Fifteen months and I am still in pain. Thirty-five visits to numerous doctors and therapist; many of which were a waste of time and money, due to several frustrating misdiagnoses. I became uncomfortably familiar with the dark, cushioned, waiting room chairs, orthopedically designed for comfort and support so you don’t screw anything else up in your body while waiting endlessly to see a Doctor about your real problem. Passing time, I often followed the nauseating patterns of the multicolored carpet, getting lost in the deep spiraling loops. The spiraling loops of an everlasting injury.
The carpet loops of this story begin the summer of 2009. I was enjoying life, playing sports, hanging out with friends just like any other normal fourteen-year old girl would be spending her summer. Rising from my bed before the sun came up to get in a couple hours of grueling basketball conditioning, only to spend my afternoons helping with a basketball camp ran by the Wildcard basketball team itself which was then followed by a one hour practice of team camp to work on plays and positions. By the time three o’clock came around, I was exhausted. Although the only thing I wanted to do was go home and take a long, peaceful power nap, I was rushed off to softball where my team counted on me as their starting pitcher and leading scorer. Only the Gatorade and the shrill thrill of playing the game kept me alive. After the game, the coach, my father, would discuss the game as if it were a cookie recipe, pointing out every single detail that changed the outcome of the game. My non-coherent head would nod in agreement to his rambling logic. Upon arriving home, I would eat, shower, and collapse on my convivial bed, looking forward to the early morning conditioning.

“SNAP!” I felt my arch give. This was defiantly not good. I looked around the gym at the little campers all getting ready to start by going through their shooting stretch. Pain was creeping up my leg, like the tendon in my foot was a rubber band, finally broken from too much use and creeping back together in a slow, stickling motion. The pain in my foot must have been well presented by the pain on my face as some of my teammates and coaches rushed over to help me off the court. Icing my foot while watching the camp that day, I knew it was bad, but I never expected it to be this bad. The next day I went to my family doctor. He referred me to the Whitley County specialist because he knew that I needed a more attention for my foot then what he could provide. As I walked into the waiting room for the first time, for some odd reason I was under the impression that I would see the specialist, maybe get some x-rays or something, he’d tell me what was wrong and fix it. Point blank. That, however, was only part of my imagination. Dr. Comminsky was a young, nice man who seemed to be very knowledgeable, explaining the way my foot worked and how it might have been injured. He ordered an x-ray which diagnosing me with tendonitis (inflammation of the tendons). In order to fix this problem he sent me to physical therapy where my foot was stretched, scraped and endured ultrasound iontophoresis for seven days all for the wrong purpose. When my foot was not healing, the doctor decided it was tendonoses, which is the later stage of tendonitis when the tendons are scarred instead of inflamed. This meant it was back to therapy for me. Having orthopedic inserts made for my foot was another thing Dr. Comminsky told me would help my injury. However, it was not getting any better, so I soon saw a different orthopedic in Fort Wayne, Dr. James. He diagnosed me with plantar fasciitis and tendonoses, and told me that I could play my sports as tolerable. My excitement for being able to practice was soon extinguished when the pain was still present while doing simple task like running up and down the court, or even just shooting around. Dr. James then prescribed me to take Aleve daily, ordered a MRI, and told me not to participate in any of my basketball practice. Later that week, I received the results from the MRI. It read as follows: “bone marrow edema along the lateral talar dome. No collapse of the articular surface. Tendious and ligamentous structures as well as can be seen are normal.” which landed me in a boot for twenty days. I even had to sleep in it. After twenty days I was allowed to stop sleeping in it and only wear it in the daytime. Discontinued my Aleve, I began taking prednisone. This helped my tendon pain, but the pain in my arch was still present. The doctor had me start to wean out of the boot one hour less each day. I did this for three days until it started hurting again and then I was back in the boot all the time.

I decided to see a different doctor, hoping he would be able to give me a solution to my problem. Dr. Jenkins to give me an insanely painful cortisone shot in my arch. It felt as though a mosquito the size of Texas was trying to suck every last drop of blood out of my foot in a very slow, very agonizing process. He took me out of my boot and had me use crutches instead. Also, I had to give it ice baths and he put me on indocin for 10 days because he thought there was a possible tear to the plantar fascia, which is the major tendon running across the bottom of the foot, connected to all of the toes. As my months of injury with no answer drug on, Dr. Jenkins finally took my MRI and looked at it closely; being the only one to discover that I did, in fact tear my plantar fascia. I was determined to bring the best out of this injury. Instead of being depressed that it happened, I trust the fact that it did because I know that without it, I would be a completely different person.