There was a steady flow of blood leaving my face. My shirt, shorts, arms, and legs were covered in it. I couldn’t see a thing because blood was filling my eyes. Finally someone’s hands rested on my shoulders and they led me to a bench to sit down. I had no idea who the person was or what was happening but I did know I was not feeling very well. I sat there for 20 minutes in complete confusion until finally I heard the sirens of the ambulance. From that point on, everything went out of control and by the end of the night I received dozens of stitches and was sound asleep in a hospital bed.Fast forward five years since the goal post accident, and I was a freshman in high school. I was an extremely competitive soccer player, and played for both my school team and my premier team. Even with the busy schedule that lasted 12 months out of the year, I loved the excitement of game days and always was over-the-top aggressive. The fall of my freshman year I made the Varsity soccer team and seemed to be on the right track for success. Throughout the fall I played for both teams and ended up in two state championships. Since club soccer was a bit longer than the high school season, the championships did not begin until January. After such a successful high school season, I was more than ready to compete on the state level for club. Yet when a rare snow day happened in Washington, my dreams of playing that year in a state championship suddenly ended.
The downward spiral began when my brothers and I were stuck at home all day because of the snow. As a bored teenage girl I did nothing else but talk on the phone to my friends in the same predicament. During one phone conversation, I was listening to the radio and out of nowhere, began hearing my friend’s voice coming through the stereo speakers. When the stereo continued to play our conversation, I decided I needed to let my brother know how strange this occurrence was. So I enthusiastically ran from my room, didn’t pay attention to anything in my way, and out of pure excitement from the situation jammed my toe into the door frame. The pain throbbed throughout my whole foot and I felt as though my pinky toe would never regain consciousness.
The next day school was back in session and walking to and from my classes was like walking on hot coals. My toe still ached and it seemed nothing was making it feel better. After a few hours of enduring the pain I called my oldest brother and had him take me to the doctor. Once all the x-rays had been processed, my fear had come true: the pinky toe on my left foot was broken. At first it was no big deal because it wouldn’t require surgery and I only needed to take some pain medication. But then I realized, the first game of the state championship was less than a week away. Throughout the week I tried to stay off of my toe as much as possible, sat out of practice, and iced whenever I could. Once Sunday came around I knew what I had to do…and that was to play in the game. My parents were out of town, and my coach only thought it was sprained, so no one was there to stop me. Later that night, bleeding in the emergency room, I can only justify playing by thinking it was one of those life lessons every kid needs to learn on their own.
Earlier that morning, my coach picked me up, and drove a few of us 45 miles to our field. We warmed up, went over our game plan, and all of a sudden I was starting in a game with a broken toe. The massive amount of adrenaline rushing through me was enough to forget about my pain and concentrate on winning. It was only 20 minutes into the game when suddenly my toe, or winning, was no longer an issue. As a forward and playing up top, I was responsible for collecting all the balls my defenders passed up field. On this particular play, the defender sent the ball into the air and the only way to keep my opponent from taking it away was for me to head the ball. Apparently she was thinking the same thing because we went up in the air at the same time and instead of hitting the ball, the two of us hit heads. My temple made contact with the side of her head, and it felt like a knife was stabbed into my eyebrow. When I landed on my feet, I bent over to grab my eye and when I took my hand away, it was covered in blood. With the ball now on the other side of the field, no one was watching me anymore and I remember standing on the side of the field, yelling at my coach, then at the ref, that I think I needed some help. Finally someone saw my white jersey drenched in blood and the game was stopped. I walked over to my team’s bench, sat down, and a teammate of mine gave me her sock to stop the bleeding.
For some reason people didn’t think it was a bad injury and I might only require a few stitches. And since it was a state playoff game, they had me sit on the bench for the remaining 65 minutes of the game. It seemed that no one wanted to stop the flow of the match. So I sat there, continuing to loose a decent amount of blood from my eyebrow, and laughed at anything that happened. I think the blood loss was affecting my brain. Finally the game ended and it was time to go home. I watched as all my teammates got their stuff together and when my coach was ready to leave, I stood up to follow. That is when I fainted and the next thing I knew three paramedics were kneeling next to me, asking questions to everyone around. When they saw my eyes open, people seemed relived and I was trying to piece together how I ended up on the track. After examining me on the field, the paramedics informed my coach I would need several stitches and they couldn’t be sure on how much blood I lost. There was a catch though. My parents were still out of town, set to arrive in a few hours, and without their consent, I could not be taken to the local hospital. So they loaded me in the back of my coach’s car and we began driving the hour back home. On the way, my coach got a hold of my mom, who was now at the Seattle airport, and said I had a little accident and he was just going to bring me home. No big deal really.
I think the moment I realized how badly I was hurt was when I got out of my coach’s car, walked towards my mom, and she started crying. It was not a pleasant sight for a mother to see her only daughter coated in blood from head to toe, with the blood still seeping out from behind the sock bandage. They brought me inside, sat me down on the couch, and discussed what they were going to do with me. In the meantime, I really needed to use the restroom and promised my mom I wouldn’t look at my wound in the mirror. That was a promise I knew I was not going to keep…I had to see what the cut looked like in order to cause so much bleeding. When I lifted the sock away from my face, I could see a white bone sticking out from above my eye and drips of blood seeping down. I immediately placed the sock back over my eye and sat down. It was a bit too much for me to handle.
After returning to the family room and sitting down, I learned what the plan was for the day: We would wait another five hours, go to my pediatrician’s office (yes, I was 15 years old), and see if there was something my doctor could do. Since I wasn’t all the way coherent, I couldn’t voice my disagreement over this foolish plan. Instead, I just waited. Hours later, as we arrived in the waiting room of the doctor’s office, parents covered the eyes of their children…I was still wearing my soccer jersey soaked in blood. I was taken to the back right away where two nurses and my doctor examined my face. As they pried open my gash and poked inside, I began crying for the first time. It wasn’t a good feeling. Then they pulled away and said, “It looks like she needs to go to the ER”. A thought I had seven hours earlier.
By the time we arrived at Overlake’s emergency room, I was completely woozy and needed a wheelchair to move around. Again, I was taken straight back and given some pain medication…finally. After I was cleaned up a bit , I had x-rays taken, which showed a fractured eye socket; something that still affects me to this day. The doctor then came in and began stitching up my wound: 28 stitches total; 10 on the inside, 18 on the outside. Once I was fixed up, and any head trauma was ruled out, the doctor said I could go home…only if I could walk in a straight line on my tip toes. That is where the problem became worse. Remember my broken toe? The injury I got while talking on the phone to a friend. It so happens I was grounded at that time and was not supposed to be talking to any friends. Therefore, my parents didn’t know about the phone conversation, or the broken toe. Trying to walk in a straight line on my tip toes was going to be an issue, as my mom would soon find out the beginning of this whole story.
I tried walking in several different ways, and the doctor kept correcting me on how he wanted it done. Finally I had to turn around and say, “Uhh, Mom…”
