My Injury
When I woke up the morning of Feb. 29, 2020, the thought that I may never have the opportunity to strap on my cleats and be able to kick the ball around was something that never would have crossed my mind. Unfortunately, roughly 12 hours later, that thought became a reality.
I panicked and didn’t know how I could do anything from that moment forward. At one moment I was playing a soccer game on the rough turf in Wixom under the dome lights, while next thing I knew was that I was on the floor with people surrounding me and I was screaming at the initial sight of seeing my ankle which looked like a drumstick dangling off my leg.
I laid down on the floor and tried to stand up but my body wouldn’t cooperate. When I tried to stand up again the pain shot through my body. Unfortunately, the pain wasn’t confined to just one spot, but instead, it made its presence known through every extremity of my body. The last time I cried was… However, at that moment, I couldn’t fight back from having the little rivers crawl down my face.
I was truly scared because I thought I would never be able to walk again. What scared me even more was that at that point I was under the impression it was possible that I would never be able to participate in the one activity I loved the most. It felt as if I was having my last chance to bring home a championship to the land of the Pioneers snatched away from me.
As I was being rolled onto the ambulance I was just asking myself if that was it for me. Will I ever be able to play again? After I was put into multiple x-rays and procedures, the doctors informed me that I dislocated my ankle and tore all my ligaments. The whole world was silent after that my whole life flashed before my eyes and I couldn’t believe what I had just been told.
On average from Jan. to Dec., I am on the soccer field at least six times a week. I started playing soccer when I was five years old. It helps me get my mind off everything because it is just me and the thing I love the most. When I’m not playing with my team I’m playing a match with my cousins. When I have no opponents to face in a scrimmage, I’m training alone to make myself better. I never contemplated this sport because when I get on the field everything else in my mind disappears and It’s just me and the ball.
It affected me a lot that I couldn’t play with my teammates. I was sitting down on the sideline for my club team two weeks after my injury. I knew I could change the game if I was playing in the game. It killed me inside because I was dying to go in. I wouldn’t want to move anymore.
Right when I thought I had to give up and couldn’t play anymore, I realized that I was letting the potential dictate the rest of my high school career in terms of playing sports. Instead, I figured out that I had to look at it as an incident that happened that made me love the game even more. It made me more passionate because I was always telling myself I wanted to lose weight and get better at the sport. But after this it motivated me and I began to lose weight and better myself. I was letting an incident affect what I loved the most, and that is playing soccer.
So I started my therapy which was three times a week, but that wasn’t enough. When I got home I took my boot and my brace off and started to train. Step by step I tried to walk without any support by myself at home. At first, it was hard. For most people, learning how to walk is something that occurs innately. However, having to reteach me how to accomplish this task was no easy feat. I kept falling over and over again, but I just got back up and kept pushing. I wanted to keep pushing myself so I could start to run and start training with the team again. That’s all I wanted to do to get back on the field.
I never wanna stop playing the game I love the most. I was used to kicking a soccer ball every day before my injury. But this was gonna be a setback. I knew I just had to work harder and not let things get to me at that point.
When I started to prepare for the high school season, and I tried running and kicking a ball again, I ended up feeling pain in my ankle which was restricting me to do a lot of things I wanted to do. Since that point, I’ve continued to work.
When the doctors cleared me and said I could play again, I started to train slowly, step by step. Even though the virus was giving me another setback by maybe canceling our season and maybe never letting me play another high school soccer game. But now happily I have been playing at every Dearborn High school soccer game with my team.
Don’t tell me what I should be learning from this. Instead, share what you learned about yourself and how you might respond if you catch yourself having to deal with a similar situation in the near future.
