Imagine how breaking a bone can change your life. When you think about it, you say “it wouldn’t really change my life”, but the truth is it does! It may be a subtle change, or it may be a huge one, but there is still a change that affects your everyday life.

It was on New Year’s Eve weekend in Edina, Minnesota. We were there for a hockey tournament, and were playing our first game. It was the second period and I had just gotten the puck, which was in our zone. I started moving the puck up the ice because I had no pressure on me. The other team’s offence saw me moving it up and started to close the gap. They left a hole between themselves, and I took full advantage by weaving through. Now there was only their defensivemen were between the goalie and I.

I now had a choice of going around the defensiveman on my left or my right. I picked going through the defensiveman on my right because he was smaller than the other. I tried to make him move first but he just waited for me. My initial thought was, if he wasn’t going to move I would move him myself. Unfortunately, he was going to do the exact same thing. We hit each other close to the visitor’s bench, and we both flew backwards. At the moment of impact, my whole left leg went numb, and a second later I realized that I couldn’t move it!

I was taken off the ice and the medic that examined me said it was most likely a fracture. I was taken to the hospital right across the street where I had to sit in the waiting room, in my boxers, for over thirty minutes. While sitting there I realized that my leg never hurt, not now and not even when it happened. Finally my name was called and it was time for the x-rays.

It took awhile for them to be taken, because I couldn’t move my leg. Later I went into the room where the doctor had the x-rays put up. Instantly I started crying because I could already see it was completely broken. The doctor said it was a clean break, and it should be healed in a little over six weeks. He also told me I felt no pain because my brain blocked out the feeling of pain from that area. The reason I had started crying was because I wouldn’t be able to play hockey until next year. And hockey was my life.

Breaking my leg changed me more than anything. Now whenever I look at something I can see a potential way someone can get seriously injured. After breaking my leg I hated to drive because every car I passed, in my mind’s eye, hit me square on. I also realized how fragile everything can be and how easily it can be broken. You can go from feeling as though you are unstoppable to feeling like there is no hope for you at all. The best thing you can do is to just pull through it and be strong because you know things always work out in the end.