Playing Through Pain: From the Court to Crutches

Injuries are very common, especially in a sport like basketball, but I never thought that athlete would be me. Honestly, I would always “dream” or rather imagine what it’d be like to get injured—all the attention I’d get, all the things I could get away with asking for, all the ice cream I’d get to eat. But you never fully understand something until you experience it. 

On the first day of February, we had a game. We played like any other game, and everything felt normal. However, when I jumped to catch the ball and landed weirdly, I immediately fell to the ground, feeling a pain I had never experienced before. My teammates helped me to the bench, and the trainer came over. She actually was no help at all, so I decided to keep playing. We only had 5 girls that day, including me, so if I pulled out, the game would be over. So I kept playing. Honestly, I didn’t feel too much while playing, only because of the amount of adrenaline in my body. It was after the game that I saw the massive swelling and felt the unbearable pain while trying to walk. A sprained ankle is very common and very treatable on its own, so I didn’t care too much about it. I didn’t care that I’d gotten hurt because I could still play with my brace.

Now, flash forward to the end of the season and our last game. It was a home game, so we were all so excited. Even if we lost, we just wanted to have fun. Towards the end of the game, I was driving to the basket when my knee collided with the defender's leg. The next thing I knew, I was on the ground, looking at my knee and thinking, That doesn’t look right. The trainer had to pop my kneecap back into place right there, and the coaches had to carry me out. Obviously, everyone was very concerned, but it was my teammates that I cared about the most. They had to finish the game without me, and afterward, when they walked into the training room with tears in their eyes, it only made me cry more. I had to leave, and on the way to orthopedic urgent care, I dislocated my knee cap again. In the end, the X-rays showed nothing was broken—I just had to wear a knee immobilizer to keep from bending my knee. What a great way to end the season!

The first two or three days were fine, partially because I got to stay home from school and lay down all day. But even then, my family—although trying to be helpful—constantly made me feel pissed off. It was only after that I realized I hated the patronizing, pitying way they tried to help me. It was always, “What do you need?” “I’ll do that for you.” “Just sit down and rest.”—and that made me want to do the exact opposite. My only response to everything they said was, “I can do it myself.” Maybe I couldn’t really do it myself, but I forced myself to. Not to prove anything to my family, who were only trying to help, but to prove to myself that this was not as big of a deal as everyone was making it out to be. 

On the third or fourth day, I had to go somewhere—a school campus—to take a test that I absolutely couldn’t skip. Because I couldn’t bend my knee, I was advised to use crutches to walk around. At first, I thought it’d be fun. I had always been jealous of seeing people at school walking around like that. What I didn’t know was that it hurts to walk around like that. I had to navigate the whole campus on crutches, breathing heavily, taking breaks, all while noticing the looks people were giving me. Even people I didn’t know—who I usually blocked out—suddenly felt impossible to ignore.

All around, I saw kids my age giving me sympathetic and pitying looks. But what stuck with me were the weirded-out and standoffish looks. After the first one, I stopped looking up, convinced that every glance I caught out of the corner of my eye was someone judging me. Everywhere, I searched for someone like me, someone else on crutches, hobbling slowly behind a group, but there was absolutely no one.

I’ve felt alone before but this was different. This wasn’t racism or sexism or anything like that. It was just me. That night, after I came home, I started crying. I realized I was finally coming to terms with what had happened to me. I always try not to ask the question why?  because I trust and know that everything happens for a reason. But that question kept popping into my head. Every time I looked at my knee, every time I noticed I was walking slower than others, every time I even thought about what others were thinking. 

Now I know everything is temporary, even an injury like this. But what isn’t as temporary is the memory of how this experience made me feel. All I, and anyone else, can do is focus on yourself. Don’t think about others' thoughts, think about controlling yours. Don’t question why certain things happen, accept them and realize that there is a greater purpose to all of it. I know I’ll be okay eventually, despite all the pain I feel at this moment in time. You can never fully unlock your true strength, both internally and externally, until you allow yourself to.