The Story of How I Broke My Face

April 20th, 2018 was just an average day for me. I went to school, ate lunch with my friends and then went with my team to my softball game. What I didn’t know was that on that day, my life would be changed forever. It was our first state game, away, about thirty minutes from our school. The game started off well. We were at bat first and scored a couple runs. Once we had three outs, we switched. We took the field and I warmed up pitching, and once the catcher threw it down, the second half of the inning began. First batter: three strikes and she was out. Second batter: ground ball, and she was thrown out. As the third batter stepped up to the plate, I was determined to strike her out and end the inning—until she hit the ball, at almost 100mph, from about 37 feet away, at my face. At first I didn’t know what happened because it was so quick; until I realized I couldn't open my left eye. My glove fell off and put my hand to my face, only to feel something wet and warm gushing down my face. Blood. Immediately I just screamed. At the top of my lungs, just screamed. Screamed in fear and in pain. I went down on one knee in agony. My coaches and father rushed to me trying to help, but what could they do? The trainer came and I was given ice and an ambulance called. Terrified, I opened my right eye only to see the dirt covered in blood, my pants and socks stained red. I waited almost twenty minutes for the ambulance to arrive, although it felt like forever. While waiting, I interrogated the trainer asking thousands of questions including if I would ever be able to see again. The scariest part was that he didn’t know.

Once the ambulance arrived, the EMT’s helped me up and put me on a gurney. Throughout the thirty minute ride, all I did was repeatedly ask my father who was winning, what the score was, what inning it was. Besides wanting all of my fear and pain to go away, I wanted to know how my team was doing, and most of all, I wanted them to win. Finally after what felt like hours, we arrived at the hospital. I was rushed into the emergency room, and doctors helped me immediately. They put an IV in, gave me morphine, cleaned up my face, and put in 25 stitches in my eye brow and cheek, which would leave scars for the rest of my life. After what felt like thousands of tests and CT scans, the doctors had answers. I had broken my entire orbital socket, cheek bone, septum and my sinuses were crushed. What couldn’t be seen on the outside was the hemorrhages I had in my retina. When they pulled open my swollen eye, they discovered it was filled with blood. What I didn’t know was that these hemorrhages would leave permanent blind spots for the rest of my life. It was terrifying knowing that at only the age of 16, I would have blind spots forever. But right now, that wasn’t my biggest problem, surgery was. The floor of my eye socket was shattered, meaning that if it wasn’t repaired, my eye would slowly droop over time.

After receiving these results, I waited in my bed in the ER. I waited almost an hour for the ophthalmologist. They refused to give any more pain meds, despite the immense amount of pain I was in. Finally, as I was unable to stand up on my own, they put me in a wheel chair and brought me to another room. The ophthalmologist opened my eye, shined light into it and took notes of the damage done to my eye. She told me nothing that I had already knew. I waited for another hour and they finally gave me the pain meds that I needed. Around 12:45am they brought me to my own hospital room. The nurse had to help me change my clothes, to something more comfortable than a softball uniform. Once I was changed I asked for something to eat. I was starving. I hadn’t eaten since 8am that morning. However the nurse refused saying that I might need surgery in the morning. Soon enough I passed out and slept very late the next day. I met with a specialist who told me my eye was way too swollen for surgery, and that I would have to wait two weeks for surgery. As horrific as it may seem, I was grateful for those two weeks, mostly because I was terrified for surgery. The nurse then brought me lunch—chicken parmigiana. I’m not a huge fan of it, but trust me, it tasted like heaven. That day all of my family, teams, and friends came to visit me. I’m going to be honest, the hospital was one of the most boring places to be when you are alone, even though my parents were there. After a long day of visitors and naps, I went to sleep.

When I woke on the third day in the hospital, I was told I can finally go home. They took my IV out, gave me pain meds, wheeled me out, and I was on my way home. The next two weeks were the hardest. The night that I got home I could not sleep. I was up until 6:30 in the morning, in agonizing pain. In those two weeks I could not shower, I had to bathe, I could not see, use my phone, watch TV, nothing. I probably should have mentioned before that I had a major concussion, which you probably could have guessed. Those two weeks were filled with hanging out with friends, being in pain, fear, sadness, doctors appointments, meeting surgeons, getting my stitches taken out, which by the way I almost fainted when it happened, and being bored.

Soon enough it was May 7, the day of my surgery came. I went to Columbia Presbyterian early that morning. I was prepped for surgery and brought to the pre-op room. The nurse attempted to put my IV in but failed... many times. She missed twice in my right arm, twice in my left, and finally got it in on my hand. Once the nurse was ready to take me in, I began to panic. Full blown panic attack, begging for my mom to let me skip the surgery, the nurse put something into my IV and I passed out immediately. The next thing I remember was waking up in the post-op room, being fed saltines and juice boxes. I couldn’t even count how much I had. All I know is by the time I was done, they were out of apple juice boxes. I was finally brought to my room, which I shared with another young girl. Throughout that entire day and night I slept like a baby. The next day I was brought home.

The next couple of months were just rest, friends, and actually attending softball games, despite how afraid I was. After a few weeks I was able to open my eye. However, it took six months to fully recover, and even today I am still dealing with concussion symptoms. The hardest part was that some teachers did have work for me to make up. Learning and studying was tough. I could barely read for 10 minutes without getting a head ache. But I was able to do it, and I ended the year with a 4.0 GPA, which I was extremely proud of. Just like after six weeks I was finally able to put contacts in. Soon enough summer ended and school was starting again. It was weird being the girl that missed a month and a half of school, and who was finally back. So far this year has been extremely difficult, dealing with the work load of junior year and head aches. Eventually, after concussion protocol, I was cleared to play sports. Volleyball season began and I earned my spot on the starting varsity line up. It was tough, but I put in the work and effort to do it. And I continue today to struggle with the nightmares, the headaches, and every other detail of my accident. But I have managed and I am staying strong and continuing to recover and do my best.