, but when I heard what happened, I had no idea what to think.  The news . . . .I had torn my ACL. At the time, I wasn’t aware of this, but tearing your ACL is one of the worst ligaments to tear in your knee, or even your leg. I was informed that they would take one of my own body parts, one of my hamstrings, to repair my ACL. I had surgery one month after the initial soccer tryout incident and had to be on crutches for two weeks, followed by six months of physical therapy with strict limitations.  An ACL injury takes six months to completely heal. And if that doesn’t ruin your summer, I don’t know what would.  If that wasn’t bad enough, I wouldn’t be able to play sports for six months, which really broke my heart. One of the most important things in my life was totally taken away from me.

Six months later, I was given the all clear by my doctor and physical therapist and told to get back at it. I was nervous and excited to be given the green light to start playing sports again. That spring,  I began to play for a travel volleyball team at a club called Impact. I felt really good when I was asked to get pulled up to play with a team older than me. That made me feel good considering I had been away from all physical activity for the past six months. During that time, I also ran spring track for our middle school team. Everything was back to normal, besides some minor pain in my knee while participating in some activities, things were good. The summer going into my freshmen year of high school, I got pulled up to play JV volleyball for the summer training season and was asked to try out for JV volleyball team for fall season. I was so thrilled and felt happier than ever. I was getting a chance at a new beginning, life was finally coming my way, or so I thought.

However,  little did I know how wrong I would be. A few weeks later, while playing with the JV team during the summer, at a Calvin College volleyball camp, I cut to my right to get the ball. That is when I felt my knee pop and I was having trouble shuffling around on the court. When I got subbed off the court, I walked off my knee to test if it was okay. I knew it wasn’t okay, I started to get anxious that something wasn’t quite right.  My coach had me go and see the trainer at the camp. This was the beginning of new nightmare.

A couple of weeks later, it was deja vu all over again! The same routine as the year before!

X-rays, MRI, doctor appointments and there would be another surgery. Just as I thought life was getting back to normal, it wasn’t. I found out I tore my ACL for the second time, as well as my meniscus. But this time, they took a different part of my body to repair the ACL.  The doctor used my lower thigh muscle for the repair, which meant a longer recovery process.  The second time around was even worse, more physical therapy and more doctor appointments. The worst news? This time I wasn’t allowed to play sports for a whole year.

I am almost at the year end mark and getting closer to being released to participate in sports again. From my experiences throughout the past years, I have learned not to take anything for granted and be thankful for all that you have, because one day, it all might all be taken from you. I have learned to define a new me, one that isn’t defined by the activities or the sports I play. I have learned more about my self and character through these experiences.