My Personal Experience: Setbacks In My Life

There have always been certain setbacks in my life that have caused me to reevaluate myself and learn a lesson from, but there is one setback I will never forget. About this time last year, so in October 2016, I was in my tap class at my studio. There was only about five minutes left of class when my teacher suggested we just add on a little more to our recital dance. As we were rehearsing for the final time, I went up on the top of my tap and fell straight down, twisting my ankle like I never had before. Now, granted it was my left ankle, that had not always been the strongest, but this time was bad.
The day after it happened I went to the emergency room hoping to get some answers. It was not broken, just sprained, and they told me to sit out for two weeks and then I would be as good as new. My two weeks ended up being five, I knew

I sent my sports medicine doctor an email asking if I could see her again, because at this point I knew that what I needed was physical therapy. She referred me to an orthopedic doctor who then proceeded to tell me that my foot was basically dead and I would have to retrain it completely. I then got sent to physical therapy. I spent about two months there and after that I knew if I kept it up my foot would be better in no time. Although, I did not keep it up, I went through national rehearsals not taking care of my foot and at nationals I managed to injure myself again. I knew it was my fault this time, I had all the tools to make myself better but I was not using them. After nationals was when it really hit me, I knew that if I wanted to dance in my future I had to do something about it. I started doing all of my exercises and started really working with a theraband to make myself better. Now, I do still have some bad days where it hurts more than others and I know I have to take it easy, but I also know that it is getting stronger and that is all that