Jordan Kersey
Mat Wenzel
ENC 2135
7/18/19
Personal Narrative
Laying rather uncomfortably on a thin sheet placed on top of a cold piece of metal, I started to panic. Dozens of questions were circling around my head: Where was I? What was happening? What happened to my cleats? Why was this gown so itchy? Suddenly, pieces started to come back to me. I had been playing in a soccer tournament earlier in the day when I collided with the goalie and… that was it. That was all I could recall happening in the past couple of hours. My head was pounding intensely and the sound of the machine circling around me created an unbearable sound that only added to my aching head. My eyelids were twitching, which was normal when I was nervous, but when I tried to open them the pain in my head intensified from the agonizing bright lights, so I continued to deal with the twitching as I dozed off.
As my eyes started to slowly make their way open, I started to see blurry figures, a few of them, scattered across the room. When my vision finally came into focus, I recognized 2 of the people, one being my father and the other was my older sister. The third person in the room was a doctor flipping through scans on a computer in the corner of the room. The beating of my heart created an ongoing echo that traveled up into my head, creating a small pulse in my brain. My dad was the first to notice I had woken up, so he slowly got up and made his way over to the extremely uncomfortable bed I was cuddled up in. He handed me a cup of water and tried to make small talk, but I could not comprehend the words making their way from his lips. All I could think about in this moment was a flashback to when I scored the winning goal in overtime to advance my team and I to the regional finals. The memory was still unbelievably clear, like it happened yesterday. The crowd going crazy as my soccer cleat struck the ball into the upper right corner of the net as the goalie from the opposing team dove in an effort to stop the ball. My teammates rushing to me and piling on top like I was a million-dollar prize (of course in our minds this was way better). The way my coach lifted me onto his shoulders and the team circled all chanting my name. “Jor-dan! Jor-dan! Jor-dan! Jor-d…” My mind eased back into reality as I slowly started to lift the plastic cup to my mouth. That moment, that felling was why soccer was the best thing that ever came into my life. It wasn’t just a hobby; it was my life. Nauseous feelings started to arise from the scent of the cheap meal hospital cafeterias provide. The doctor made his way over to the bed and began to ask me questions about where I was, what I remembered, and to rank my pain on a scale from 1 to 10. The events that occurred earlier in the day sluggishly started to make their way back to me. During the semi-finals of my state soccer tournament I was crashing the box trying to reach a ball that was passed a little too far in front of me. I was running full speed, so my momentum caused me to smash into the goalie. The force of the impact made me spin around in the air and I slammed on the ground, my head hitting first. The doctor then brought the scans into my vision and started to explain the injuries my brain had sustained from this fall. Luckily, I had no major brain damage, just a severe concussion. I instantly became worried because I have been down this road before, and not just once. I have had 3 concussions before this one and my brain specialist from my most recent fall had said that I would no longer be able to play the sport that I love so much if I were to get another one. With all these thoughts rocketing through my head, tears started to stream down my face and drip onto the cheaply put together bed sheets. The doctor began to open his mouth and I braced for what was to come next. Just as I had assumed, he said the words that I thought was the worst thing that could happen in my entire existence. “You will no longer be able to play soccer. If you continue to hit…” he went on about the further consequences I would experience if I did not listen and if I decided to remain in the game, but I didn’t listen. I knew there was no way my dad would let me play, especially after a scare as big as this one. In that moment, life as I knew it was over. Thirteen years of traveling from state to state competing in huge tournaments down the drain. All my hours spent training day and night, not being able to go to dances or parties my other high school friends attended, wasted. I had pleasure in the sacrifices I was making while I was making them, but not knowing that it got me nowhere was the ultimate dream crusher. All my accomplishments: rookie of the year, coaches award, forward of the year, first team all-western conference, meaningless if I would have to stop the sport my days and weeks were focused around. Knowing that I was going to have to call all the coaches from the schools that offered me positions to play on their team and tell them what happened was making my insides turn as the nauseous feeling returned to my faint body. I now had to start looking at other universities since I was so set on attending Warner university to further my soccer career and maybe one day play professionally just like all my idols did. What was I supposed to do now? Life as I knew it was over.