Saturday, April 27, 2013

Writing part B day 1 part 1

Discribe a moment of small but significant change:

I was sitting in an orthopedic surgeon's office with my ankle up on the table. My parents were sitting in chairs near by, there was dead silence. The dr walked in and didn't say a word at first he just put my x-ray onto the light box, turned it on and looked at me. He didn't need to say anything his eyes gave it away, I hope he doesn't play poker.

"Sherie, I'm so sorry but this is your 4th fracture of the same bone in 3 years that shouldn't be happening. After a bone breaks there should be a calcium deposit what prevents the bone from breaking again, clearly that isn't happening for you. I know your a swimmer and I know your training for the nationals team but I'm so sorry you can't compete anymore."

I laughed. I was 15 and he was telling me everything I had trained for since I was 5 was going to be taken away because of an ankle fracture... A fracture that I had been swimming though and just "dealing with" a fracture that I numbed with pain meds and the mind set that if I didn't think about it while swimming it wouldn't hurt I'd just deal with the swelling later. He was nuts if he thought I was going to stop... mom and dad wouldnt do that to me... I looked to them like "ok! Now is when you speak up and say sorry we need a second opinion" but they avoided my eyes... They had already talked to the dr. They knew this before I was ever brought to his office. Their minds were made up.

I fought back years refusing the cry in front of this man who was taking my whole life from me I wouldn't give him that power...

"Swimming is low impact! This makes no sense! There's no reason you should wan me to stop doing something that is good for me!" I said though gritted teeth afraid if I opened my mouth to speak, all that would come out would be sobs

"But it's not good for you" he began "every time you dive, every time you get on the block and put all your body weight on the your medatarcles to start a race, every time you flip turn you cause damage, small fractures to form, tendons to tear, and as each happen you prevent the old ones from healing if you don't stop swimming soon you won't be able to walk"

At 15 this made no sense to me. Why wasn't I allowed to make this choice... I'd pick swimming over walking! But the choice was not mine... The choice was already made... In that 20 mins appt I went from training for the nationals swim team to a girl on crutches with an ankle brace who wasn't allow to walk barefoot anymore... I had fought though the prior injuries but I realized this time things had gone too far... It was over.

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