Assignment 21 - Julia Meadors

Tendonitis. A condition in which the tissue connecting muscle to the bone becomes inflamed.

As a member of the marching band, we spend countless hours on the student parking lot marching back and forth across the hot parking lot beginning in July. During the first few days, everything was going well, we were going over all the fundamentals with the freshmen and I was teaching my section how to march. But then after the first week, I would feel a throbbing pain in my ankle. At first, I chalked it up to muscle pains from all of the physical activity, icing my ankle during lunch and sectionals, but even after I would ice my ankle constantly for several hours, it would hurt as soon as I started doing more activity. I eventually went to my doctor who took some x-rays but didn’t see anything wrong and sent me to a specialist. The specialist told me I was not allowed to march for two days until I could get an MRI.

When I went to the appointment after the MRI a little afraid for the result, and an hour after I walked out with a brand new boot and a tendonitis diagnosis. Though for most people, being in a boot would have ended their season, I was determined to keep marching.  It was difficult but I managed to figure out how to alter what I was doing in order to continue marching. I had to make sure that I was doing everything above and beyond because I stood out, especially during competitions where I had a grey boot while everyone else was wearing all black. I also had to attend physical therapy three times a week at 7:00am in order to not miss school. Eventually, I finished the season out marching in the boot.  Sure I had to sit out some during rehearsals, but I made it work and never got discouraged.