The Moment of Change...

Although this story may be a little outdated and many people may already know, I would like to tell it from my side. The summer of 2011 brought many amazing friends and memories. It might have been the best summer that I’ve ever had. Returning to Holbrook from Tucson was sort of climatic, I had spent all summer away from my family and seeing everybody again was very exciting. Despite seeing my family for the first time, I couldn’t wait to see my friends. I was very excited for the first day of volleyball camp, it was the first time I was going to see all of my friends again. A little confession, I knew my legs were going to ache very much after the first day of volleyball camp…I mean volleyball is not a very easy sport at all! The University of Arizona’s food court had taken its toll on me and I was not prepared to work very hard. I was very determined to try as hard as I could and to my surprise, I had made it through the first day, but I was more tired than I had ever been before. The second morning of volleyball camp rolled around and I was not looking forward to it all. Surprisingly, it wasn’t bad at all, towards the end of the second morning session, I had seen the injury of a fellow teammate. I wished her well and we were off to lunch.
After coming back from lunch, we did a little conditioning and a lot more playing. We had gone into a hitting drill for a short time after conditioning. Endurance hitting was not at all my favorite; it made you so tired that it was a little hard to breathe afterward. A couple of groups had gone before it was me and my partner’s turn. Although I was never a good volleyball player, I had tried very hard to do my best. I ran to the baseline and back to the net, hit the ball and ran back to the baseline. I repeated this for another two or three times, I ran back up to the net and jumped to hit the ball. When I landed, my knee jerked back and POP! It was so loud, I think the people on the opposite court heard it. I tried to stand and walk it off like any other injury that I had ever had. When I tried to stand it didn’t want to bend or straighten, the pain was so unbearable and the swelling had started immediately. I wasn’t thinking about what could have possibly happened to my knee, I was thinking more about not crying or screaming from the pain. Walking was not an option, so a teammate and my coach were kind enough to help me off the court. All I was thinking was, how in the heck did that happen?  Sitting in the emergency room for a couple of hours had not been my plan at all. The doctor had seen me, took x-rays and put me in a brace and on crutches. All I had to do now was wait and wait for the following week when I was scheduled for an MRI. The MRI was a first time experience and it was loud. Then more waiting, the results of my MRI came in and the doctor told me,” Your anterior cruciate ligament is torn.” I know it may seem a little childish to cry at this point, but I did! As the tears ran down my face and as I tried choking back my sobs, all I was thinking was why? Why did it have to happen to me in my senior year? As I limped out of the doctor’s office, I was still crying thinking about how the surgery would go. After waiting a few more weeks, it was surgery day. I was scared out of my shorts; I am not a person who tolerates pain very well. The operating room was cold and the nurses were nice, but all of that wasn’t going to change how much pain I was in after surgery. The doctors woke me up after the 2 hour surgery and I was in recovery for an hour. After waking me up, I had excruciating pain in my left knee and I was crying harder than I had ever cried before. I was wishing that it would just go away. The worst part about this whole injury was it took just one split second for my body shift its whole functioning. I am currently still rehabilitating; I shouldn’t be but unfortunately I had missed a whole month of physical therapy and that has altered the functioning of my knee greatly.
The best thing about this injury was knowing that I have to work even harder at everything I do to avoid this injury from happening ever again, and despite this injury I know I still have amazing friends and family who support me in my athletics.