Athletes look forward to their sports all year. Some are in more than one sport, but there is always the one that they love the most. But what happens when that gets taken away from them in a blink of an eye?
Sports injuries can take players out for the entire season or make them hold back and go easy. The ones that make them hold back are more common and happen often but still can have significant repercussions. Katherine Gray, a sophomore at Brighton High School who is on both the swim and dive team and track and field team, gets shin splints often during her track season.
“It is extremely painful at times and has made it nearly impossible to train. It has affected my training and performance in meets, and it has gotten to the point where it hurts to walk around school,” Gray said.
Most people may overlook this, as she is not in a cast and does not have a brace on. However, that does not change the pain Gray is in nor the toll it has taken on her season. The best recovery for her is rest and time off, but in the middle of the season, it is not easy for her to do this. Instead, she focuses on recovery through mobility exercise to help strengthen her shins and deal with the pain.
The biggest difference between these slight injuries and major injuries is that she is able to continue her sport. Those with major injuries aren’t so lucky.
Junior Auria Boren had dance ripped out of her hands in a moment with an injury. During a dance class one year, she had to react fast as the person in front of her moved back, so she did as well. However, the abrupt movement caused her to dislocate her knee and tear her ACL. She said that she never fully recovered from this because she never got surgery, so she is always in constant fear of injuring that leg again.
“I always have to be cautious on how I walk, run or even bend my knee because I never know when it’s going to happen again. It’s just an overwhelming thought, and I worry that my knee will only get worse. It’s like I’m having a mental battle that I can’t fix,” Boren said.
This would become draining for anyone having to constantly think about how they do certain things. It’s like having to constantly think about chewing or swallowing every time one eats or drinks. The mental challenge associated with this only heightens the injury with all of the other challenges that come with it.
The challenges that an athlete faces slowly build up through the stages of their injury. The moment that the injury happens is the worst. One moment they are laughing with their friends, talking about random things. The next, they’re on the floor, cradling what hurts, in agony, trying to remember what just happened. Trying to focus on what the coach is saying and what the answers to their questions are. Trying to figure out where exactly the pain is.
The next thing they know, they’re in the doctor’s office, and the doctors are telling them that they are out for the season, for more than the season, for six months, for a year. Nothing seems real at that moment. They are still trying to catch their breath because everything happened in a blink of an eye. Everything was taken from them.
They are now unable to do many things that they used to be able to do. For a leg injury, they can’t walk and have to be on crutches, forcing them to take the elevator, and sometimes, they aren’t able to drive. For an arm they can’t carry many things, they have to sleep in a certain position and depending on what arm, they have to become ambidextrous.
On top of all of this, they have to cut out most sports and athletic things. The most they will get in the beginning is the exercise they get from physical therapy,
“[It was] about nine months until I cleared a return-to-sport test, but 12 before I could actually return to all normal sports/activities because the re-tear risk is very high,” said senior Lila Dolecki, who tore her ACL the beginning of her junior year.
Waiting a year and being unable to fully compete in a sport often takes a toll on an athlete. Dolecki tore her ACL during a Powder Puff practice, which is designed to be a fun and charitable activity for junior and senior girls. This rendered her unable to participate in her sport later in the year.
On top of the physical consequences, the mental battle that comes with these injuries can also have some major impacts on student athletes as their injury changes the trajectory of their year, which overall changes them as they aren’t able to do normal activities anymore. After being injured, the athletes often face a mental battle between what they should and should not do because one little slip-up can set them back.
“The biggest challenge I faced was fear that I would do something to set back my progress or tear something again—also just frustration with not being able to do normal activities, especially towards the end of the first month, when I was on crutches and couldn’t walk or drive,” Dolecki said.
It’s not just student athletes that are affected by injuries, though. Krystina Buck, the pole vaulting coach at BHS, tore her ACL as well a while back but was able to get back to vaulting quickly. It was not an easy process for her to get there, though, as she had to be on crutches, then in a brace, and have a knee bender at night to help her get mobility back into her leg.
“I had a brace and crutches after surgery for, like, two weeks. I also had a ‘knee bender’ at night time to get a better range of motion. . . Sleeping when I had the knee bender was tough,” Buck said.
All of these injuries are very different and have different effects on what they did to the athlete that they affected. There are injuries that make the athletes have to take some time to stretch and recover. There are injuries that cause the athletes to take half a year to a year off from all athletic activities and sports to recover. There are injuries that always have a risk of coming back and forcing the athlete to be cautious. There are injuries that force the athletes to rethink everything. For most athletes, though, all injuries, regardless of the severity, have something in common: their effects aren’t just physical.
“I didn’t know that day would be my last day to dance until it happened,” Boren said. “I missed out on many rehearsals and performances, and I feel like it changed my future, like I had to restart my life and my passion.”
