Life is about being able to adapt to what comes your way, not expecting what comes your way to adapt to you.
It all started inside the Junior High School Gym, the lights smiling down glistening off of the dirty gym floor, and high-hanging hoops hovering around the gymnasium. There was the usually scheduled basketball practice from 5:30-8pm. The practice was nearing the end, and that meant it was time to scrimmage before practice officially was over. The first two hours were spent practicing the fundamentals, and everyone was bored. However, we knew the basics were important and that we had to focus on them during practice before we could even think to try and apply them to a game.

Finally, it was time to scrimmage, and we were so excited to play. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, until about halfway through the scrimmage. It felt like we were playing pretty aggressively at first but then it got a little dirty. None of us liked to lose, and we had come to expect scrimmages to be extremely hard fought battles.
I could never have predicted or foreseen what was about to happen.

Going up for a layup is something that every basketball player knows how to do because it is a pretty basic shot. However, this particular layup was anything but simple or ordinary. I was able to get around my defender, and I was driving to the hoop, and I jumped into the air. It was at this moment that I realized a second defender was coming at me to try and prevent me from scoring. This second defender was running incredibly fast, and he jumped up in the air to block my shot at the same time I jumped in the air. He was out of control because he had slipped on the floor in his attempt to try and block me. As a result, his arms were thrashing, his legs flailing, and his body jolting. He looked like a Mack truck rolling down the highway.

As this defender was headed straight for me, I recall having an ominous feeling overcome me. What I saw was this lumbering, wickedly out of control, and unstoppable individual with his crazy eyes connecting with mine as we realized what was about to happen. We both ended up crashing into each other. As I was falling backward, I reached out my right leg trying to break my fall. I fell incredibly hard on my right leg and heel, and the pain was immediate. I tried to get up and go after the kid who took me out, but as soon as I got up off the floor and put any weight or pressure on my heel, I had the sharpest pains race through my foot and leg.

It was a typical reaction for me always to go after someone who hurt me in some way, but now I never go after people who hurt me because nothing good ever comes from it. The pain I was feeling would have just gotten worse if I were to try and seek revenge on the kid who had done this, so I just sat there rolling, and letting out screams hoping the pain would release at that time.

I remember thinking that I’d rather be dead than continue to have the pain I was feeling. Eventually, practice ended with me sitting on the bench as a spectator with pain pulsating through my entire body.

Fast forward, three days later, I am waiting in the orthopedic surgeon’s office, nervously waiting to hear what he has to tell me. Never before had I had any pain in my heels like I was now feeling. They had taken x-rays, and I was waiting to hear what he found.

After about 30 minutes of waiting, the doctor turned to me and what he said still echoes inside my head today.
“Wow, not only did you break your heel, but did you know that you have Sever’s Disease in both heels?” He said in a sort of baffled state.

I did not understand what he was saying but I knew it didn’t sound good and I felt myself being on the verge of tears. The only thing that went through my head was, “This is the end, I will never be able to go back to the fun I was having before this happened.” The doctor went on to explain that in my situation, there were two choices, one was surgery that would be extremely painful and only a 50% chance of helping or allowing my heel to heal and possibly only doing low impact sports until I was about 21 years old and all my growth plates closed. I did not have surgery, and I waited until my heel was back to normal.

I decided to continue to play sports and looking back I had no way of knowing I would end up breaking my hip at 13 years of age and tearing my MCL at the age of 15. Thinking about it more now, I realize that this was a wake-up call to me emotionally and physically letting me know that not only did I have limits, but what those limits were. Having Sever’s Disease led to my overcompensating for the pain in my heels which then led to the more serious injuries I suffered later on. Sever's Disease has become my Achilles Heel. At the age of 12 I was naive and felt like I knew more than everyone, but now that I am 16 years of age I have come to learn that people that are masters of their field know what they’re talking about, and know what is best for their customer. Because of my condition I’ve learned some of my most valuable life lessons. The first lesson I learned is there is more to life than playing sports, and another lesson I have learned is that we all have choices. We can choose to adapt to what comes our way, or we can decide to be miserable, always fighting to control things and situations that are out of our control.