Personal Narrative: The Importance Of Physical Therapy

I have grown up watching my sisters run cross-country, so when it came time for me to participate in a sport it just seemed natural to pick cross-country. So starting in the seventh grade I started to run cross-country and I enjoyed every aspect of the team, until one day I started to feel an immense amount of pain in my right hip. After talking with my coach and parents I was off to the chiropractor who told me that my hip had popped out of place. Even after the doctor would put my hip back in place it would just come right back out, and eventually other problems related to my hip started. So naturally I was told to stop running and I was put into physical therapy and had many different doctor visits until the summer of freshman year. At this time my hip felt great and my doctors had cleared me to run, so I went for it. To my immense disappointment all of my summer training went out the window when I started to feel excruciating pain in my hip, which also left me unable to compete. By not being able to participate in the sport I loved I felt like I had failed at being an athlete.

So after three months my doctor decided that I needed to go to see a doctor who specializes in orthopedic hip surgery. By the time that I was able to see the surgeon I was frustrated and tired of being in pain, so when he evaluated me and gave me the news that I needed surgery I felt relieved. When my first surgery came the doctor found that my hip had more problems than he had anticipated which lead to two more surgeries that left me in a wheelchair for an entire summer, and also in constant physical