Whenever I tell someone I broke my back, the reaction never changes: a face full of disbelief. When I tell people I still have a broken back, that’s an entirely different reaction. A reaction I have not had to experience yet, as it is a recent development. Since these two instances are years apart, I have had time to grow as an individual and change my mindset about my injury, but I still have a long journey ahead.
Eleven-year-old me was a dedicated, competitive gymnast, spending 25 hours a week in the Summer training. Unlike summers prior, I felt pain in my lower back and hip, but continued practicing and training, pushing the pain to the back of my mind, until one day I had to stop. Through a series of doctors appointments, x-rays, and bone scans I was diagnosed with spondylolisthesis. At the young age of eleven, I did not understand what I was being told. All my mind could comprehend was there was one vertebrae slipping out of place, and I would never be a gymnast again. I went through the treatments the doctors prescribed, but I was devastated. At such a young age, I was told that the one thing I thought defined me was taken away.
It was to accept that this part of my life was over, so I took a year to come to terms with it, before moving on and trying new things. I quickly fell in love with cheer, and fast forward six years and here I am writing this as a cheerleader for the University of Delaware. A life goal to be an athlete in College has come to fruition. However, nothing is ever perfect, is it?
I began to experience the same pain I did seven years ago this summer. Except this time, it was worse. I had the same symptoms, and pain that I did right before my hip locked in place, but I am also experiencing new symptoms. Walking, standing, even sitting for long periods of time prove a challenge. My legs now like to do this super fun thing where they now go numb and tingly at random points throughout the day and feel incredibly weak. So, back to the doctors I go. Eleven-year-old me did not understand, nor feel the true nature of my injury as I do now. The break that occurred all those years ago never healed, so I will forever have a broken L5 vertebrae. My disk is tearing and pushing into my nerves causing the pins and needles feeling in my legs, and still, the vertebrae is out of line with the others. So what does this mean for me? It means I will live with this for the remainder of my life. It means I have to go through trials of treatments from physical therapy, to injections, to surgery, to relieve pain. Now as an individual who has finally achieved one of her life goals, this is difficult to deal with. As this is occurring now, I do not have an answer as to how long until I’ll be cheering on the sidelines again, if I’ll cheer again, or what treatment works best. I am moving about with the mentality that everything will work out.
Eleven and eighteen-year-old me have two vastly different mentalities on my injury. The younger me thought my world was crumbling and that was not the case at all. But of course, that is how I thought at a younger age. I grew as an individual and branched out from what I thought I knew about myself and came to the realization that you can’t let your experience define you, let how you handle or come back from it be the defining factor. In this current moment I am handling this new discovery one day at a time. T Is this how I wanted to start the season or school year? No not at all, but it is what it is. Things happen that you can’t control, and that’s just life. While I had a broken L5 vertebrae then, and still now, the fact that I will not let this define me has not changed either.
E110 FA19 Class Blog 