My Gymnastics Experience

1921 Words4 Pages

“Your gymnastics career is over.”

My mom, my dad, my orthopedic surgeon, and I were crowded in a small, square, freezing, plain white office where the scent of hand sanitizer filled the air and the only decorations were plastic cadavers. It was a completely different change of scenery from last week when I was stuck in an MRI machine that engulfed my entire body and made loud, uncanny noises for the full forty minutes of the exam. I could not decide if I was more scared in this week’s small office or last week’s big machine. Although it was freezing in the office, sweat started to build up on my forehead because I was too anxious for the words that would come out of my surgeon’s mouth. And they were the exact words that I did not want to …show more content…

Just like my front handspring, I had practiced this hundreds of times. All I had to do was run down the runway, use the springboard, and flip over the vault. I even had two chances to get it right. My biggest worry was sticking the landing, but little did I know that sticking the landing was the least of my worries. I was fine throughout the entire warm-up and my first shot at my vault, but when it came to my final trip down that runway I sped as fast as I could, let both my feet leave the ground, and boom. When I landed onto the spring board, that same pain struck its way through my knee, but this time it was accompanied by a pop. I knew something was terribly wrong. I stopped right in my tracks and tears started to swell in my eyes. “WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” my coach yelled, his face filled with anger. His biggest pet peeve was when one of his gymnasts did not follow through with their trick, because you are more likely to injure yourself not following through than if you actually follow through. At that moment, I knew following through would be the worst thing possible for me. Once my coach realized that something was actually wrong, he carried me off the runway and back to where all of my team was gathered. All I wanted was for my parents to come to my side, but there was a strict “no parents on the floor” rule at that particular meet. Right then I knew that my gymnastics career was over. I did not have to wait the …show more content…

At ten-years-old, I would be the youngest person in the Pacific Northwest to have their ACL repaired. It was a cold and snowy morning on December 9, 2008. I woke up in the wee hours of the morning to drive fifteen minutes across the border into Washington to make it to my surgery that was scheduled for seven in the morning. Walking into the hospital, I was extremely nervous and cranky. I was cold, tired, and hadn’t been able to eat or drink anything since nine pm the night before. I sat in the waiting room feeling as though my lungs were closing in on me, and that feeling only got worse and worse as the clock ticked closer to seven. Once I was situated in the surgery prep room, my emotions got the best of me and I started to bawl. As the tears were streaming down my face, my second orthopedic surgeon walked into the room. All of my doctors were really concerned to operate on me, considering how young I was, so they decided it would be best to have two trustworthy doctors in the operating room that day. “Hi, Miranda! I’m Dr. Pennington, and I’m going to help Dr. Tingstad with your surgery today!” I had known of Dr. Pennington previously because I was in the same grade as his daughter. Seeing a familiar face was exactly what I needed in that moment, it also doubled as a distraction from the IV they were sticking in my arm. They rolled me into the sterile, bright,

Open Document