Personal Reflective Essay: Life After Surgery

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When I was just 11 years old, I fractured my ankle playing basketball at the local park. The pain was white-hot and excruciating. I was reduced to a sobbing, blubbering, mess and unrecognizable upon my arrival the doctor’s office. After the diagnosis and subsequent surgery, I was placed on crutches and barred from participating in physical activity for at least six weeks. This was paramount to torture for my 11 year-old energetic and hyper-active self. Seeing my friends run around short of breath because of their own intoxicating laughter was bittersweet at best. One evening at the local park, I was just about ready to go insane until I surveyed my immediate surroundings and noticed a couple of kids my age sitting at a wooden table a couple of feet …show more content…

Instead of wallowing in my misery, I took initiative and made the most of my situation. One should never worry about what they can’t control. Aside from the social life issues due to my injury, I had to attend therapy for my rehabilitation. When I first started putting pressure on my ankle and flexing, I was as white as a ghost, deathly afraid that I might hurt it again. But eventually, as time went on and my physical therapist provided words of encouragement, I was able to trust my body again and have faith that my ankle would allow me to do what I was able to do before the injury. Since I had never dealt with having an action or movement temporarily taken from me, it was hard to take that first step again. Imagine standing at the edge of a cliff and staring down at an abyss. What’s down there is unknown to you and so you are unsure if you should jump or not. This was the predicament I found myself in when I had to walk to my physical therapist who stood a couple of feet away. I had to reach down inside myself and find the courage and bravery that I knew was in

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