Dear Journal,
December 2010 - The month my life began to suck
Well, it kind of sucked a week before that. We just had cheer tryouts for fall football but I didn’t make it. I practiced everyday doing leaps, jumps, cheers, and dances but apparently to the cheer coach, that wasn’t enough. To make it even worse, my grandfather was battling cancer for three months, but he didn’t make it.
My family went to his funeral and it was very gloomy. After that, we went to my aunt’s house for a family gathering. My sister parked her car near a ditch which was on my side. When I exited the car, I took a leap not knowing it was going to change the rest of my life.
My cousins and I got out of my sister’s car one by one and jumped over the ditch. I felt like a ballerina; however, when I landed, I felt a burning and ripping sensation in my knee. When I went to school the next day in PE, my knee was still hurting but it really didn’t bother me. When the weekend came, I started complaining even more and tried to use pain pills but that wasn’t working. My dad and my mom looked at it and discovered it was as swollen as a watermelon. We went to the emergency room on Sunday night; it was so freezing, that it felt like it could snow at any minute. There they told me I sprained my knee and had to walk on crutches.
When I got back to school the next day and wobbled into my morning chemistry class, I only got a few sympathetic comments from two of my friends. The rest of the comments were: “Why did you jump over a ditch anyway?”, “Why aren’t you wearing a cast?”, and “Why are you on crutches if you can stand on it?” Usually, when someone gets injured, one’s friends help them out, but that wasn’t the case for me. My teachers literally had to make someone carry my books so I could get to class.
Is it me or is my crutches bothering anybody? Does it look like I have a disease or something? Hopefully after winter break, everything will get better.

Hugs and Kisses,
Maddie