October 8, 2007 changed my life completely. The day I was injured. Soccer is my thing, I play it when I’m upset, happy, angry, sad, any emotion really. I love the feeling, its what I live for. Naturally I was at soccer practice when it happened. Our coach was giving us a nice easy practice, it was ironic that I was seriously injured. We were doing a drill where he kicked the ball out onto the field and whoever got there first was the offense and the other the defense. I got to it first. We were playing like normal, but we got tangled up and both of us fell. The way I fell, my right ankle twisted and popped four times. The next day I went to the hospital. Although it wasn’t broken or fractured I was forced to were a splint on my leg for two weeks with crutches. Those were the worst two weeks of my life. My awesome friends would talk about going walking, going to soccer practice in front of me and all I could do was sit at home wishing I could go with them. This is the point where I started to get way absorbed into my own mind. The point I thought that no one, not even my closest friends cared for me at all. Calling me cripple and making fun of the crutches under my arms. I won’t lie, it hurt a lot. Because of the pain these great friends of mine were causing I decided to just distance myself from them.

Finally two weeks were up, feeling so much longer. When I had the splint taken off it felt like freedom. I could move my ankle up and down, twist it side to side. It still ached for a while but I could move it, and that was all that mattered. I learned that you should never take walking for advantage. (Because of this experience, I have new found respect for my brother, who is wheelchair bound.) That week I went to my soccer game for the first time in two weeks. It felt great to be back on that field. I wasn’t playing great, I was afraid to go into it with my right side, my strong side. Soon I found that it was hard to breathe again. Just like it used to be before that summer. All the conditioning I had done during the summer, all of the running, gone. All for nothing. That phrase kept going through my head. The incident happened a little over a month before school soccer tryouts. Its been four weeks since and I still don’t have the endurance I once had. My ankle still hurts if I move it a certain way. I still can’t kick a soccer ball normally. It would be a miracle if I made the soccer team. School tryouts are still three weeks away and I’m hoping for a miracle.