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 is 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. As 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. I slowly started to lift the plastic cup to my mouth. Nauseous feelings started to arise from the scent of the cheap meal hospital cafeterias provide. The doctor 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 there way back to me. During the semi-finals of my state soccer tournament I crashed into the goalie and 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 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 (at the time) I thought was the worse 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 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. 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. What was I supposed to do now? Life as I knew it was over.
For the next few weeks I sulked in my bed feeling sorry for myself. The communication with my friends began to decrease since all we ever did was play soccer together and they knew I wasn’t able to anymore. Several weeks went by and I finally came to the realization that I needed to stop feeling sorry for myself and find another hobby. Believe it or not, life would go on with or without soccer in my life.
Months later I was walking through the hallways at school and a girl that I used to be friends with let me know that Lacrosse tryouts were coming up and she said she would love to see me there. I politely declined because I had never played lacrosse before, or even watched a game so I knew it wasn’t for me. Later that evening I decided to look up a game online and I started to watch. As I was watching I noticed that lacrosse had very similar concepts to soccer, except instead of using your feet you have a stick you catch and pass with. I decided I was going to give it a shot since at this point, I had nothing to lose.
Nonetheless, I never played another minute of an official soccer game. Instead of dwelling on the past and how I couldn’t continue playing, I would find new things to do, like lacrosse, and I could still go mess around at the local soccer club fields with my friends whenever I wanted to. I ended up at a school that was right for me, even if it wasn’t how I had planned it out. My life, in fact, was not over. It was just beginning.