“Your gymnastics career is over.”
My mom, my dad, my orthopedic surgeon, and I were crowded in a small, square, freezing, plain white office where the scent of hand sanitizer filled the air and the only decorations were plastic cadavers. It was a completely different change of scenery from last week when I was stuck in an MRI machine that engulfed my entire body and made loud, uncanny noises for the full forty minutes of the exam. I could not decide if I was more scared in this week’s small office or last week’s big machine. Although it was freezing in the office, sweat started to build up on my forehead because I was too anxious for the words that would come out of my surgeon’s mouth. And they were the exact words that I did not want to
…show more content…
Just like my front handspring, I had practiced this hundreds of times. All I had to do was run down the runway, use the springboard, and flip over the vault. I even had two chances to get it right. My biggest worry was sticking the landing, but little did I know that sticking the landing was the least of my worries. I was fine throughout the entire warm-up and my first shot at my vault, but when it came to my final trip down that runway I sped as fast as I could, let both my feet leave the ground, and boom. When I landed onto the spring board, that same pain struck its way through my knee, but this time it was accompanied by a pop. I knew something was terribly wrong. I stopped right in my tracks and tears started to swell in my eyes. “WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” my coach yelled, his face filled with anger. His biggest pet peeve was when one of his gymnasts did not follow through with their trick, because you are more likely to injure yourself not following through than if you actually follow through. At that moment, I knew following through would be the worst thing possible for me. Once my coach realized that something was actually wrong, he carried me off the runway and back to where all of my team was gathered. All I wanted was for my parents to come to my side, but there was a strict “no parents on the floor” rule at that particular meet. Right then I knew that my gymnastics career was over. I did not have to wait the …show more content…
At ten-years-old, I would be the youngest person in the Pacific Northwest to have their ACL repaired. It was a cold and snowy morning on December 9, 2008. I woke up in the wee hours of the morning to drive fifteen minutes across the border into Washington to make it to my surgery that was scheduled for seven in the morning. Walking into the hospital, I was extremely nervous and cranky. I was cold, tired, and hadn’t been able to eat or drink anything since nine pm the night before. I sat in the waiting room feeling as though my lungs were closing in on me, and that feeling only got worse and worse as the clock ticked closer to seven. Once I was situated in the surgery prep room, my emotions got the best of me and I started to bawl. As the tears were streaming down my face, my second orthopedic surgeon walked into the room. All of my doctors were really concerned to operate on me, considering how young I was, so they decided it would be best to have two trustworthy doctors in the operating room that day. “Hi, Miranda! I’m Dr. Pennington, and I’m going to help Dr. Tingstad with your surgery today!” I had known of Dr. Pennington previously because I was in the same grade as his daughter. Seeing a familiar face was exactly what I needed in that moment, it also doubled as a distraction from the IV they were sticking in my arm. They rolled me into the sterile, bright,
“Don’t be afraid,” he said. “Everything will be all right.” My doctor was there. That reassured me. I felt that in his presence, nothing serious could happen to me. Every one of his words was healing and every glance of his carried a message of hope. “It will hurt a little,” he said, “but it will pass. Be brave.” (79)
Grey’s Anatomy portrays its doctors having significant courage and bravery when they go into surgery. An example of this is in the episode “Deterioration of the Fight or Flight Response.” In this episode several acts of extreme courage are shown. Dr. ...
“Gymnastics taught me everything- life lessons, responsibility and discipline and respect.” -Shawn Johnson (Former Olympic gymnast). In my interview with Franchesca Hutton-Lau I found this quote to prove very true to her. Franchesca Hutton-Lau, often called Frankee by her friends and teammates, has been a gymnast ever since she was five years old. In my interview with her, she enlightened me on her struggles, experiences, lessons, and successes which she’s taken from this treacherous sport. Chesca, as I call her, has a very different life from the average high school student.
Fortunately, it wasn’t as difficult as it may have been presented to me at the time. When I was faced with this problem, I thought of the physical therapist that treated me when I had both of my ACL surgeries in middle school. Physical therapy has always interested me, I did my Junior paper on it and the career itself. The therapist that treated me, Dennis Schepmann at the Jackson County Physical Therapy in Phoenix was the perfect candidate to be my mentor. Dennis gladly took me in and set up everything, with which hours I needed to go in, which therapist and which room I went in to in order to complete my project in time.
In January of 2012, I was playing in the first volleyball tournament of the club season. In the second game of the day, I dove to get a ball and landed wrong on my right wrist. My wrist was constantly popping and hurting when I needed to lift something. In May of 2012, my mother took me to the orthopedic doctor at Athens Orthopedic Clinic. I underwent physical therapy, took pain medicine, and played no volleyball for a month. When the month was up and there was still no improvement, I went to get a MRI. The radiologist said that there was nothing wrong, but my orthopedic referred me to an orthopedic surgeon for a second opinion. It only took a minute for my orthopedic surgeon to see what the problem was: a tear in my TFCC (a cartilage structure located on the small finger side of the wrist that, cushions and supports the small carpal bones in the wrist (Midwest). On August 8, 2013, I had surgery on my wrist. Ever since I’ve had surgery I’ve wanted to be an orthopedic surgeon. Although becoming an orthopedic surgeon takes years of education, hours of training, and hours of on-call work, orthopedic surgery’s advantages outnumber the disadvantages.
I had just finished facing my fears watching the metallic needle slip so seamlessly under my skin into the veins of my nervous, clammy hand. Hugging my Mom like it could have been the last time I saw her, seeing my dad's face stern and worried. I wheeled down the hall into this operating room, white was all I saw, a bed in the middle for the surgery to go down. As I lay on the bed waiting to be put under I remember seeing the blue masks of the people to be operating on me, I had to put all my trust in them, trusting someone you seen for less than 5 seconds with your life. Absolutely terrifying. The nurse slipping the fluid into my IV as I lay on my back looking up at the white ceiling, this cold sensations rushed over me. Then suddenly, I was out.
Gymnasts are more vulnerable to the onset of distorted eating than other teenagers in society, due to the very nature of what makes for athletic success in the sport. Gymnasts’ bodies have to be young, healthy, petite and muscular, therefore they have to do large amounts of conditioning and eat the proper amounts and type of food. The main factor to gymnasts being vulnerable to distorted eating is because they are at very young ages when they excel in the sport. Gymnastics is structured around young fit bodies, so these athletes are facing a lot of pure pressure and big decisions at young ages. They may start to restrict their diet because, in the sport, it is expected for them to have petite and fit bodies and they are receiving pressure from their coaches and others opinions. A Canadian study of youth gymnasts at an average age of 13.4 years old, reported that 10.5% saw themselves as overweight, 27% were worried about the way they looked and 39% reported dieting behaviors (momsteen.com). When gymnasts restrict their food intake it will not enhance their performance, instead it will harm it because of their weakened bodies condition. They decide to reduce their food intake because of what their body, as a gymnast, is supposed to look like. With the average age of gymnasts being 13.4 years old, they are at the age where it is very easy to feel insecure about their body due to others around them, but it is very unhealthy for high-level gymnasts to not be fueling their body with the proper foods thy need. The sports nature also plays a large role in how far the athletes will go for success. Gymnastics is a very involving sport that requires very long training hours for the young athletes. The proper amount of training hours for the ...
Having started gymnastics at four years old, I grew up intrigued about how my body was able to perform the strenuous tasks I asked of it. As I continued participating in the sport, I became increasingly more flexible and was able to put my body under conditions which one might find stressful, such as being able to do the splits. I have always been interested in sports but it was the science of how our bodies allowed us to do such things that compelled me. Combining this appreciation of sport’s ability to develop one’s character and my captivation with the anatomy and biomechanics of the human body, has sparked my passion to study Sports Science at university, whilst hopefully still participating in sports competitively.
"Selena Gibson" the nurse called out after opening the closed door. I stood up and quickly moved forward toward the nurse. Stepping through the door I was ask to turn to the right and go down the hallway. Walking down the long stretch dragging my feet along the way I was scared to find out what the doctor was going to say. Turning to the left the room looked impersonal and cold. I was asked to seat in the chair and wait till the doctor came in with the results.
For years gymnastics has been a sport that many children participate in. But as the years have gone by it has turned into something other than a place for kids to grow and learn. Its overwhelming commitment has continued to replace kids’ childhoods with stress, mental and physical pain and eating disorders. Many results have come from this change in the gymnastics society. Gymnasts have come to a point where they have been told and directed to understand that winning is the only important factor in gymnastics. “ It’s about the elite child athlete and the American obsession with winning that has produced a training environment wherein results are bought in at any cost, no matter how devastating. It’s about how cultural fixation on beauty and weight on youth has shaped the sport and driven the athletes into a sphere beyond the quest for physical performance.” (Ryan 5)
On my hospital bed, I sit and stretch out my arms to relieve some nervous tension. My room is nothing but dull grey walls and the smell of disinfectant. My ears perk up as I listen to doctors and nurses conversing outside. Their voices grow louder and louder as I hear their feet coming closer to my door. I crane my neck towards sounds, only to spot the brass knob of my door turning. My heart begins to race and my breathing becomes shallower. I quickly pull out a pocketknife from under my pillow and slip it into my pants pocket. Stealthily, I roll out of bed, forgetting about the various tubes attached to my body. I wince in pain and tears well up in my eyes as they get yanked ou...
We had a short amount of time in each area, so we needed to use our time wisely. We ran through the routine twice and moved on to our stunts. I was really excited; I had a great stunt group and knew we would be flawless. We started the warm-ups; one, two, three times we failed - to my surprise. I didn't know if we did something wrong or we were all just nervous. We attempted it one more time, and finally it was a success. Everyone had warmed up and was patiently waiting to perform next. Once the other teams' music stopped, my heart dropped. In that exact moment, I knew we were next. Before we went on the floor, we did our favorite chant to get everyone's energy up in excitement. Our school is called and the time had come to go out there and give it our all. When we go out on the floor, everything is loud and bright. Our routine had started and we are pumped. Our team was immaculate with all the motions, smiling, yelling the cheer with excitement and walking to my first stunt. We set to do the stunt and the cheerleader goes up and I caught her foot. The stunt made it and then she fell. At that moment, I felt like the world stopped. Everything we did - all of our hard work, the long practices - just went down the
7- Cards of evaluation of learning gymnastic skills under investigation: The researcher designed cards to evaluate learning gymnastic skills under investigation by girls in the two research groups. The cards included stages of performing gymnastic skills under investigation and technical aspects in each stage i.e. technical points the girl should consider during the performance. One score was suggested for each technical aspect provided that the total score of the skill must be (10). The correct performance of the motor skill was evaluated by a committee formed of 3 arbitrators standing on teaching gymnastics as per the evaluation card and final score was calculate through the mean of scores of the 3 arbitrators in each skill (App.6).
It was the start of summer 2002, and the Mid America Youth Basketball (MAYB) national tournament was taking place in Andover, Kansas. Along with the rest of the team, I was excited to play some basketball for the first time since the middle school basketball season was over. Our team, Carlon Oil, had been together and played every summer for the last four years. We were a really good team, with an overall record of 65-4 over those four years and were hoping to continue our legacy. Lonnie Lollar, our coach for the summer, was also the coach of our high school basketball team. I had a history of groin injuries, and every summer it seemed that I would have to sit out at least a game on the bench icing my groin. But this summer was different, and I along with everyone in the gym wouldn't have expected my summer to end with a injury such as a broken leg.
My heart is beating rapidly. I am filled with trepidation. Can I perform? Will I remember my routines? Will I stick the landing? Will I keep my legs straight? What if I fall off the beam? What if I disappoint my coaches? What if I’m not the best? What if…?