Last year, the beginning of seventh grade was all about making one decision.  I thought about it a lot and in my mind I made a list of pros and cons of what good would come out of it.  I had just finished the softball season and soon I would have to play basketball and volleyball.  When I was ten years old, I was doing a pitching clinic up at Valley High School for softball.  It was about 4 weeks long and at the end, I was starting to feel a lot of pain in my left hip.  It felt like I pulled a muscle and that’s what my mom thought too.  For a month I got to limping more and more everyday and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t walk straight or lift it up on my own.  A lot of people thought I was faking and just being overdramatic.  I was doing that for a whole month so I understand why they might have thought that.  Soon my mom decided to take me in to have an x-ray.  They figured out what happened and it showed up that I had a Slipped Capped Femoral Epiphysis.  It is also known as SCFE.  Right away, we had to rush up to Iowa City to get surgery.  I got put in two pins at the femur.  After about three years, I had been back to sports and doing everyday activities like everybody else.  I did have some limitations.  I wasn’t as flexible as I was in the other hip, It hurt whenever I walked for a long time, and the pins were getting in the way of something in the hip so I could feel the pins rubbing on something when I did stuff.  Going into seventh grade, I was finishing up softball.  In softball I couldn’t bend down that easy and field the ball.  It really started to hurt at the end of the season. Soon I started basketball practice and it was killing and really getting in the way then. We decided we needed to do something about it.  We had been told that when I’m older and the growth plates have closed, I could get reconstructive surgery that puts the bone back into place and pins it back to where it should be.  That was an option, but we couldn’t wait that long.  We called the doctor and asked what another option could be.  They said since the pins were getting in the way, that they could take the pins out and it would be fine since the fracture had healed. I was having so much pain after doing any physical activity that we decided we should have the pins out.  About a week after we decided that, the surgery was scheduled.  I was a little scared even though I had already had surgery before, but I don’t remember everything about it. 
On October 28th, we went up to Iowa City to have my pins taken out.  I have to admit I was really scared on that day.  What worried me the most was probably throwing up.  In the surgery to put my pins in, I had woken up when they were pretty much done and threw up.  I didn’t want to take the chance of waking up during the surgery and interrupting that.  Another worry was how long I would be out for or if I would be out at all.  I didn’t care if I was out for basketball but I would really be mad if I was out for volleyball.  We didn’t know if I would even be on crutches at all.  It all depended on the surgery. 
Soon we arrived in Iowa City and we headed into the hospital.  We were directed to some kind of waiting room and once we got there, it was so packed we had no place to even sit.  We checked in at the waiting room and they told us that it would be awhile.  I really didn’t want to wait any longer than I had too and I also really had to go to the bathroom.  I couldn’t go to the bathroom because they needed a sample first.  My mom told them I couldn’t wait any longer and they decided to get me started.  They sent us down for the preparation of getting surgery and we went into an area that had a bunch of little rooms.  They gave me my room and I changed into the hospital gown that they had given me.  I absolutely hate those things. After I  got that on, I sat down and started to worry again.  I tried to get myself to stop worrying so much but it didn’t work.  My parents were in the room with me also and they asked me if I wanted to watch tv.  Tv was not going to get my mind off it and it would only make everything worse.  So, we sat there and pretty much talked the whole time.  My mom was trying to be funny but she wasn’t helping.  We were waiting for quite awhile and then after almost an hour, a nurse doctor came in.  It wasn’t my main doctor that was doing the surgery but it was one of them that was going to be in the surgery.  He told us some things that I already knew and made sure some procedures were done.  He eased my mind a little of the surgery and that helped a lot.  They also gave me meds to help me not throw up.  That made me really happy.  After a while, my main doctor came in and talked a little.  We asked him if I would be on crutches and how long if so.  He told us that yes I would probably be on crutches and he didn’t know how long but that I would definitely be out for sports.  That disappointed me but I rather heal my leg than be out longer than I have too.  Soon, they came and got me to go to surgery.  My doctor led me to the room where I would be having surgery.  It was weird walking into the room.  Last time I had surgery, I wasn’t aloud to walk so I was on a bed. Right when I got in the room, I plopped down on the bed and looked around.  There were quite a few people in the room and there was so many machines and medical tools.  Everything looked really weird.  I laid my head down on the pillow and the nurses started talking to me.  They were very nice and they were asking me questions that wasn’t related to the surgery.  After about five minutes, they started the process of putting me to sleep.  I don’t like needles so they didn’t put the IV in when I was awake.  They soon put a mask on me and said that it would smell like kiwi.  It sure did smell like kiwis.  It was a lot better smelling than the one before because the first time it smelled like a beachball.  The nurse counted down and I started getting sleepy. I closed my eyes and then then opened them once again.  I got really woozy and soon I was asleep. 
After what felt like an hour or two, I woke up in the recovery room.  It was dark and only one other person was in the room the the other end in a bed like me.  I was so cold that I was shaking and I couldn’t stop at all.  I was in pain since I was moving my leg from being so cold.  It felt like 10 minutes, but soon someone brought over a heavy blanket instead of the thin little sheet I had on me.  I instantly felt warmer and felt a lot better with the pain since I wasn’t shaking.  Someone came over to talk to me and asked me how my pain was and that they paged my parents to come so they would be there shortly.  I was pretty out of it but then after a little, my parents came in and so did my sister.  She was up at Iowa for college so she decided to come with and see me.  I was doing pretty good with pain so we were positive that I would be able to come home.  Even if I was in a lot of pain, I would still try to bare it and go home because I don’t like staying in hospitals at all. 
After about half an hour when I woke up a little more, they took me to another little room.  It wasn’t a room that you would want to sleep in but looks like the E.R. rooms.  We were in there for about a little while and then my dad went to go the car to go home.  When my dad left, the doctor came in and said the surgery went well and everything looked good.  They said it was a little longer than they expected because when they were getting the pins out, they lost the head of the pin that was like a washer.  They were going to leave it in there but they said if they were going to do it, they were going to do it right.   The doctor also said that the holes from the pins are pretty good size, so I would have to be on crutches for as long as it takes for the holes to heal.  If I didn’t be careful, I could be at square one again and having to do the pins and all again.  After the doctor left, we got some instructions on what to do with everything.  I couldn’t wait to get home.  My mom got me in a wheelchair and handed me my crutches with the green washcloths and started wheeling me to the main lobby.  My dad was in the front waiting for us and then came the hard part, standing up for the first time after surgery.  I stood up crutched about two feet to get into the car. I slowly put myself into the car and lied down.  Off we went back home.  Before we went home, we stopped at Dairy Queen because my throat was really sore and I wanted something cold to drink.  I got a strawberry kiwi icy.  That was a big mistake.  I started drinking it and almost got sick just drinking it.  The icy was the exact same flavor as the anesthesia I had gotten to put me to sleep.  I couldn’t drink it anymore.
As the next couple of weeks went on, I crutched around school and got super tired. I got a lot of questions but that’s alright.  It was hard to explain what really happened in a short sentence.  At the end of the six weeks, I was sick of crutches and really wanted to walk.  When we went back to the doctor, they said that my holes were pretty good and I had to eat/drink a lot of dairy to make my bones strong.  The holes weren’t closed enough to go back to sports so I had another 6 weeks of no activity.  I was hoping that I would be able to go back to volleyball since they hadn’t even started tournaments yet but that wasn’t a good option.  That winter was just a break for the next years to come and high school sports.  It wasn’t an important year for volleyball or basketball but the years coming up are. 
A year has past from the surgery and everything is 10x better than it was before.  It never EVER hurts.  My leg would always be hurting by the end of a game or even a day of shopping at the mall.  I have more movement in my leg and I’m a lot more flexible.  When I’m playing softball, I feel like I can move more and I can actually get down on the ball.  Things changed for the better and I’m happy they did.  We weren’t sure that the surgery would help at all and it was a chance that we took.  Looking back it’s the best thing that has came out of my hip since the first time we found out what had happened.  That was a big decision to make and it surely worked.  Hopefully I’m done with injuries and I have no more problems with my hip.