Personal Narrative: First Time I Broke My Ankle

He was getting closer to the goal than I was comfortable with, so I stepped in front of him and cut him off. When I did this, he made a 180 degree turn up the field and so did I. I tried to at least. There was a gaping hole in the field, one much too big than there should have been. I planted my right foot to make the cut and it all went downhill from there. My ankle twisted and I heard all sorts of disgusting noises. It snapped, it cracked and it popped. As soon as my back hit the pitch I tried to get back up, but I couldn’t. At this point, I knew that my senior soccer season was over and my last chance at beating those people who were so mean to me had slipped right through my

My friends and I were Pokemon go hunting and I caught a lip of the concrete. I was at the courthouse with Daniel Ace Miguel and we were playing Pokemon Go.

I was in my second to last game of the season playing against our rival. Throughout all my years of sports, which has been about 8-10 years. I got the hand off and started running the ball and I had open ground out of the corner of my eye I got smashed from the side by an opponent. I went down hard to the ground and I blacked out for a couple seconds. I couldn’t even stand or walk on my own for a little while I was so dizzy. When I got up and could finally see I could walk, I was taking the trainer, but if I looked at the sun it would hurt.

It happened on a sunny, summer day in Cincinnati. The score was Tippecanoe City 1 and West Virginia 0 in the Go-rilla semi-final game. It was in the second half of the soccer game with less than five minutes left to play. An opposing player had a breakaway down the sideline. He had an open shot on goal and as a defensive fullback, my job was to run in front of him to try and block his shot. The next thing I heard was a big loud “SNAP!” I looked down at my arm to realize that it was broken. After that, I instantly went to the ground and started to scream for help. The first person to arrive was my coach. My arm didn’t look right at all. They immediately called a golf cart to come over and take me to our car. They asked to call a

Three concussions. Five months. The hardest hit to my life so far was me being hit. The physical pain of headaches, the mental pain of the slower brain processes, and the emotional pain of losing the ability of playing the sport that I love so dearly, have all affected life in many aspects. I was removed from sports, dance, school, and even at times I felt like I was removed from my own body.

September 13, 2014, it was my fourth official varsity soccer game as a freshman and I was starting. I was put on outside wing, defending one of the strongest seniors Horseheads High School had and I was nothing but confident and motivated. All of the sudden I hear a few pops and a crack and I was on the ground and was unable to move my right leg. Complete shock filled my body and I did not know how to react; my older sister and my coach flashed in front of my eyes and I could not comprehend what was happening. Later that week I was told I had torn my ACL and I would be out of soccer for approximately six months.

I was excited for a new beginning in my career, maybe to prepare me for high school in the upcoming years. The idea of beating boys in soccer got me excited, my blood pumping harder through my veins and put an extra spring in my step. It was the first practice of our middle school season, where my life would be turned upside down. I ran down the field as normal, going for another shot on goal, but out of nowhere one of boys came from behind and completely took out my knee, causing me to collapse in pain. Lying down on the field, my sanctuary, the place I saw as home was probably the most grueling time of my life. Injuries were common in my life, but this injury was unlike any other. I could not get up off the field and felt as if there was nothing left in my knee, and every time I tried to get up, I fell right back down. I never sat out a practice until that night and figured one day would be enough. One night was clearly not enough, I was never able to catch back up to my full speed, or be able to cut around the field, which resulted in moving positions from forward, to defense to cut back on the running. I thought this would a temporary position, but I played every game in

At the age of sixteen towards the end of my sophomore year I suffered a fifth metatarsal fracture. At first I underestimated this injury and saw it as a minor setback and thought I would be ready to return to my sport in no time.

The pain was nothing like I had ever felt before. I had never broken a bone so I didn’t know it would hurt like this. It felt as if the world’s strongest person had just punched me in the lower back. At the time the pain was shooting all the way from the bottom of my tailbone to my mid-back. There was a tear running down my face. Everyone on my team, and all the parents on the sidelines, knew Iam injured. They knew this because I would never cry during a soccer game unless I was in pain.

Running past the mid line, teammate wide open on the other side of the field, perfect cross right to him, then shoved from behind into the ground with a loud thud. I land directly onto my knee and I can’t feel it or move it so my coach carries me to the sidelines. After few minutes and the game is over its feeling better so I walk it off.

When I was eight years old, I played my first season of soccer. The real reason I played soccer was because my dad forced me to play. I loved to play all kinds of sports such as basketball, baseball and football but I was never interested in soccer. After my first practice I already realized soccer was not for me. I told my dad that I did not want to play anymore but he would not listen and made me keep going to practice. At my 3rd practice, the whole team was running laps and I tripped over a stick and fell down. My ankle was hurting pretty bad but I knew I was going to be fine. While I was lying on the ground, I thought to myself If I tell the coach and my dad that my ankle is hurt really bad than I won’t have to play anymore. I thought it was a genius idea at the time. I told them just that and it worked! I have no idea how my dad knew this but once I got home he knew that I was milking my injury. He told me something that night that I won’t ever forget. He told me “you didn’t just give up on yourself, you gave up on your team”. He called the coach the next day and told him that

Being a typical 9 year old, I bawled my eyes out. When I moved my arm, it hurt even more. My mom came over to see what all the commotion was all about and I told her what had gone on. I also told her that whenever I moved my arm, it hurt and it felt very weird. She told me we would have to head to the hospital in Columbus to go get an X-Ray to see if it was broken. Thankfully, this was after my older brother’s band’s performance. He came over to us, and my mom told what was about to happen and what we were about to do. He wasn’t happy, to say the least. After about 5 minutes of arguing, my brother lost and my mom took the rest of us to Columbus. As we got into the car, she told me to keep my arm as still as I could, to which I did. We didn’t go to the hospital right away, however, we went to McDonald’s instead to try and make me feel better with some ice cream. It worked, and made me feel glad, even until I got into the hospital. I had never had a broken bone before up until that point in my life, so I didn’t know what to expect. We sat in the waiting room for about 5-10 minutes, until the nurse came into the room to tell us that the doctor was waiting. We got into

Spring of my junior year in high school, I joined track with wishful thinking. I’m going to do track, run sprints, and get into great shape for summer. However, with my luck it didn’t work out how I wanted. A week into the track season, I went to our school’s field to play a pick-up game of soccer. In the process of going to the field, I had to climb over a fence. Simple? I really should of thought this through, but didn’t. As I jumped over and landed, a loud pop sound came from my knee loud enough for my friends to hear. I sat there crying in front of my friends for a minute or two, but got up trying to walk it off. As you can see no is not an option for me, as I tried play a soccer game with a swollen knee cap. I was confused what happened, I didn’t know exactly happened. But sharp pains were shooting through my leg as I limped around the field. Little did I know a swollen and bruised knee meant torn ligaments.

On June 27th, 2016, I severely fractured my tibia, fibula, and ankle after an approximate 20-foot climbing fall. It was the worst injury in my outdoor athletic career. The following four months since the accident consisted of surgery, immobilization, rehabilitation, and ultimately returning to sporting fitness. I was told the damage was so bad that I might have a permanent limp, which would effectively end climbing, skiing, and running. The toughest part is to admit you yourself that you made a mistake and it has the potential to affect an athletic and outdoor lifestyle. I didn’t have a lot of hope after the accident, but over the course of the recovery, I grew stronger, not only in body, but in mind as well. Injury and

As a young adolescent I use to play softball games all the time with my friends just for fun during the summer. During one particular summer day with my friends my first injury occurred while sliding into 2nd base. At first I did not think nothing of the injury to my ankle but when I tried to proceed to get up the throbbing began badly. The first step was to call my parents and proceed to get it checked out by my local doctor. My doctor told me I was lucky to only have sprain my ankle and not broke it. Also, he proceeds to tell me that it will take about 5-14 days for me to recover from my sprain. The way I moved forward to treat my injury would determine how long it took to heal by keeping my ankle elevated and staying off