Lilly

The X-ray technician orders me to lie down on the table while she preps the machine. I put on the gown she gives me and recline, turning my toes in like I’m told, my hands falling loosely out to the side. She repositions me a few times between scans, bending my knees, adjusting the angle of my hips. Then we’re done, and I get dressed and pad comfortably back out into the lobby. “The results will be in later tonight, maybe tomorrow morning,” the receptionist tells my mom, and then we’re free to go.

It’s a precaution, simply to make sure that my hip pain isn’t due to a hernia or anything other than a muscle strain. I’m not expecting anything out of the ordinary to show up in my hip. I’m definitely not expecting my mom to come home and say, “Well, they told me it’s a fracture.”

And it’s not even in my hip. I have what’s called an avulsion fracture where my hamstring connects to my pelvis, meaning that a tiny piece of bone got torn away from the main mass because of some physical strain. But the last time I injured my hamstring was years ago. Until tomorrow, when I go back to see an orthopedist, I won’t know if the fracture that showed up on the X-ray is recent or long healed. Two doctors’ appointments tomorrow (first with the orthopedist, then my physical therapist), my first week back at school—it’s a bit much to be happening all at once.

For some reason, when I heard the diagnosis, all I did was laugh. Maybe being away from the action when I couldn’t continue physically for the past couple of months has increased my mental strength. A year ago, you couldn’t pay me to stay on the treadmill for longer than a 10-minute warm-up, and now I sigh a little when my 50-minute timer beeps and the belt slows to a stop. (Which seems idiotic in hindsight, knowing my diagnosis now, but it didn’t cause me any irregular pain as I was doing it.)

Whatever happens tomorrow, whatever my final diagnosis turns out to be, I will recover from it. “You gotta try a little harder, you’re the comeback kid,” sings Sleigh Bells’ Alexis Krauss. I will run again. I will play again. ♦