My journey from having a severely broken leg to walking again was a long, stressful period of time. It was October 1st was when my accident happened. We were playing against Fillmore in the misty, nasty rain, playing on a turf field. Saturday evening, headed onto the school bus, I saw a rainbow that had lit up the sky with its colors. I really wanted to take a picture of it, so me and my friend got a picture together underneath the rainbow.

I grabbed my headphones out of my bag and plugged them into my phone to get my mind pumped up for the game. I was  not thinking that I would be breaking a leg in less than a hour and a half while doing what I love. I had an apple before the game. It was probably the best juicy apple I had tasted.

The Belfast Central School bus pulled up to the field and Fillmore’s team was already there, warming up and getting all sweaty. Fillmore has always been our rival team, but we were good. We played after we got all stretched out. We were the offender. We didn’t care that they were good, we played our hearts out on the field. After we just got all warmed up and got all stretched, out we headed to the dugouts and our coach told us where we were playing at on the field. I was playing left wing offender closest to where people were sitting. The game started and the ball was all up and down the field. Fillmore scored twice before half time score of 2-0.  The second half was when everyone got angry, because my injury was in five minutes, but at that moment, everyone was running to the ball. Then Michaela Pastorius passed me the ball. I was headed to the corner flag to cross the ball into the middle for someone to receive the ball and score the goal.

The sound of my leg breaking sounded like two cleats being hit together. It was the most painful movement I would ever experience. I tried getting up, but my teammates told me to stay down on the ground. My reaction was to get up and attack the ball. There was a defender in front of me. I thought I could pass her, but I didn’t know that a girl slide tackled me from the side. I was yelling ‘’mom, mom, mom!’’ in shock. I didn’t know how the pain would feel, but all I could tell you is don’t ever break a leg. It’s not a good experience.

Being on the field, laying there waiting for the ambulance, was the worst part. The ambulance drove on the field to pick me up. They had to cut off my laces on my cleat. When they moved my leg to get the shoe off, it hurt even worse. They cut my sock off and my shin guard sleeve off, and they noticed my shin guard was on my opposite side of my leg. While I was laying on the ground, I needed to hold someone’s hand to know that someone was there with me. I took the pain but was crying at the same time. People told me that if that was them, they wouldn’t be able to take the pain. Being lifted into the ambulance was a scary place to be.

The EMT’s had to cut off my under armour sleeve so that they can put IVs in my arm so that I wouldn’t feel the pain. The pain was a level ten. They drugged me up with medicine so they I didn’t feel my leg that was sideways. I was definitely going into shock because I didn’t want to be this situation. I was crying my eyeballs out in the back of the ambulance. My mother was telling me to calm down and just relax. I couldn’t relax. I had a leg that is not straight and that’s supposed to be straight. The people in the ambulance were trying to calm me down.

As the ambulance was on the highway, I started to not feel the pain or my leg anymore. I really wanted to have my phone out and text people that I was okay. My phone was only 10% and I really couldn’t be on it anyways, so my mom didn’t give it to me.

Pulling up to the hospital in Olean General, I needed x-rays as soon as possible. They had to lift my leg up to get the X-ray board underneath my leg. The pain started to get worse when they were moving my leg around. I needed to be rushed to Buffalo’s Hospital so that they could put my leg back in place. I slept most of the way most of the way when we were headed to Buffalo. I wanted to get my mind off  the pain and that I knew I was going to have to be going into surgery once I got to Buffalo.

Once I arrived, the nurse immediately took me into the hospital with no waiting. The nurse wheeled me into a waiting area to have the doctor accept me for surgery. My mother, my grandma, father, my best friend Hailie were the only ones who were at Olean General Hospital with me. My friend Hailie and my grandma went home from Olean and stayed home to watch the house and dogs. My father and mother stayed with me until I had to go to Buffalo. Then my mom rode with me in the ambulance and my father went home. My mother was with me through the whole thing. The doctor told me I needed to go to surgery that night. I really didn’t know what time it was, but it was late, and they drugged me up with sleeping medicine. All I could remember was the nurse putting a needle in my arm, my eyes shut, and I went to sleep.

This experience has been rough and I wished that it wasn’t me getting hurt.  Being on the couch for months and watching tv and texting my friends were the only things keeping me sane. I’ve learned that hope for healing will come true because my experience was long and stressful, but I made it through it in the end. Also, I’ve learned how to be responsible on my own at home and doing stuff on my own. Life in this situation is was hard, but I made it through it at the end.