Early Sunday morning, I woke up and checked my phone. “Two days until swimming!” My friend John had texted me as we both had been counting down until our high school swim team was going to begin. It was like any other Sunday morning, I showered and got ready for church. My mom told me to grab my keys as we would be taking my car. And then it happened. As I locked my front door and turned around, time stopped. I could feel myself falling, and then, snap. I was on the ground screaming in pain and holding my leg. At that moment I realized I had broken something in my leg, and that the next months were going to be very different from anything I had ever gone through.
Once I realized what had happened, it was already too late. I could feel my body attempting to go into shock, so I laid down on the cold, hard pavement and waited for the feeling to go away. When I finally felt well enough to get up, my mom had to help me up the step I had fallen off of just minutes ago, and back into the house. My mom managed to get an appointment in urgent care a few hours later, so I just had to sit and wait until then. As I sat, and the area around my ankle swelled, I pondered how I would get around. Luckily, my dad’s friend had had knee surgery a few years earlier so he brought me crutches to use. He also happened to be a pediatric doctor, working at the Stanford University Hospital in Palo Alto, California.  He explained to me that, “We see these sort of injuries all the time, and usually it’s just a sprained ankle.” Feeling overly confident because of the advice of a doctor and a pair of crutches, I was ready to go to urgent care.
Finally, the long awaited hour of my urgent care appointment arrived. Never having used crutches before, I stumbled awkwardly into the lobby. The crutches hooked onto my sweats, and I almost fell down in the lobby. Luckily, I caught myself and continued on. Once all my X-Rays were taken, a doctor came in and showed me the pictures. The doctor explained, “You broke your fibula, and unluckily, the break was relatively close to the ankle. Have you eaten anything in the past 12 hours?” From watching medical shows, I knew what that meant. Surgery. The doctor informed me that I would need surgery because the break was too close to my ankle to heal properly without surgery. They would put a plate and seven screws in my leg, and the seventh screw would need to be removed within a few months. As I panicked, awaiting my first surgery, less than 24 hours away, I couldn’t help but think what could go wrong, or what the next months would be like.
As I woke up from my surgery, I felt drowsy as the nurse began to ask me questions such as, “What month are we in? What did you swim when you could swim?” As I wasn’t up for talking about my lost hopes and dreams for the year, I quietly muttered my answers and waited to be released. When I finally got home after what felt like forever, I crutched up the walkway, and my crutch slipped into some nearby dirt, and once again, I almost fell. I knew I’d have to take everything one step at a time, unlike the one step I had missed a day earlier. I knew crutches would take getting used to, but I didn’t understand how I would use them around school. Or how long it would take to recover from surgery so I could actually return to school.
After a day of recovery, and some deep thinking, my mom decided that a knee scooter would be good to take to school. As I rode the knee scooter, there would be a littler pad where I could put the knee of my broken leg, and I would push myself along with my good leg. We went and retrieved it from a medical supply store, and I finally felt at ease as I would be scooting, instead of crutching, around my peers for the next two months at school. I finally was able to return to school two days later, and I received many looks from those at school. As I would scoot by, a lot of kids would start singing to me, “They see me rolling…”, and I would just laugh along with them, like I had never heard that song before from all the other students at my school during the day. I began to lose my patience, but I knew I would have to endure as I would be on the scooter for a while. After a few days, and the weirdness of riding a scooter around school wore off, I realized how cruel and neglecting some people were towards the handicapped. A countless number of times, I was run into, with no sorry, just a casual look of disgust. Many times I became frustrated, and wondered why I had to be going through this. I knew that after I had to go through this, I would be more helpful to those in need.
After about 2 months, it was finally time to get my cast off. Although joyful, I still had to wear a boot for six weeks to protect my leg while it healed for my next surgery. However, a removable boot meant that I could get into the water. I was so eager to get into the pool that I got in before I could even walk without crutches. I would crutch over the side, and hop in with my crutches on the ground waiting for me. Swimming, along with physical therapy, helped to make my leg strong again. Although I did not do as well as I hoped I would, I was still successful in swimming, much to everyone in the leagues surprise. I heard a few coaches say, “Wasn’t that girl just on crutches?” I was proud to have endured, and to have proved everyone wrong. A few days after high school swimming ended, it was finally time to have my last surgery.
The surgery was quick, as well as my recovery. I was able to walk right after the anesthesia wore off, and I celebrated as I was free from everything. Although I still had physical therapy for months after, I did not mind going. I was finally free, and able to do everything I wanted again. This was the most challenging thing I had ever experienced in my life, because I had never had physical restraints put on me like that before. Although it happened to be a tragic year for me, I learned many new things that I would not have learned without this struggle. I learned I need to be more sympathetic and helpful to those in need. Also, I proved that although I had been through one of the hardest struggles of my life, I was able to come out the other end a more understanding and patient person.