What if your whole life you have only wanted to do one thing. But, what would you do if one day you’re told you can’t any more. One day the only aspect of your life that you loved became obsolete. Would you listen? Would you accept this “fact” and throw it all away, would you give up? Could you?

I have always loved to perform. Singing, dancing, acting; nothing could stop me- at least that’s what I thought. It all happened so quickly, I don’t think I remember where to start.

Throughout my life I have sustained many injuries, bouncing back in record time to compete in activities or just live my life. I never realized that my will to “bounce back” would become a curse. If I told you how many injuries my body has recovered from we’d be here all year; I just need to tell you about the injury I thought I had recovered from.

In fifth grade I shattered the growth plate in my knee while playing basketball in gym class...teaches me not to play sports. This put me in a wheelchair for half the year, with doctors not giving me concrete feedback on how to go about dealing with the aftermath. The next year a similar incident occurred in the opposite knee; except this time nothing was done. I was on crutches for a week until I fractured my shoulder and couldn’t be in a sling and use crutches. By that time I got used to walking in pain. These two injuries seemed to have healed and I didn’t think about them again; until sophomore year of high school.

At the end of sophomore year, I began experiencing immense amounts of pain in my knees, I began to wear my old braces and thought back to past injuries. It wasn’t until both of my knees dislocated, one right after the other, and I was brought into the ER. This is it. This is the end, I thought. That was when I found out I have bilateral patella-formel. Don’t ask me what it means, I’m just the patient. All I know is that every move I make, especially up and down stairs, is extremely painful. And don’t even get me started about running.

You may ask: Then how do you dance? Well, that’s the hardest part. I love to dance and perform, but how can I do that when I can barely function as it is? It’s easy. When you love something, nothing can stand in your way...especially pain. When I'm in pain I don’t think about it. I think about what I’m doing and how much I love it. I let my pain drive me because I know I could sit out and watch, I know I should sit out and watch, but I would never sit out and watch.