It is just a normal, boring Friday afternoon in my small town in Missouri. As I walk to volleyball practice, I wipe the sweat from my brow and wish that it would cool down before I begin to melt. Finally, I arrive at the court and meet my friends and teammates.

“Hey, Julie! For a second there I was worried you’d be late for once,” my friend Sarah runs up and tosses me the ball.

“Nope! I’m not about to break my record,” I smirk as I reply.

The team does a couple of stretches, laps, and warm-ups before we begin to play. I laugh when one of my other teammates, Laura, spins around and falls trying to hit the ball. As the other team returns the ball, I jump up to spike it back. I hit the ball with a loud thud, and then I hear sharp sounds like gunshots as I fall to the ground. There’s excruciating pain similar to that of fire in my knees, and I can’t get up. I look down and see that my knees definitely are not supposed to appear like that. I don’t curse, but if I could choose one time in my life that warrants it, it would be now. I begin screaming, I should probably be crying or something but it’s probably just the shock or adrenaline.

“Oh my gosh, Julie are you okay? I’m going to call the hospital. Someone, go get the nurses now!” Sarah comes running over with the rest of the team and holds me up. Then, I black out.

Time passes and I can feel the hospital sheets over me, soaked with what I assume is my own sweat. There are bright lights glaring above my head, and everything is covered in that strange smell that I can only describe as sterile, sad, and emotionless. When I try to move to get up, I realise that I physically can’t…  as in my legs won’t move. A nearby nurse that I hadn’t noticed before comes rushing over.

“No, sweetie. Don’t try to move. Your doctor will explain everything in just a minute.” She then turns to a phone and quickly punches in a number, proceeding to call who I infer to be my doctor.

By the time he arrives, I learn three things: My doctor’s name is Dr. Harris, I am in the Missouri Children’s Hospital, and the nurse’s name is Cara. While I wait, I am subjected to entertaining myself by staring at the mural on the wall across from me depicting smiling, bright pink flowers, joyful woodland animals, and white, fluffy clouds. I imagine that it is a failed attempt to mask the depression of being in the hospital’s emergency ward.

Finally, Dr. Harris arrives and hands me a freezing glass of water. After I drain it of every last drop, I ask him the only question I truly care about.

“What happened to me?”

Dr. Harris answers me, “When you fell you shattered your knees. The damage was too severe to do surgery, and there are many other complications that would take far too long to explain. There is one more thing, and I wish I wasn’t the one to tell you this, but there is a strong chance that you may never walk again.”

I cry. All I can think of is all the things I’ll never get to do again. I’ll never walk, or play sports, or swim, or run, or anything else that I love. I do this for a while. Then I stop. Wait. He said chance. I can get better. I WILL get better. Even if it takes years, and pain, and loss, and anything else the universe throws at me. I. Will. Prove. Them. Wrong. Even if it is the last thing I do. Hey, they say there is a first for everything, right?

They let me go home, seeing as there is really no point in having me stay. After a week of bed rest that passes like an old slug who forgot his walker at home, I am ready for a change. Depression is mind numbingly tedious, and absolutely boring. I tell my doctor that even if they give me a wheelchair, I won’t use it. They argue with me, of course, but I convince them with my famous stubbornness. So, they give me crutches and I am forced to deal with the clunky braces on my legs. Despite these things, being able to move around when I want and as much as I wish greatly improves my quality of life and mental health. Still, it will take some time to get the braces off and truly be free.

Months pass, during which lots of pain has been felt, and then vented out with constant frustration and even more of my award-winning determination. Over these many very long weeks I am constantly wondering, “What will I do in my spare time?” I can’t run, or even do anything remotely involving legs for that matter! At this point, everyone treating me like a china doll is so infuriating I may kill the next person to give me “sympathy.” I decide to go to a physical therapist, Dr. Bennett, to speed the healing process up and develop a plan.

By the time I arrive at the clinic, I am so nervous I think I may burst. I hobble in, sit down, and wait. And wait. And wait. I watch the clock, five minutes pass. Tick, tock, tick, tock. Then ten. Tick, tock, tick, tock. Then more. It’s been fifteen minutes when I finally hear someone call my name.

“Julie Troyer,” a nurse calls out.

I stand and shakily follow her to an office towards to back of the building. I enter, and she leaves. A minute later, Dr. Bennett comes in, sits, and begins talking.

“You’re crazy. There are only two doctors in the world qualified enough to do the surgery that you need, and even they say that your condition is too extreme. Yet you say that you want physical therapy?”

I simply reply, “Yep.”

“You are insane!”

We ping pong back and forth like this for a while, but I finally get him to realize that I’m not budging on my decision. He tells me that he’ll help, but only to keep me from further self harm.

For the following month, all he allows me to do is a series of different stretches. This results in much screaming from a combination of pain and frustration at the crawling pace. Then his wife, who explains that she has been hearing about me, begins coming to my sessions as well. Around the same time that she shows up, Bennett allows me to do some weight training to strengthen the tender muscles. This results in more screeching. It is a good thing that Bennett scheduled me as his last appointment of the day, or I’d really feel bad for the other patients.

Smack! “Ow!” This is the third time I’ve fallen in the last ten minutes. I get up, my red hair now drenched in my own sweat from the exhausting exercises I’ve been doing for the last twenty minutes.

“Up! Now, try again,” Dr. Bennett no longer tries to help me up, he has learned by now that I will only refuse it. I grab the nearby bar and pull myself to my feet. This exercise is his newest invention towards our goal to achieve the seemingly impossible. There are two long metal bars on either side of me and I have to walk across the room without any help -- including my crutches. I have not succeeded, my record isn’t even past the halfway mark. I get up and hobble back to the start.

Once I am there, I begin to make my way down. Left, right. Left, right. I think to myself as I shakily put one foot in front of the other. All of a sudden, I hear Dr. Bennett’s wife clapping. I look up, and see that for the first time I have made it to the end. I cautiously make my way back, stumbling here and there, but with a sense of completion and elation all the same. I smile, and Dr. Bennett nods with a quiet sense of pride.

Every day for a whole year I meet with Dr. Bennett, even after the crutches go away. Then, one day he says that I am done.

I respond, confused. “What? What do you mean?”

“I mean, you are healed as well as you ever will be. You can go back to playing volleyball, running, and exercising normally. You no longer need my help,” He says this flatly, as if it is obvious. I walk up and give him a hug.

“Thank you. You have helped me so much this past year. I’ll never forget your kindness.”

“Your’e welcome. Now shoo! I have work to do.”

It’s been years since the initial accident, and I can finally return to my normal day to day life. I know that things will never be completely the same, but at least I can return to the things I love. The doctors had said that my life would never be the same, and they were right. But they had also said that I’d never truly walk again, and I proved them wrong. I guess there really is a first for everything. I have learned that I can do anything I put my mind to. I just have to believe in myself, work hard, and never give up. Heck, I re-learned how to walk, so obviously I did something right!