Exactly 3 years ago, I received the scariest news I’ve ever got in my life. That there was a chance that I could never do the thing that I most loved again.

I used to live in Brazil and I played for a soccer traveling team. It was game day and everyone was excited because if we won, we would reach the quarter finals. The referee blew his whistle and the game started. I was playing center midfield. It was a close game when my teammate passed the ball to me, and I took a power shot to the goal. When my foot connected with the ball, I felt an excruciating amount of pain in my ankle. I fell on the ground and a doctor came on the field to examine me. He took a look at my ankle and told me that I couldn’t continue to play. I got off the field and right away my mom took me to a hospital.

When we got to the hospital, there was a very long line, but the nurse saw that I was feeling a lot of pain and she let me cut in front of the other people. After some scans and exams, the doctor told me that I had a fractured ankle and that I needed surgery. He told me that this happened by me kicking the soccer ball way to hard many times. The only thing that was on my mind was if I would ever be able to play soccer again. He told me that if the surgery goes well, I would be fine to play after a couple of months, but if something went wrong, that I could maybe not be able to play again.

The day of the surgery was the scariest day of my life, I was just hoping that everything would go well so that I could get back on the field as soon as possible. I had the surgery and thankfully everything went well.

I had to wait a couple of months, but I got back on the field and actually got to play in the final of the tournament that I was playing before getting injured. We won the final 3-1 and I was the first person who got to hold up the trophy.