“Patience and perseverance have a magical effect before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish,” John Quincy Adams once said. Throughout the time of rehabilitation and waiting, the time has finally come; I get to play softball again. Even though waiting out the time is difficult, it is always worth it in the end.
During my freshman year of high school, my friend tore her anterior cruciate ligament (ACL). She was telling me how she did it, and it ended up happening while she was playing hockey. I know how strenuous hockey is in general, because my brother plays. I felt bad for her because she was not able to put any pressure on it and she was not able to bend it, so it pretty much paralyzed her knee for that time. I felt bad because I knew how much she loved hockey, and hated when she missed practices. In my head, I was thinking, “oh, that is such a freak accident, that is never going to happen to me.”
About two years later, I was playing softball, just like every weekend, it was my game to catch, everything was normal, it was a good, close game until the sixth inning. It was bases loaded, one out. The batter hit one into the left-center gap. One run scores; two runs score; here comes the third run, one step away from the play, and the cut-off, the shortstop, decided to throw the ball anyways, even though the entire field and dugout was telling her to ‘eat it’ and not throw the ball. As she started to throw the ball, the runner already crossed the plate. Knowing that I still had a chance to get the hitter, who is now the only runner on, I made sure to catch the ball, and throw her out at second. But unfortunately, the throw was about five feet over my head, so I jumped for the ball, and came down ready to throw it. As I landed, I felt my knee pop to the right, and pop back into place. As soon as that happened, I hit the ground hard, and started screaming bloody murder. All this pain happened within a second. The first base coach, a coach from the opposing team, saw everything happen, and started screaming “STOP! STOP! STOP!”, and he started running over. Both of my parents were at the game watching, but being around softball so often, they knew to look at the next base to see the next play, so naturally neither of them saw what had happened. I was unable to move my leg at this point in time. Luckily the hospital was across the street, but with my luck, the ambulance was across town, and took about twenty minutes to get to the field. The next day while going back to the tournament the cheer my team on, my dad’s car breaks down, so we had to wait for my mom to come. While this was happening, my dad and I said to each other, “can’t we just pretend this weekend never happened?” My dad and I called my mother, and waited for her to come, we also called AAA. By the time the tow truck came, and hooked everything up and took the car away, the first game was already over and there was a break before the next game. So my mom, dad, and I went home to eat lunch. After lunch, my dad and I took my mom’s car to the tournament. All of my teammates were surprised I even went, they told me they would never go back, they would have just stayed home and slept.
When I was in the hospital, I remembered that my family had planned a trip to go to Costa Rica. Then I realized that I would not be able to go on it, especially since it is a hiking trip. That next Monday, I went to the orthopedist and he told me that I did not need surgery if I did not want to play softball anymore, and he said that if I really wanted to go on the trip, I could hold off on the surgery. Another option was to have the surgery sooner and not go on the trip. At this point I was in tears trying to think of which option I would take. I knew that I was not taking the route of no surgery, the question was if I was able to go on the trip. Before I came up with an answer, the doctor said that I could get my postoperative brace preoperative so I can be safe and not be worried in Costa Rica. I still was not sure, because I really wanted to go on the trip, but I also really wanted to get back to playing softball. I ended up going to Costa Rica and waiting on the surgery.
Deciding to go to Costa Rica meant that I had to be patient while waiting for the surgery. Choosing on waiting on the surgery meant a longer time away from softball. I certainly wanted to get back and play as soon as possible. I needed to persevere and push through all the pain and obstacles win the way. With all of these struggles, it reminded me of how I am going to have just as hard, if not harder obstacles in my future, especially in college. Going through this journey shows that I have the ability to be pushed and pulled and still get back on the horse. Having two siblings in college, I know the everyday obstacles they have to go through, and how much work they have to push through. I now know that I have the patience and perseverance to finish it all and work on other tasks.