On December 15th. Zoey was playing in a preseason soccer game against a local school. 10 minutes in and Zoey and the defense are holding it down. She makes a move and a player that was on her back fell to her butt and Zoey took off with the ball, then another player came from behind and maliciously took Zoey down. She hooked her foot and pulled her jersey one way while pushing her knee the other way. It was a dirty, dirty play. Zoey went down hard and I immediately knew it was bad. She was down on the ground for 3 minutes, the longest worst 3 minutes of my life on the sidelines. At first I wasn’t even sure if she could move her feet. One of the first things she said to her coach when he ran out onto the field was, “there goes my senior season!” in tears. It’s so heartbreaking to sit there and watch her be in so much pain. Anthony got called out to the field to help her off and sitting on the opposite side of the field with her crying into Anthony’s shoulder while sitting on the sidelines is a mothers pain I wish on no one. We spent 8 hours in the ER, nothing was broken so they sent us home with a referral for an MRI and to see an Orthopedic Surgeon. I did everything I could and spent most of the day Tuesday multitasking at work, calling the insurance, calling multiple ortho doctors, multiple MRI places. When we left the hospital Zoey and I talked about me calling our Chiropractor, Dr. Gina Santilli with Hayes Sports Chiropractic. Dr. Gina and Dr. Heidi have worked to rehab several sports injuries during Zoey’s soccer playing. Dr. Gina was amazing! She was so quick to help us get orders for an MRI and gave me names or other orthopedic surgeons. Honestly she was our first answered prayer. She understood that we were working with a short time frame and we needed to know what was going on quickly so we could see if we could get her back on the field for her senior season.

Our second blessing was my big mouth! J/K, but not really, one of the things I’ve learned about myself while going through learning more about Zailey’s ADHD is that I have to talk things through with MULTIPLE people in order to really understand how I feel about things. For some people in my family they don’t understand this about me, they just think I talk to much but it’s honestly just the way my brain processes things and it’s one of the things that I’ve had a hard time with, why do I have to tell everyone my life story?!? But honestly if this is the only time in life it worked out in my favor I will accept the negative of it as well because as I was telling a co-worker about it and how hard it has been to get an orthopedic to call me back she tells me, oh the doctor I use to work for, her husband is an orthopedic surgeon. Let’s see if he’s in network. Between the two of us we found that he was in network and could get us in January 6th, not great but any other appointment I could get so far was January 29th. So I took it and was so grateful just to have someone call me back. As I was walking out of work that day she tells me, she told them if they have any cancellations to call me, literally as she says it they called me back with a cancellation for the next day! I was in shock but so incredibly grateful and blessed that we were getting Zoey seen.

We went to the appointment the next day, Wednesday, so two days post injury. The doctor was amazing! He took the time to listen, watch the video of the dirty play and explain things to us. He recommended an MRI which thanks to Dr. Gina I already had the appointment made for that the next day and to drain her knee. Zoey was nervous and he told her she didn’t have to do it but it would help with her range of motion and get a clearer picture on the MRI. She said she wanted it done, he left the room to get prepared to do the draining. She immediately went to tik tok to watch videos. Most of them were clear fluids, some had some pinkish spots that we could tell were blood. He came in and he talked her through it, I was so glad she wasn’t looking at either of our faces when he started to drain it. The color was dark maroon and so thick, I think it even shocked the doctor, his head whipped up and his eyes widen and then he immediately looked back down. He told us he would be in the next day and to bring the CD of the MRI to him and he would call us and let us know the results. Thursday I picked her up from finals, oh yeah did I mention that it was finals week? Yeah, she was dealing with that too and took her to have her MRI done. I then took the CD immediately to his office and as I was driving to work he called me with the results. She has Medium meniscus tear, an MCL sprain grade 2, ACL sprain grade 2 with a slight/partial tear, patella instability with a cartilage injury and he even saw some damage to her tibia and Fibula. I can’t imagine the force this girl had to be pulling and pushing her with to do this much damage.

He wanted her to start PT and come back in 2 weeks to see how she was doing. She immediately started PT at our sports Chiropractor because shocker we couldn't get her in anywhere that is covered by insurance until January 12th and our follow up appointment with him was January 6th.

Zoey has made great strides with PT but unfortunately she's not where she needs to be and requires surgery. The official MRI report says her ACL is torn. The doctor is going to go in and see if it's a full tear or not, while he's in there he will clean up her meniscus, if the ACL is torn he will reconstruct it with her hamstring. He is also going to take bone marrow from her pelvis and pull the stem cells from it and put the stem cells back in her knee to help her recovery time, also known as BMAC therapy.

Needless to say this is all costly and not on our BINGO card for the year. Some of it isn't covered by insurance. I've had some friends recommend a GoFund me to help offset the cost of getting Zoey back to playing.

So today, Thursday, February 12th, while Zoey's team starts their CIF playoff journey, Zoey will in surgery. As heartbreaking as it is to see her missing out on her senior season I know this is part of Gods plan for Zoey and although not knowing what the future holds for her and her future in soccer is, I do it with the confidence the He does. And while I’ve gone through stages of grief with this, yes grief, I know it sounds dramatic but there are so many lasts that have been stolen from her and I will grieve that for her and for me and her dad who have sacrificed so much so her and her siblings can have life a little better than we did and opportunities that we didn’t have. I will do it with holding onto the knowledge that at the end of the day God has her back, he knows his plan for her life and she is a kind, caring, loving, smart and funny young woman who has an amazing future ahead of her.

If you pray, pray for Zoey, for healing and strength. Honestly she’s probably been stronger than me through this. Pray for me too, because like I said I’m grieving an ending that came way too soon and not in any way I thought it would and if you have the financial means to donate to help us offset these costs know that we will be so grateful. If you can't donate please share our page, the more people who see it the more people who might be able to help.