Stories Plus

I fractured my arm once when I was three, but I don’t really remember much of that except holding an Easter basket over my cast while grabbing eggs and my parents telling me to save some for my little brother. Exactly 8 years ago today, I fractured my left leg. I was 15 years old in my freshman year of high school. In middle school, I joined the track team in spring and decided to keep that going once I got into high school. I started during the winter season, running the 1000m run or the mile. Winter track is a little different since all the races are done indoors and yet we practice outdoors in the cold. Back then, I continued training by running at home on the treadmill the days I wasn’t at school practicing. I kept up this practice between seasons, just trying to keep in shape, but I wasn’t taking care of myself much. My leg was hurting with a bad shin splint, but I didn’t pay much attention to it. On the third day of the outdoor season, we did an exercise in which we had to sprint 6 400’s and jog a 400 between each one. I wasn’t paying attention, I just remember that at some point the pain in my leg got worse and at the end, I wasn’t walking right.

It was very difficult to walk, but I still tried to go to track practice after school on Monday. My friends ended up ratting me out and I was benched and told to ice my leg. All of the adults in my life thought it was a bad shin splint. I tried using a compression sleeve and lots of ice, but it didn’t get much better. My friends were constantly yelling at me to go see a doctor to get crutches or something of the like. I ended up walking on it for about a month before finally talking to my parents. After going to the doctor, they saw it had started healing, but it was still fractured. I was declared non-weight bearing for a month and on crutches. It sucked and I felt as if I had let my friends and my team down. My friends joined the track team and we were all excited to do it together. Life does happen and it wasn’t entirely my fault, but if I had taken better care of myself it wouldn’t have happened. Looking back now, it’s just a funny story to tell my friends. For example, the first day I showed up on crutches, one of my friends threw her hands up and yelled, “Finally!” I was embarrassed at the time, but it’s pretty funny now.