When I was little...

Every little kid dreams about what they want to be when they grow up. According to my mom, when I was little I wanted to be 1 of 3 things: a lawyer, an interior designer, or a professional basketball player. When I stopped growing at the height of 5'3" the hopes of a pro basketball career ended. I also realized that being an interior designer didn't sound as interesting as it once did. So when I was entering high school, I was pretty set on becoming a lawyer. I loved arguing and had enjoyed my experiences with Mock Trial so going to college and then law school seemed to be a good choice. However 2 days changed my career path. Let me tell you about January 7th, 2006 and December 4th, 2007.

January 7th, 2006 started out like an typical day of my high school career. Go to school, come home from school, play in a basketball game that night. Everything was going perfectly until the middle of the 2nd quarter of the game. That's when what I thought was thinkable happened. I made one wrong move and tore my Anterior Cruciate Ligament (ACL) and medial meniscus in my right knee. The only way to fix it was through surgery and physical therapy. It was tough to suddenly be unable to do everything I normally did. Throughout my rehab, I would spend hours talking to my physical therapist and physical therapy aides. In that time, my interest in the field was peaked. I wondered if maybe physical therapy would be a good job for me. But once I was done with rehab, the thought went to the back of my mind pretty much forgotten for two years until the next eventful day.

December 4th, 2007 was just the ordinary Tuesday in Wisconsin. Head to school with my sister, grad dinner with the basketball team, play in the game that night. Little did I know that it forever change my life. Like that January day in 2006, I ended suffering a serious knee injury during the game. I would find out at the emergency room that I had tore my ACL in my left knee. Needless to say, I was devastated. Not only had my high school athletic career ended, my hope of playing college sports were gone in a matter of seconds. Another surgery brought on even more physical therapy. It was during that time that I fell in love with the field of physical therapy.

I realized that physical therapy would be a great option for me thanks to lots of encouragement for my coaches, teachers, therapist, parents, and friends. The way I talked about it with others, the more I realized that physical therapy included many things that I loved. It would give me the chance to work with athletes as a way to stay close to the sporting arena I love so dearly. I had always enjoyed science and psychology, both of which are components to P.T. Also, I would get to work with so many different people and would have the opportunity to work in a variety of places. By the time I graduated from high school in May 2008, my career path had changed from Law to Physical Therapy. Thankfully I was attending a University were I could study both if I later changed my mind. But I haven't wavered in my almost 3 years of college. I am even closer to becoming a physical therapist with my current major of Kinesiology and the stack of Graduate School applications sitting on my desk waiting to be filled out this summer.

If you told me 6 short years ago that two basketball games would forever change my life I probably would have laughed in your face. But that's exactly what happened. I found my passion for physical therapy and learned a valuable lesson along the way. Bad experiences don't have to have bad outcomes. You can find something good in everything.

~Abbie