If you’ve experienced an injury while playing a sport, you know the feeling of starting one game and sitting “benched” the next. It’s not a fun feeling. You’re stuck watching your teammates fight for victory with no way to assist other than cheering them on.
As a person who is both highly active and independent to a fault, injuries destroy me.
In my junior year of high school, I got hit in the head with a lacrosse ball by one of my teammates during practice. I was forced to sit out for three games because the trainer thought I had a concussion even though I went to the doctor and he cleared me.
Doctor > trainer, just saying. I’m still a little salty.
I was completely capable of playing yet I couldn’t. It was a terrible moment in my lacrosse career. All I could do sit and watch. To make matters worse, the girl who hit me stole my starting spot.
Recently, I got a serious injury doing gymnastics. Trying new skills can be dangerous. A double back off bars shattered my dreams of competing in Nationals this year while destroying my leg.
I dislocated my ankle and broke both my shin and my fibula. In order to fix my fibula, they had to put a rod and screws in my leg. Now I’m stuck using crutches to get around and in pain every time I move. Definitely not how I pictured I’d be finishing out the school year.
I traveled with my team to Georgia for a meet over the weekend. It was nice to be there with everyone but I couldn’t really do anything. While I could imagine the routines I planned on competing, all I could do was watch from the side as my teammates competed. Even at the party afterwards, I sat on the couch while everyone else danced.
Feelings of inadequacies come up quite often. Someone has to help me get food at the dining halls unless I want to drop everything on the floor. Work isn’t happening at the moment since I need to stand in order to do my job. I can’t drive myself around so if I need to go anywhere farther than campus, I’m screwed.
It’s hard to rely on people when I know from experience how unreliable they can be. It also doesn’t help that I don’t like asking for help because I could really use some right now.
A speedy recovery is all I can ask for.