Kayla Ramos, a young professional surfer who lived in Oahu, Hawaii, was preparing for the most important competition of the year. This competition would determine the surfer with the best skill and the biggest passion. Kayla was born with a passion for surfing and has never doubted this for any other activity. Although Kayla has won many competitions in the past, if she were to win this, she would be categorized in the top 5 throughout the whole world. In order to do her best, she had to practice for about 5-8 hours every single day. This practice included workouts to grow stronger and time spent in the water, with an instructor, learning how to catch even more amazing waves. With much practice and preparation, the day of the competition had finally arrived.
  Kayla was very skilled in her passion, but had many rivals that she was to compete against. One of her biggest rivals was a girl named Gia. Gia was also a professional teenage surfer and had won this competition last year. Kayla’s biggest goal was to take her spot in the top 5 category. The host exclaimed, “All teenage surfers, get into the water and catch the biggest waves you can! The competitor with the most waves will win the competition.” Kayla and the other young teens ran into the water, paddled on their surfboards, and caught amazing waves. Gia did this so perfectly because she was in the most precise position possible. In order to catch amazing waves like Gia was doing, her body was perfectly balanced and she kept a low stance in order to ride the wave back to the beach. Kayla was catching 4 foot waves, while Gia was catching much bigger ones. According to the judge, Gia’s waves reached about 8 foot tall. Gia was in the lead, but Kayla was determined to catch up and take the first place trophy. As the competition continued, both girls were equally catching some of the greatest waves that the judges have ever saw.
  Eventually the girls were able to take a break and get something to drink. During this break, Kayla, Gia, and a few others decided to go back into the water and just relax for a little bit. As the girls were relaxing on their surfboards and having a normal conversation, Kayla noticed that something was not right. Multiple times she felt movement from underneath her board, almost as if a creature was swimming around her. About 5 minutes later, as Kayla’s left arm was floating around in the water, a shark swam up and yanked it right from her body. Due to the strong force and determination of the shark, Kayla’s arm was completely detached. She felt so much pain, but being in shock caused her to make no reaction. All of the girls returned her back to shore as fast as they could.
 As they returned back to shore, many adults came to help right away. Kayla was losing a lot of blood, but the ambulance arrived to keep her alive. To make sure that she would stay awake and not pass out from the blood loss, the doctors pumped her chest and asked her many questions. She was not able to respond, only make movements such as nodding her head. Kayla and her family had finally arrived to the hospital. The doctors immediately performed a surgery procedure and stitched up the open wound.
  As a few days passed by, Kayla was recovering in the hospital. She kept looking at her missing arm and the thought of never surfing again would not leave her mind. She had asked the doctors if she would be able to, but they told her the same answer every time, “I don’t know”. When they believed that the timing was right, they sent Kayla home. So many difficult tasks were thrown at her all at once and she was not able to handle it. Trying to get into the water was the hardest. She kept trying and trying to continue her surf journey, but failed to succeed.

 This led her to only keep trying harder. Since Kayla was not able to push up onto the board herself, she invested into physical therapy. Physical therapy was able to help Kayla get stronger and learn how to do things without one arm. Kayla’s physical therapy instructor made her try all different workouts such as push ups, sit ups, and also made her lift weights to make her arm grow much stronger. After much physical therapy and much practice in the water, the day had finally arrived. Kayla caught a small wave and was able to get onto her board all on her own. She was so happy! Although her arm was taken and she had a hard time surfing at first, she kept trying and finally accomplished a big goal that would help her continue her passion for surfing.