One Saturday morning a little over a year ago, I hit a wall. Literally. As a high school student, athlete, and writer, I am very familiar with the figurative wall; the moment when you can barely roll out of bed after your third alarm, that point in a cross-country race when you feel the hammer fully come down, and that horrible, paralyzing writer’s block that we all feel when we sit down at the computer preparing to write that first sentence. In all these figurative examples through hard work (and a bit of luck) you can push through and reach the other side, but on that chilly morning in Jefferson City, Missouri, I didn’t push through, I simply bounced off…

Being an athlete comes with inherent risk, but as someone who had never broken a bone or even been to the ER, I thought that I was pretty much invincible. In the end though, I wasn’t, losing my battle with the “wall.” In this case, it happened to be an actual wall, the 6-inch-thick piece of metal and plexiglass on the side of an ice rink. When I arrived at Missouri’s capital for my first speed skating meet of the 2017-2018 season, I expected to stay on my feet, and hopefully win a race or two. I didn’t expect to slip in a last-ditch attempt to pass my main opponent who had been beating me all day. Going into the final race of the day, the 1000 meters, I was optimistic about my chances of winning, being more of an endurance athlete. I don’t really remember hitting the wall, I just remember accelerating to pass him and losing my edge on a turn in the last lap of the last race of the day, and penguin sliding across the cold, wet ice, feet first towards the outside of the rink. But mostly, I remember the after.

I remember not feeling anything, but also the most primal reaches of my brain alerting me that something was very wrong. That self-preservation instinct knew what I didn’t yet: that I had snapped both my tibia and my fibula. I remember confusion, the on-ice referee skating over asking me if I was okay, and if I could “get back up” and “put some weight on it”. Even though I had yet to feel pain, I somehow knew that standing up was not a possibility. As much as I wanted to avoid the dreaded ride on the pad to the exit of the rink, which happened to be the furthest point from the turn where I had gone down; soaking wet, shivering, and in shock, I knew that it was inevitable. I don’t really recall being gently helped onto the pad, my coach wrapping my trembling body in her red team sweatshirt, or even being dragged slowly off the ice, but I remember that a thick silence hung in the air—anticipation, confusion, surprise. Despite speed skating’s reputation as an extreme sport populated by people whizzing around the ice on twenty-inch blades, serious injuries are no more common than in any other sport, particularly if that sport involves contact, such as soccer, football, or hockey. Thus, my graceless penguin slide into the wall came as a bit of a shock to the underprepared meet organizers and spectators, most members of the small skating community themselves.

            What came next is a bit of a blur, a crowd of people surrounds me, a woman yells “I’m a nurse” rushing over to offer her expertise, my coach asks me to describe how I feel. Several times I am asked the questions, “what do you think is wrong?” and “where on your ankle does it hurt?” and my simple responses every time: “I have no idea” and “everywhere.” Next, a man whose face I can no longer remember uses a Swiss army knife to cut the laces on my left skate, an attempt to get me out of the hard carbon fiber and leather boot before my foot swelled up to the size of a cantaloupe. A bag of ice is handed to me, cold in my wet hand, before being placed onto my leg, doing very little to quell the pain that seeps past the protection of my now fading adrenaline, like the feeling of the icy water seeping into my skinsuit. One woman says hopefully: “Maybe its just a bad twist,” and as much as everyone in the rink wanted to believe her (myself included), I knew deep in the pit of my stomach that this was not the case. Foolishly optimistic, but with tears streaming down my flushed face, I was wheeled in a maroon office chair towards the backseat of our car.

One bumpy and excruciatingly painful car ride later, we arrived at the Capital Region Medical Center, which to say the least, is not known for its Emergency Services Department. It seemed like forever in the waiting room, as I sat, cold and soaking wet, wearing my coach’s sweatshirt in a random wheelchair that a nurse had found folded up in the corner. After the longest 15 minutes of my life, I was taken back to an examination room and asked a series of questions, before it was concluded that I needed to head to imaging. Before I could go, I needed to get out of my tight-fitting spandex skin suit and leggings. While this may seem easy on paper, it is surprisingly difficult when your ankle is three times its normal size, and, I was NOT going to let the nurse practitioner cut me out of my expensive and treasured uniform. A few painful minutes later, I had been successfully extricated from both layers. While I was thankful to have avoided the dreaded scissors, I now found myself sitting in the cold bed wearing nothing but a t-shirt, my coach’s sweatshirt, and a pair of pink floral print underwear. After being taken to the radiology department for an x-ray and being asked whether I was doing roller derby several times, I was taken back to the exam room where I anxiously awaited any news. At this point, I was not expecting to have more than a minor fracture, as despite the excruciating pain, I was in denial, thinking that I would be back to my usual activities in a matter of weeks. Initially misdiagnosed by the on-call orthopedist (who they eventually reached by phone), I was told that I had broken my ankle in three places. I was in shock.

A few hours later, drowsy from pain medication, frustrated, and exhausted, we left Jefferson City and embarked on the two-hour drive back to St. Louis. The worst part about the drive back was that after removing my leggings pre-x-ray, I was splinted in a giant plaster, gauze, and ace wrap cast that went from my toes to just below my knee. Therefore, there was no way that those leggings were going back on. So, instead of driving home pants-less, I was forced to wear a giant pair of hospital pants that were designed for use with a bed pan; i.e. no crotch! A few days later, after an appointment with my orthopedist, several more x-rays, and even a CT scan, I was correctly diagnosed as having broken my tibia and fibula straight through at the ankle and told that I would need to have surgery. Since I was still slightly in denial and had never experienced an injury more serious than a scraped knee, I had no concept going into the appointment of what my recovery would look like. Thus, the description given by my doctor of the weeks and months of different types of casting, bracing, surgery, and physical therapy required to make it back to baseline was simply put, overwhelming.

At seven o’clock on the morning of the eighth of December, six days after my initial accident, I headed into surgery. I was terrified. I had never been under the knife before, had anesthesia, or even gotten an IV, meaning that all of this was new and very scary. After changing into a humongous purple gown, a matching purple compression sock and peeing in a cup, I was taken to a bed, given an IV, and told to wait for my surgeon and anesthesiologist to come speak with me. After he began listing the different pieces of metal he may or may not be inserting into my leg depending on the extent of the injury he could see once I was open on the table, I stopped listening, instead choosing to simply force a smile and nod. About half an hour later, drowsy from the initial pre-op sedatives I had been given, my bed was wheeled into the operating room. This is the moment where my memory gets extremely foggy. However, I do recall bright lights, several doctors crowded around me, and the last glimpse of the mask coming down on my face. Weirdly, I remember thinking that the breathing mask filled with general anesthetic smelled like a beach ball. A few hours later, the surgery was complete, and I was taken into recovery. I was now the not-so-proud owner of three screws in my tibia, a 6-inch long plate screwed onto my fibula, a stabilizing Teflon rope that stretched from one side of my ankle to the other, and 24 stitches.

Even though the actual surgery was complete, I still had the massive hurdle of recovery left looming before me. Unlike in surgery, where all the work was done by others, I now had to pull my own weight. And I had a lot of healing to do. While the surgery itself went very well, we soon realized that a complication had arisen. Somehow, I had lost feeling and surface nerve function on my entire leg from the mid-thigh down. Weirdly, even though the skin and tissue in my leg felt numb, I was still able to feel intense bone pain. We had no answers. My doctor, an experienced orthopedist, had only seen this happen once before. In that case, feeling had returned after about a week and a half, so he thought that the same would happen to me. However, he was not sure, and the uncertainty was terrifying. I was incredibly afraid that it would never go back to normal. Thankfully, it did, but to make matters worse, as sensation returned bit by bit, I began feeling horrible burning sensations and nerve pain, which was even worse than the bone pain I was still feeling simultaneously. Despite the high doses of pain medication, I was in agony. It turns out that the tourniquet used on my upper thigh during surgery to prevent me from bleeding out on the table had pinched, smushed, or crushed the nerve on my inner thigh. After this whole debacle, I was still in a cast for six weeks, on crutches for eight weeks, in a boot for four weeks, and had to do fourteen weeks of physical therapy. I also missed the two and a half weeks of school just before winter break, meaning that I had a lot to catch up on once I came back in January.

From the minute that I first looked at my x-ray, I was incredibly angry. I didn’t understand why this had happened to me. While in the grand scheme of things, I was alive and would make a full recovery, I was still frustrated, searching for someone, anyone to blame. This was no one’s fault, and just simply a fluke accident. However, I was angry that I had to have surgery, a procedure that permanently gave me several new titanium and Teflon “accessories,” that I would miss out on the rest of the skating season, and that I wouldn’t be able to go to school and see my friends for the next two weeks. I was angry that little tasks such as showering took all my energy, that I was in pain, horrible pain that the brain-clouding opioids I was prescribed did very little to suppress, and that my crutches would be a constant companion for the next eight weeks. 

I’m not going to stand here and pretend that there was some fabulous silver lining, or that I found Jesus or whatever, but I did realize that I could be stronger than what tried to break me. Even though all I wanted was to give up, to go back to the before, to just lie there and forget everything, in the end, getting up, moving on, and facing the world was my only option. Rather than just throwing a pity party for myself (of which I did throw plenty), I strove for the milestones, the little accomplishments and pieces I could get back. Although it felt like an eternity, and these moments frustrated me in their seeming frivolity, even something as simple as going back to school, or taking a few steps was movement in the right direction.

I’ve learned through this experience that hitting a “wall”, whether figurative or literal is extremely difficult, and that even though it might be hard to see the other side from were you are now, through persistence, you might just be able to push through it. Whether you burst through it all at once, or simply take a brick off every day, progress is always possible, and you are stronger than you know. It’s okay and expected to be angry, sad, or in pain, but eventually, bit by bit, that can fade, leaving you open to explore new opportunities.

Now, a year later, I’m in a much better place both mentally and physically. I’ve recently finished my second season of high school cross country, and even recently went to a skating practice to test the waters. Even though simply skating (albeit badly and with dodgy balance) in circles for an hour may not seem like much, it’s a big step in the right direction, particularly for someone who was unable to even face thinking about the sport at all until a few months ago.