Personal Narrative: The Pain

It was a normal spring night and my baseball game had just started. It was senior night and I was pitching, we had just finish the first half of the first inning. My teammate struck out, it was my turn to hit, I swung for the ball and my leg popped twice. I went down and didn't get back up, My leg was stuck to my chest and I couldn't move it. The visiting team's coach was an EMT he ran over and said ¨this is going to hurt¨ and pulled my leg straight. What had happened was when I swung the bat my leg didn't move and my kneecap dislocated and instead of my ligaments tearing, they stretched and broke my kneecap. This was a challenge for me because this was the first time I had never broken a bone in my life. I went to the doctor and he said nothing was wrong, so my

For the next week or so, i started participating in activities like basketball and football, just to pass the time. A few days before my classes started I was playing basketball and I went up for a rebound and when i landed, i fell on my ankle the wrong

I fell. This felt like I didn’t have a wrist. But I got back up really carefully and went up to the lounge to my dad and sister. Ah, Ah, Dad I think I broke my wrist. No you didn’t. It was swelling up, It hurt so bad I couldn’t even believe this was happening.

As I pushed off my leg to go by another player, I severely strained my hamstring. At the time, I did not realize what I had done and continued to play. Realizing I may have been injured, I went to the hospital and found out I strained my hamstring one again; however, this time it was almost torn. The doctor relayed I needed physical therapy again. The next day, I realized I was unable to lift up my leg. This continued for almost two weeks. After about a week or two, I regained more movement in my leg. Slowly, I gained the ability to train and complete my physical therapy. Though this process was much more difficult than the last time, I had to remain focused and mentally strong to get through this tough time. After 3 months of hard work, I was cleared to play again; my leg was finally fully

My freshman year of high school I broke the Scaphoid and growth plate in my right wrist while playing in a basketball game. I didn’t know that it was broken for two weeks and I played in three of four basketball games with my broken dominant hand. I found that is was probably broken the Monday before Christmas. On Christmas Eve I was told that I would be put in a cast for the entire Christmas break and on January 3rd we would find out if it was really broke. Sure enough we came back and told that I would have to be in a cast for six to eight weeks. I was pretty devastated and upset that I would be out for the rest of the season, it had barely begun. I was staying pretty optimistic about it because it would give me a chance to work on my weak hand, it was my left, and make it stronger. I still went to practice and worked as hard as I could hoping that the coach’s

The second half of the game came and I wanted to go back in despite my strained leg, I told my coach I was ready to go in. As the season went on I kept playing on it I was not performing to my true potential I tried to play over the pain but that was not working out. Half way through the season I finally started going to physical therapy. I was going to physical therapy but I was still able to practice and play I only had to sit out one game and the practices prior to that game.

Post-surgery, your arm will be immobilized in a splint for at least a week. After a week you will be given an arm brace, which you will wear for most of your recovery. The brace limits your range of motion as you gradually gain it back. Physical therapy will take up to 12 months to complete. You will build up muscle in your arm and shoulder to gain strength and prevent another repeat of the injury. After therapy you will be able to throw and make your return to the diamond.

When I first started playing basketball my seventh grade year, I was playing power forward for the entire year. The team had a tournament one weekend against multiple different schools. In one of the games the team played Ottawa. Our point guard tried shooting a three-pointer and she missed. I jumped to get the rebound, and a girl from the opposing team hit me out of the air and I ended up having my ankle stepped on, causing it to break. This took me out for the rest of the tournament and the rest of the season. I was on crutches for two weeks and then I was put in a boot for a couple more weeks.

After much debate, it was decided I was in fact NOT faking an arm injury and I was taken to Urgent Care. There I was X-Rayed and determined to have no fracture or break… I got a sling and a pat on the back. I returned home feeling very weak and wimpy, but my mother was not as sure that I was fine. The next day, I went to an orthopedic doctor who took one X-Ray and determined I had in fact broken my elbow. I was casted and told to come back in six weeks, little did he know I would be back a little

This time, unfortunately with time the pains in my leg got worse and I could not go on and keep pushing myself anymore because it hurt so bad with every step I took, on and off the court. I went to the trainer's room one day after practice to get it checked out, and he told me some stretches to do for shin splints. I did them for a week or two but noticed that the pain continued to get worse. So finally my mom made a doctors appointment to see a orthopedic doctor. When I went to the doctor, I had to get an XRay to see if they could tell if anything was broken in my leg. Meanwhile after I left the X Ray room the doctor talked to me and was asking questions and said I can’t play until we find out what is wrong. A few days later the X ray came back and nothing showed any type of break on it. So they made me an appointment to get a MRI a week later. When they got the MRI results back, turns out I had a stress fracture in my tibia. That meant I was out for a

The next day my knee is feeling better so we assumed nothing was wrong but a few days after that I had been running around and playing with friends. As we were playing, one of my friends dared me to jump off of a slide, so I did and boom there goes my knee again numb and hurting a little so I went home to my parents. We realized it was the same sort of thing but we all assumed it was a minor sprain so we iced it and elevated it. The next day it was gone and then it happened one other time a few days later and we finally started to realize something was wrong but we still put it off. The last and final time was when I was at jujitsu and I was doing the usual warm up. At the time I was doing burpees and as I got up to jump from the pushup position I pulled my legs into me chest and “SNAP” my knee had completely given out and I was in the worst pain I had ever experienced to this day. My knee could not and would not move so my Jujitsu

When I got home from practice, my mom and dad already knew about my wrist because coach had called them. My dad looked at my wrist and said that it looked really bad and that I should go to the ER.

I sat in the waiting room of that hospital for about an hour and a half. They let the younger children with the ear infections, and mild flu like symptoms go first. As I sat there in the wheelchair I saw a very familiar face walk through the semi-crowed waiting room. As the face got closer and clearer, tears began to form and fall to my face. My head coach walked up to me and asked how I was doing. This meant so much to me, to know that he took time away from his family to see one of his players. We sat there for a while and talked he cracked a few jokes and we shared a few laughs. All of a sudden my mind started to wonder, and the first thing that crossed was what if it is too bad for me to return to the court within the next two weeks, or worse for the rest of my high school days.

I sat down in a chair and my bar coach brought out a bag full of ice to put under my elbow. I iced for 15 minutes. After I was done icing, I was trying trying to move it around. I wasn’t able to straighten my arm all the way and I wasn’t able to touch my shoulder. After awhile I got my clothes on because I wasn’t able to do anything. I skipped vault because I was icing my elbow and was trying to move it around. Then my group came to bars and Coach Mel said, “You are able to help me watch

The crowd was roaring like wild animals. Our teams had switched sides to start the second match and everything came into focus then. I could hear individual people cheering in the crowd, the student section was going nuts. The smell of the butter coming from the popcorn at the concession stands suddenly stood out to me. Most importantly, I could feel the yearning and the passion coming from my teammates. We wanted this win–bad. I was one of the leading hitters on the team and it was my job to produce the big hits for the team and motivate them to take everything the other team would hit at us. We started the second game and things were still going well for us! It wasn’t a fluke! We were playing well because we were working hard. If we didn’t hit hard they were going to pound it down, we couldn’t let up. So when our setter set me up and I saw out of the corner of my eye a triple block I knew I had to get it through their hands, but the ball was behind my head. In that split second I made a decision that changed my life forever. I swung away and I felt my shoulder pop and then the worst pain of my life went through my entire arm. I grabbed it right away knowing something was wrong. I’ve never felt pain like this in a game before. In that moment I knew that was the one. Every player knows what it’s like to get hurt. You get sprained ankles and sprained knees all the time, but this was the injury I knew had been coming to me. I looked up at my parents in the crowd and they knew too. Something was wrong.