When you find something you relish you wish never to let it go, but to hold onto and pursue it for the rest of your life... everybody has dreams, I found mine in 2003, when I was one and a half years old. Small in height and not able to talk I could still express the great contentment I felt through smiles and clapping when I got my first lacrosse stick and my one and only dream. I had grown up with trophies, competitiveness, and lax-talk all my life, I guess that's what happens when your father is a superstar lacrosse player. When I had first learnt to walk my father would enjoy the races between his cat and I, the cat always setting off at a blistering pace as well as always ending with one. This is where I got my competitiveness and determination which caused a wretched situation, one which would affect me for a matter of time.
I hadn't played lacrosse on a team in a matter of years, this was thanks to my severe fear of the public. However, I would always practice both in secret and with my father preparing for the time which I would finally play to my strengths in front of the community. It was in the sixth grade that I finally got over my fears and played in public, but sometimes the pressure to be perfect can get to you as well as overwhelm you, and that's what happened to me.
The day started off as any normal day. I caught the bus, went to school, longed for UA to be over. It was that night when everything turned wretched. My dad had just had knee surgery, he had torn his meniscus severely and needed an intervention in order to be able to walk again. Every day up to his surgery we would play lacrosse, pass, catch, shoot, and cradle... it had become a routine, a routine that became broken. After my dad had his surgery I would play lacrosse by myself, the culpability of his injury on me. I would play for hours on end, no water breaks, just hard work and dedication, that's when it happened. I was approaching my third hour for the day, the sun was beginning to go down and the air had become bitter for spring. I shoot very hard, anyone who played with me would know that, my coach said I have a "rocket" shot, and that's the reason everything happened. As took a shot from several feet away my aim was off, which is very rare for me. As the ball approached the wood which I use for a net it bounced off and came flying back at me two times the speed it had come and whacked me right in the wrist. This was the moment that everything changed. I was benched from lacrosse for a matter of time when the injury happened and now, I am benched again. When I play with my right hand it gives me great agony for the simple bruised bone which I received resulted in an injury much worse…
After the smashing of the lax ball to my bone, thus begun shooting pain in my hand, the feeling like a knife constantly stabbing. As the time progressed, my hand began to become swollen and the pain wasn't dying down but getting worse. My mother decided to take me to a hand doctor, this was in the middle of September. After a long wait in the waiting room, I finally got to see the doctor, where the results I received weren't completely unexpected. My doctor diagnosed me with carpal tunnel syndrome, which is extremely rare in children. The only two treatment options were the two worst options... surgery, or not playing lacrosse for months and wearing an intolerable hand brace. Since I'm twelve years old my mother decided it best to go with the non-surgical option, so that we did which meant no 207 high school lacrosse, no travel team lacrosse, no lacrosse in general, no treatment soon, and an intolerable hand brace which would be worn 24/7.
About a month after this unbearable news was received my father and I had a proposition... due to my strong shot and my father's cured knee we came to the conclusion that I would play lacrosse, but I would play both one-handed and off-handed. Since the wrist of my dominant hand was the hand which I could no longer play with this was the only option which would keep the sport alive for me, this was the only shot I had of playing unless I had surgery. After we had come to this determination based plan we needed to put it in action. Every day since mid-October my father and I would go out and play lacrosse, one handed, off handed, will handed.
When you have a dream, when you have a passion, you will go to whatever matters needed to reach it. To this day I cannot play lacrosse with my right hand and I still have to wear a hand brace, but that's all part of the recovery process. "This experience is a bad dream which I still haven't woken up from" (-Alex Chiffon), however, out of this injury I've learnt the true meaning of passion. A passion for something isn't something you just have, it is something which progresses as your love for it gets stronger... and that's what's happened to me.
