90 Project 1: Ethnographic Narrative

My Basketball Flop Era 

I grew up playing a rainbow of sports: basketball, tennis, football, soccer, ice hockey, baseball and track. Besides school, sports were the center of my life. Growing up, I loved athletics because I had always been held to the Indian stereotype of only being a smart, nerdy boy and not an athletic one. Through these different activities, I proved that I was capable of being physically fit and talented; defeating the misleading stereotypes forced on me.

The first time I played basketball was during recess on the black top when I was 5 years old. Standing at barely 3 and a half feet, my little hands struggled to cover the ball. After seeing how much I enjoyed playing, my parents later gifted me a basketball hoop in my front yard so I could practice. By the age of 17, I had played in well over 200 games through elementary school, middle school and high school with basketball camps, basketball leagues, competitive AAU basketball circuits, various travel teams, school teams and more. While I enjoyed an array of sports, basketball was my focus and passion.

One day in high school, I was going in for a layup while practicing with my friend- Trey on the basketball court. I had done the same exact move thousands of times before- it was muscle memory at this point. I got near the hoop and jumped up high on one foot letting the ball swirl through the net. Whoosh. As I came down and my foot hit the solid ground, I felt an odd tug in my calf area. I suddenly fell to the ground as I felt an immeasurable amount of pain in my leg. I writhed on the cold floor and started screaming for Trey to help me. I had no idea what was happening but at that moment it felt like my calf had exploded. All the pain was concentrated into a tight ball in my right leg and the sheer suddenness of what was happening made me start hyperventilating on the floor of the court. Trey’s dad came running across when he heard my cries and he carried me up to a bench on the side.

By the time I arrived to Dr. A’s office, the pain had subsided significantly and I was able to hobble around on my feet. The doctor informed me that I had a gastrocnemius tear- a muscle tear which is caused by a severe, sudden injury to your calf muscle. Doctor A. assured me I would be fine after 8 weeks of rest and I was sent home with the thought that this was a minor unimportant injury.

After two months of rest and light use, I stupidly continued to exert my full energy into the sports I was playing. After a difficult tennis game where I played through the same injury, I came home and realized I couldn’t walk without a significant amount of pain in the same exact area of my leg. This time when I went to Doctor A., I got a much scarier treatment plan. I needed surgery.

I blocked out much of the surgical experience. I sat in my flimsy blue hospital gown breathing in the nauseating antiseptic smell of the operating room. I was frantic to the team of doctors and nurses towering over me and was hitting them with a barrage of questions about what their surgical plan was. They kept trying to reassure me but I was panicked about potentially losing my leg muscle. All I remember is the counts of “10..9..8..7..6..5..4..3” when the anesthetic was administered as I was sprawled out on the bed. I’ll never forget the number 3. When I woke up, it felt like no time had passed and all there was a teensy incision on my calf- so much smaller than the large gash through my leg that I was expecting when I woke up.

My parents have private insurance so almost everything for this injury was covered. I live in a suburban neighborhood where Iowa Ortho, UnityPoint, Mercy, physical therapy are a two minute drive from my house. I had very good access to healthcare services which was fortunate because I needed a lot of rehabilitation for this injury. I went to physical therapy for weeks where they used massage guns to break up the clumps of scar tissue that had formed deep beneath my skin. They would have me run on the treadmill and jump on one foot to rebuild the strength slowly and relearn balance. It was a very slow process but I went twice a week to the physical therapy place because I wanted to get back to my normal routine and teammates as fast as possible. I also did traditional acupuncture on the area where they put needles in my skin. It was very uncomfortable and itchy when I felt the needles enter my skin one by one.

During the recovery period, I wasn’t able to play for my team or my coach which affected my teammates morale. My parents and sister were used to seeing me constantly active and now I was just sitting at home all day unable to do anything besides eat and sleep. I was barely able to walk and couldn’t leave the house because I couldn’t drive as my right leg was out of use. This traumatizing event left me depressed and angry. I had never sat out of sports for such a long period of my life and losing that outlet became very tough to cope with mentally.

Even years after it healed, I have always been plagued by internal fear of “What if it happens again?” In basketball, I avoided certain plays and didn’t go for layups anymore because I just wanted to protect my body. Everytime I tried to go for a layup, I was hit with a flashback of what happened to me and I hesitated on the court which messed with my head as a player. I felt so frustrated to be completely physically clear to play but unable to get over the mental hump of continuously doubting myself and watching my performance decrease. I never mentally recovered or played sports the way I did prior to the injury.

I can’t fully blame Doctor A. for everything but after the initial incident, he did not emphasize how serious my injury could become. He had assured me that it was just a minor strain and I would be back up in no later than 8 weeks. He reacted to my emotions and my initial worries of trying to get back on the court by just giving me answers I wanted to hear rather than the answer I needed to hear. I wish he would have warned me instead of reassuring me. It would have been better for my health if he would have said “under no circumstances are you to do this because XYZ will happen”. I didn’t know that surgery was even on the table as a risk until I was getting my leg sliced open on a cold table in the operating room.

Various things that could have led to my injury. I never stretched properly before games and didn’t have a strong habit of drinking water while I played. I’ve played over 15,000 hours of basketball in my life and playing for multiple teams, rough pick up games, not resting and not icing after sports all probably led to my injury. I considered recovery as weak and a waste of time.

I left this injury with an increased level of maturity and humbleness. Before the experience, I was a stubborn 17 year old boy that felt like I was on top of the world. Being able to outplay the kids in basketball that made fun of my Indian ethnicity left me with a pretty high opinion of myself and my abilities. After the injury, I was forced to change my habits and it made me realize that I wasn’t invincible and I had to improve some habits if I wanted to participate in my favorite activity. This event even shaped my career goal as my passion is sport injuries and mental health. During recovery, I stayed up until 3 a.m. many nights to research online medical articles on what happened to me and my muscles. It’s the primary reason my main goal for the future is becoming a sports medicine physician. I want to do my best to help people in this regard because I personally understand how much of a mental impact a physical injury can have on a person for the rest of their life.