My Big Impact

        As my friends arrived I greeted them at the door excited for the party to begin. When everyone arrived at the party we were given the speech on what we can go on and do. Around 11am the party started and we got on our way doing all the activities. They had this track around the whole place with these little scooters. We played with the scooters for the first 30 minutes. We had so many races on the scooters and we had a final tournament. After the scooters we decided to go to the bouncy houses. We were most excited for these because they had so many, and some even had slides. For 20 minutes we were just bouncing, sliding down the slide, and playing basketball in the bouncy houses. This gave me an idea that we should try climbing up the slide and jumping into the bouncy house instead of just climbing up the inflatable wall and down the slide. We kept on jumping and going up and jumping over.

        Then one time as I got to the top of the slide I got really nervous. I said I had a bad feeling. People said to just “Jump” and the person right behind me said “Jump and nothing bad will happen”.  I didn’t want to jump but all of a sudden I fell. I don’t remember if my foot slipped or if someone pushed me but I wasn’t ready for it. The side of my right foot landed on the bouncy house and snapped. I instantly started crying and felt intense burning pain. People were asking what happened but I was just crying. My parents carried me to the car and my mom drove me to the hospital. The side of my foot was fully broken and I was at the hospital while my friends and my brother were at my own party blowing out my own cake. I was so mad at my brother for months for blowing out my candles. The next month my parents surprised me with a trip to Disney world which had been planned before the injury. It all worked out as I got to skip the lines because this was back when they had separate lines for the handicap and the injured. I don’t remember much from that trip but when I came back I remember how hard it was for me to do regular daily activities. 

        As the weeks went on the doctor put me in a boot and said I could stand on it and kick a soccer ball with my other foot to get movement for soccer. Every day I would go out and spend 20 minutes just kicking the ball with my left foot. As my right foot healed I could move a little more to do different things with my left foot. After months of practice I was way stronger with my left foot. When they finally said I could take my boot off it gave me the chance to go back to soccer. I found I was stronger with my left foot. I changed to using my left foot for only shooting but after two years I fully converted to using my left foot for soccer. Ever since I have been a lefty and I have no regrets about switching. 

        I learned to turn something bad into a learning opportunity and a new skill which has had a great impact on my life especially now as I’m on varsity soccer. This was my Big Impact story on my life.