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Broken
Kaleb lay on the field once again. This had become a very frequent occurrence for him and his team.
Kaleb is a very athletic individual and could very easily go to college to play football. He is the captain of his team because of his skill alone, although he does have relatively good leadership abilities. His downfall is that he loves attention. It could come in any form, but he loves it. In this case, it’s lying on the football field, being “hurt”. The first couple of times he did this, the trainer was out to him as soon as literally possible. He would be screaming like he had been shot and would be squirming like he had been possessed by a demon. Every time, the trainer would think that he was seriously injured. Yet every time, he would go to the sideline for about 5 min and then go back into the game like nothing had ever happened. Everyone at the game would be extremely confused. This would have been understandable once or twice, but when it occurs 5 or 6 times, it starts to look bad. Even his parents start to not believe him and stop being afraid when he is down.
At this point, he knows what he is doing probably looks bad, but he can’t help himself. It's almost a knee jerk reaction for him. When ever he is having a bad game or messes up on a play, he acts like he is more hurt than he actually is. It's not like nothing happened and often times, he is actually feeling pain when he goes to the ground. Just, not to the extent of what he acts like happened.
This time it was different. Something didn't feel right and he knew it. He wasn't yelling like he had in the past when he had gotten “hurt.” He actually couldn’t feel a whole lot of anything. The trainer ran out onto the field. She didn't seem too concerned at all and tfact he wasn’t yelling or screaming made her feel even less so. She asked him what was wrong and he told her that his neck and bothering him. She did all the normal tests to see if he had broken his spine or neck but he seemed to normal. She assumed that he had just jammed his neck a little bit and he would be fine. She did tell him that just in case, he should not play at all for the rest of game which he was fine with.
In most cases, an ambulance would be called for someone who had gotten hit hard like that and was complaining about their neck. Since it was Kaleb though, no one took him or his new injury all that serious. This would turn out to be a huge mistake and a life changing one at that.
The game went on and his team ended up winning which didn’t matter too much to him at all. All he could think about was the lack of feeling he had in his back and all throughout his body. He had banged up his back before, but it had never felt like it did now. He knew that the smart thing to was to tell his parents what he was feeling and to go to the hospital. He didn't because he knew if he did, he wouldn’t be able to play in the game next week which happened to be homecoming week and one of the most important games of their season.
The second he got home, he went right upstairs and layed down on his bed. Normally he would stay up almost all night waiting for the film from the game but this time, he just wanted to sleep to get away fro the numb feeling. It didn’t take him long to do this.
When he woke up the next morning, he instantly knew something was wrong. He had no feeling from anything below his neck. It was the most terrifying thing he had ever felt. He screamed for his parent and as soon as he told them what was wrong, they called an ambulance and got him to the emergency room. After an examination, they had discovered that he had broken his back the night before and the swelling from it was what was allowing him to walk and still feel some feeling in his body.
This was a huge change in his life. He would no longer ever be able to play football again or even walk and feed himself. He knew that if he would have reacted less would he kind of got hurt in the past, everyone would have taken him more serious and would have gotten him to a hospital right after it happened and that they probably could have done something to repair his back before he was completely paralyzed.
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My love and fear of playing football inspired me to write this piece. This is something that could happen to anyone playing the sport. My own experience with injuries in the sport also was a factor in writing this.