Near the end of July, I broke my fifth metatarsal bone. It was my first day of vacation in the Smoky Mountains and I fell off a stool reaching for the hot tub cover. After I had iced my foot for 20 minutes and realized the pain wasn’t going away, my dad took me to Urgent Care. The nurse told me that he “didn’t know how I managed to do that,” it was a huge shock because I was thinking I’d be able to walk the next day with some trouble. This whole scenario really made me realize how fragile the human body is and how much I took my foot for granted.
Once I got back to the cabin, it officially set in that I had broken my foot. I began to realize what it really meant for my life for the next two months. Getting around was hard. My summer was cut short. I wasn’t able to do my favorite things. Swimming, walking, biking. A day with my friends wouldn’t be the same. Though it was hard to not get caught in my thoughts during the healing process, I tried my best to stay positive about the whole situation. I knew I had broken a good part of my foot where lots of blood flow would make the healing process move very smoothly. My checkups with my orthopedic got even better each time and slowly I was able to walk with the boot. It brought me comfort to appreciate those little things along with the other people who share these experiences.
Freshman Megan Wilhite tore her ACL dismounting off gymnastics bars, enduring the 9 month healing process.
“I needed help with everything, from getting out of bed, to making breakfast, even walking around at school. I constantly needed help and had to relearn how to walk,” Wilhite said. “It’s definitely a lot of mental and physical. It takes a big toll on your mental health. I feel like I struggled a lot, just because I didn’t understand why it had to happen to me.”
No one ever thinks that it would happen to them. I know I didn’t. I had never broken a bone and I was planning on having it stay that way for the rest of my life. However, things happen and it’s just how you work around the difficulties that happen to you. Junior Seamus Lawless understands how this feels, he shattered his kneecap during a football game against Troy.
“Because I’m a junior, it’s a time crunch for going to college. It makes it a lot harder to [prepare]. But luckily my position I’m wanting to go to college for doesn’t matter as much as if it was a quarterback or wide receiver,” Lawless explained. “That’s a major thing as well as just everyday things like I take a shower with a shower chair, I have to walk around with a crutch and a brace. It sucks, but it’s life.”
Lawless speaks about how this injury doesn’t differ from the others.
“They’re all injuries, they happen. You can’t do [anything] about it. It’s part of a game whenever you sign up for a [sport],” Lawless said “You can get injured wherever. Just the cost of the game.”
Having a positive mindset like that is the only way to mentally heal from these injuries. Wishing you could go back and erase what happened over and over again only tires you out. There is no point in reminiscing on what could have happened because there’s nothing else to do but look forward and move on. Rest, heal, start attending physical therapy, track your results, watch yourself get stronger each day. Lawless describes what it’s like going to physical therapy twice a week.
“It’s not horrible so far. It’s just a little bit of getting every other part of my body moving as much as possible. So [for example] my left leg [and] my arms as well and even a little bit of my right leg with the exercises that I get. Just to get them done [to] get some movement.”
It’s exciting to get back into things after being out for so long, but it’s important to not get discouraged when things aren’t clicking immediately. It takes time. Wilhite describes how she feels getting back into gymnastics will be like.
“I think it’s gonna be really challenging just because I’m the type of person who wants to be good at everything. I can’t just go right back to where I was pre-injury, you have to start doing little things like in the pit and on the trampoline,” Wilhite explained. “In two weeks I start running so I have to relearn, [it’s all just] baby steps.”
It’s good to celebrate the little accomplishments because that just means you’re a step closer to recovery.
“I know I wouldn’t change it. I think it was a good thing it happened because I feel like I changed a lot and I made a lot of new friends. I experienced things that I don’t think I ever would have made,” Wilhite said.
