Personal Narrative: A Long Dance Career

Because I was always one of those kids that never felt comfortable doing any sport, when I discovered that I had a talent for dancing, I was overjoyed. I started dancing during my fifth grade year of school. Immediately I became infatuated with the art. Working very hard my sixth grade year enabled me to join my academy’s dance company. One day during my musical theatre class while doing a combo something wasn’t right. My right leg had a twinging pain and when I did the big kick at the end of the combo, I knew I had pushed myself too far. What should have been the beginning of a long dance career turned into a very long year and a half search of trying to find a way to heal whatever was wrong. It was an experience that I’ll never forget. Realizing that I was injured my mom told me that we
Peterson. Over the next few weeks, I went for treatment which consisted of electrical stimulation therapy, and at least 15 minutes of Active Release Therapy, which wasn’t comfortable, to put it mildly. Although I consistently continued this therapy for two months I was not getting any better. My mom said not to be too disappointed and that we would find another doctor that could help me. We decided to go to an orthopedic specialist at Tulsa Bone and Joint. The doctor there told me that I might have endured a stress fracture and ordered an MRI to confirm his suspicions. While waiting for the results of the scan he suggested that I take a break from dance for a while to see if things would improve. So, I did. I took off four weeks from dance. During this time I became more and more frustrated because my leg pain wasn’t going away. This frustration only