Miracles and blessing
My junior year of high school, I was playing in a volleyball tournament when I went to block and could not move. It was weird, but it only lasted a second, so I didn’t think much of it. A few moments later, I went up to block, and when I landed, I stumbled because my nerves did not recognize that my feet were under me. I was experiencing something known as Drop Foot. It was a symptom of something I had been diagnosed with not long before, called Chronic Exertional Compartment Syndrome. For those of you who don’t know what this is, my leg muscles didn’t release on their own. This causes lots of problems, from lack of circulation from my knees down to the development of Achilles tendinitis.
Now I had been in pain and anger throughout my injury, but I had never felt fear because of it. In that moment I did, I remember looking at my coach. She pulled me out of the game, and I found my parents in the crowd. My dad instantly came to me and started rubbing out my legs, as that was the only way to get the pain to stop and allow blood flow to get through my legs and down to my feet. Experiencing this was a sign that my injury was getting worse, making that my last season of volleyball and starting me on a long healing journey.
I will share my healing journey in a moment, but first, I want to talk about what I experienced for the next year and a half and how the Lord helped me through it. The reason that was my last season of volleyball was that my doctors had told me I was not allowed to run, jump, or walk excessively. I was allowed to swim; that was the only type of physical activity I was allowed for at least 6 months. I had friends and family who helped me grieve, but I had a teammate and coworkers who were mad about my limitations. I couldn’t always cover shifts at work due to having to go to physical therapy, and I had to quit basketball, which frustrated someone I had been playing with since I was young. These reactions did not help with the anger I was feeling, like my future was being ripped away.
I also felt anger toward God. I had been promised, in a blessing, that I would be physically capable of doing all I wanted. During that volleyball season, I had decided I wanted to try for college volleyball, only to have my sports ripped away from me. I was so angry, I felt like a promise had been broken. I don’t have depression, but during this time, I experienced a state of depression. I was so low, but due to having the amazing parents I do, they helped keep the Savior at the center of my life, and He did save me.
My healing journey was interesting. I went to physical therapy for 6 months with no results. I did learn how to have proper running form, though. From there, we switched to dry needling, which helped, but it was not a solution. This is where the Lord started to show me how He keeps His promises. Weber State’s physical therapist is who did dry needling for me. After a while, he talked with us about how it was just a band-aid and referred us to a podiatrist. This podiatrist was the best in the state at surgery that might fix my legs. At the time, it had like a 20-30% chance of success, with 50% of those people having complications.
Sitting in front of this doctor, he turned down thousands of dollars from my family by saying, “I am the best in the state at what I do, but if this were my 17-year-old daughter, I would not do his surgery.” From there, he referred us to a specialist in Casper, Wyoming, who had created a new procedure to hopefully heal me. This procedure had an 80% success rate. My family decided that we wanted to try this procedure, so my mom called to schedule an appointment, and we were going to have to schedule years out. At this point, it was halfway through my senior year. I was still angry, but had joined the swim team at school and learned how to, mostly, deal with the disappointment. I just figured it would be a few years before I got better. Despite that, my family prayed that someone would cancel and an opening would be made available for me.
It happened, a few months later, my mom got a call that someone had canceled. The appointment was for the day after graduation. I remember graduating, going out, and celebrating with my friends all night. The next day, I got up and we drove to Casper, Wyoming.
This is me getting my CT scan so the doctor could make sure that he was placing the injection into the muscles that were causing the problem. For a couple of months, I had a workout regimen to teach my legs how to work without the muscles that had been killed. I had phone check-ins every few months to make sure I was still healing. My final phone call was a week before I left for my mission. The Lord had a plan, and although I did not understand it at the time, I am so grateful for it.
I hate that I got injured, but I am grateful for what I have learned from it. The Lord does keep his promises. This year, I will have completed 8 triathlons and my first ever trail run. I also still play volleyball whenever I get the chance. When I first got injured, I didn’t know if I would ever be able to run or move again. I figured I would be able to casually play volleyball with my family, but that because of my injury, I would be limited in what I could do physically. I was wrong. The Lord had promised me that I would be able to do what I wanted and not be held back by my physical health. He kept His promise; it may not have happened on my timetable, but it happened, and I have been held.
