Your injuries do not define you!!! This blog is more geared towards athletes and active people who feel held back due to injuries, or to anyone who can relate! One of my best friends suggested I talk about this because, she and I have both struggled through injuries.
When I was in high school I was a varsity swimmer in my prime swimming the 500 yard freestyle and at the end of my sophomore season I was fifth in the conference for the 500. At this point I was at least 8 years deep into my swimming career, I started swimming butterfly as a young swimmer - anyone who is familiar with swimming knows that butterfly is very hard on your joints - so as a young swimmer in grade school and middle I was swimming butterfly and I was doing really well. The problem is if your shoulders are not conditioned properly, butterfly is even harder on your joints, so I started physical therapy at a young age to try to strengthen my shoulders. Years went on and I started swimming freestyle more but the repetitive motion in my shoulders kept growing to be more painful to the point I would finish a race and be crying. After that my family and I decided it was time to get checked and that's when I found out I had torn my left labrum - which is a piece of cartilage that lines the inside of your shoulder socket holding the ball joint together. When I first met with the surgeon he told me I had to stop swimming and get my shoulder fixed or I just swam through it. I chose surgery because the pain was too much, that surgery ended my swimming career. Two years later I noticed the same pain in my right shoulder, got an MRI, and had torn my right side labrum...which then lead to another surgery and a lot more physical therapy. But I still wasn't ready to let my swimming career, it was such a huge part of my life for so long. So, I decided to give it a go in college and swim D1 for a season, I'm sure you can guess how that went. Yup, I had end my swimming career once again because I had too much shoulder pain and didn't want to re-tear or injure myself more than I already had. I had to think about my future, and if swimming was really worth the damage and pain it was causing.
Today, I still get in the pool and swim laps, not as intense or as fast as I once did, but that's okay. I have worked so hard and still work so hard to condition and strengthen my shoulders so I am still able to participate in the things I love. I may not be able to swim on a team anymore, but I can still get in and swim a few laps, I can still go to the gym and lift weights, play golf, go tubing, or wake boarding. I will always believe that one of the biggest keys to recovery is mental. If you don't think you can do something or you're not trying very hard at your therapy, you won't get better. You'll get half better. No one wants to be partially recovered, you have to have that drive, a drive strong enough to get back to those things you are so passionate about. Injuries happen, in some cases they can be prevented but most of the time they cannot. I don't wish that I can go back and not have swam any butterfly or not even have swam at all. Swimming was an amazing part of my life and if I hadn't gone to physical therapy or had surgeries, I don't think I would have found what I was passionate about, which is becoming a physical therapist. I know people who have had the same surgeries as me and got to get back in the pool with no problem at all, that was very hard for me to accept for a long time. We all know that no two people are the same. We all recover differently, and that is okay.
Your injuries may seem like they ended your happiness or abilities but mine opened so many new doors and led me to so many new passions that I am so beyond grateful to now know. I would not be the same Darby I am today without my scars (injury scars or internal scars). Our scars do truly make us the people we are, and the people we are becoming. Don't let your injuries overcome your passions and your life. Work through them and get back to being the you before they happened. Set goals, long and short term to work towards, goals were my best friend during my recovery process. They saved my sanity, by giving me the contentment knowing I was progressing.
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