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It has been exactly 6 weeks (almost to the minute) since I tore my achilles playing Ultimate. I dont think the timing could have been worse. And I finally decided to start a blog about it.
It was three games into the Oregon College sectionals tournament when it happened. One of the two most important tournaments of the year. I will now miss nationals, the last tournament I was going to play for the Reed College Berserk. I had been looking forward to it, and working hard for it, for the past year. I was in the best shape of my life at the time. As captain, I also feel like I have disappointed my team. But, I think they understand I didn’t mean to abandon them.
On top of that, I was finishing up the last semester at college and working to graduate. I had to finish writing my thesis within three weeks of my injury. Writing the thesis was already hard. It became much harder. But, I finished and wheeled across the stage at graduation earlier this week. I even got the president of the school to sign my (pink) cast as I received my diploma.
A couple days ago my cast was taken off. I now have a boot and am bearing some weight on it. I will be throwing away the crutches next week, hopefully. I am surprised at how good my incision looks. It doesn’t seem like it will scar much at all.
As unfortunate as this experience has been, I feel like I have learned a lot about myself from it. I think the most eye-opening thing was how dependent I am on physical activities. Before the injury, most of my happiness came from those activities. So, I have been forced to find new ways to be happy. I look forward to continuing to learn from it.
-joe