Light creeps in through my closed eyes, a deafening whirring noise around me, I feel like i’m floating. 5 year old me was inside of a CAT scan, the doctors thought I broke a rib but what they found was much worse.

I was born with a unicameral bone cyst, a hole in my bone, in my femur. When I was 5 I was climbing up the counter in our laundry room to reach up to one of the cabinets. When I placed my foot up I stepped into a little pool of water by the sink and slipped with my chest hitting the corner of the countertop. So, naturally my parents hear a loud thud and my crying so they come running up the stairs to find me laying on the floor with a big scrape running alongside my abdomen. They take me to the ER thinking I broke a rib. I’m not sure why they decided to do a full body CAT scan instead of a normal x-ray on just my chest but I’m glad they did. I didn’t break anything but my leg was extremely prone to breaking with less than two centimeters of bone, when it should be about an inch thick. I had to go to all kinds of doctors and all wanted to do surgery immediately. Since I was so young the thought of surgery scared me and my mom knew that, which is why we kept searching until we found a specialist at the University of Chicago, Dr. Rex Haydon. He told us that he wanted to watch it and try to fill the bone in naturally. We loved the sound of that so we stuck with him as my doctor. He gave me some restrictions though, I couldn’t play contact sports, jump off high places, etc… Being the hard- headed kid I was though I didn’t listen, sneaking off to go bounce on a trampoline or jumping off the swings at the park. Besides the occasional visit to the doctor I acted as if my life didn’t change.

After about 5 years part of my leg fractured, had it fully broken I could’ve been crippled. This was heartbreaking for me because soccer was my life and I couldn’t play. In November 2011 I went on crutches. After numerous doctors visits, x-rays, and consultations we came to the conclusion that this was going to be a long road to recovery. In early January 2012 I was presented with the decision of staying on crutches for the rest of the year or to get surgery and be back to normal in a couple months with rehab. Now it sounds like an easy decision but I was scared. This was the most impactful thing in my life at that point. I debated about the idea for a couple weeks and wasn’t sure what to do. When my friends and family started asking what I was going to I would say something like “I think I’m going to, but I’m not sure yet.” And then they would tell me how great they thought it was that I was doing it and how brave I was, but I still didn’t really want to do it. I thought more about soccer and how much I missed playing. I missed my teammates, the camaraderie of being on a team, practice and especially games. I missed everything about soccer. I would go to the games and practices and sit on the sidelines watching everyone playing. Then the day came when I had to tell the doctor what I was going to do and I felt like I just had to say yes to the surgery because I told so many people I that I was and that they were all proud of me for it. I didn’t truly commit to the idea that I wanted surgery until a couple days later. This is one of the hardest decisions I’ve had to make. I was so consumed by fear that I wanted someone to make the decision for me, but then I realized life doesn't work that way and that I have to think for myself.

I went in for surgery at 4am, the first of the day. A couple days prior the doctor told me what they were doing, drilling a 4 inch rod onto the side of my leg with a big bolt going into my hip. I layed in a hospital gown on a gurney playing games on my DS while waiting for a nurse to come in. The anticipation was making me anxious, finally, she came in and wheeled me off. The room was brightly lit with green concrete walls, shiny, sterile tools were sitting on a cart. The anesthesiologist put the mask on me and told me to count back from 100. For some reason I thought that I should try to reach zero so I tried counting as fast as I could, 100, 99, 98, 97, 96, 95, 94, 93, 9-, despite my best efforts I didn’t come close. According to my parents after the surgery I was in and out of sleep a lot before I actually managed to stay up. I spent a week in the hospital. It was pretty relaxing besides the occasional searing pain in my leg, watching batman, eating ice cream, jello, and almost anything else I wanted. The days back at school weren’t bad and I was in physical therapy and walking after a few weeks. I couldn’t believe how well it went.

This was one of the hardest decisions I’ve had to make, and it worked out great.