Road to recovery- Pablo Gavi

Part 1

Lola's POV

Do you ever think why me? That's exactly what I'm thinking right now. I don't know what I did to deserve this I think I'm a good person I try to be nice to everyone I meet but now I'm starting to wonder why I even bothered. 

 My day started off exactly the same as it always does my alarm goes off at 7 and I get myself ready to go on a run. I'm usually gone for about an hour and half before I come back and shower and eat breakfast. Then I get on with some uni work for most of the day as I do my school work remotely to help fit it into my schedule. The like always training starts at 5 so I make sure to arrive at 4 as I like to get warmed up properly and work on some of my skills on my own. 

As its competition season I have been spending a lot more of my time in the gym practicing my routines time and time again until they are perfect. My coaches are also trying to push my level so I also tirelessly work on new skills in hopes that they can be included in my routine at the next competition so my difficulty is increased. It's hard work but I love it. Gymnastics has always been part of my life, I started when I was two in a class for babies but apparently I was always better than the rest so my parents were told to put me into a more advanced class. They did exactly that and ever since I've always been the youngest one in each class I was put in and then when I made a team for the first time I was still the youngest. I was called up to the youth Spanish team as soon as I was old enough and now I'm working towards my first olympics. 

Today happened to be my last training session before my next competition which happens to be a pretty major one. Everything was going exactly to plan and like it always does I had managed to get a new skill on the bars and we worked it into my routine so now I have a bit more of an edge on my competition. After bars it was time for vault as that is my weakest rotation and my coaches want me to work on it before the Olympics as you can't have a weakness if you want to be competitive at the Olympics. 

I did my usual vault a few times before trying a new variation with more twists. My a first attempt was a fail as I chickened out and didn't even do a proper vault. My second attempt was better but not great. My third attempt it went all wrong and I under rotated and came landing down really hard on one leg which twisted my knee awkwardly. I've had bad landings before but when I realised that I was in complete agony and my knee just felt off I knew it wasn't good. My coaches also knew straight away that something wasn't right as I alway get up right after a fall but instead I just laid there with an arm over my eyes to try and stop myself crying. 

Everything after that happened so quickly I was taken by ambulance to the hospital where they ran so many tests. CTs, MRIs, ultrasounds you name it I'm sure they did it. That was the worst part as each time a new test was done I saw the doctors looking more and more concerned and no one would tell me anything no matter how much I begged. There's nothing worse than being cold, in pain and scared as you don't have a clue what's going on. Eventually someone came to tell me what was wrong and weirdly I kind of wish they hadn't as it wasn't what I wanted to hear at all.

"I'm afraid that you have a complete tear in your acl and a further injury in your meniscus which we can't know the extent of until we perform surgery" the doctor explained 

"Wait that's bad isn't it how long will I be out for?" I asked 

"I'm afraid you are looking at up to 9 months out" the doctor said 

"No no I'm supposed to be going to the Olympics I can't be out for that long" I cried 

"I'm afraid you will miss the olympics this injury has a long recovery time your surgery will be next Tuesday the 28th we will see you then" the doctor said before getting my discharge papers sorted and leaving 

What did I do to deserve this. 

Gavi's POV

The pain was instant. Straight away I knew something was wrong especially when I couldn't walk properly without being in complete agony. I didn't want to believe it so I tried to keep going but I just couldn't there was something seriously wrong. I'm not sure whether it was the pain or the possibility that I might not play again for a long time but I couldn't stop tears flowing down my face. The team and the coaches did their best to comfort me but it was no use it just felt like my world was crashing and burning around me. 

Of course they sent me straight off to the hospital for tests as the physios at the stadium knew my injury was beyond their capabilities which didn't fill me with any hope whatsoever. No one wanted to talk to me as we traveled to the hospital so it was completely silent as I was thinking about how long I'll be away from football and how awful that will be. Even once we got to the hospital the doctors were just doing tests and not saying anything. Everyone was treating me like a child who wouldn't understand anything they said when really I'm not stupid they could just tell me what they are doing and what they think is wrong and I'd understand just fine. 

"It looks like you have torn your acl we can't tell the full extent of the injury at the moment so you will have it have further tests back in Barcelona" the doctor explained 

"It can't be it can't be I have to play what about the euros and the champions league" I sobbed 

"I'm afraid you are going to have to miss those" the doctor said 

~~~~~~~~~~

Since getting back home I haven't slept at all as my knee is still in a lot of pain and I can't stop thinking about how I won't play again this season. My agent came to drive me to my second set of tests and unlike yesterday when I just wanted someone to tell me what was up and that it would all be fine I didn't want to talk to anyone. They ran all of the same tests on me again presumably hoping to find a different outcome but let's be real it's never going to get better is it. Unlike yesterday everyone was fussing over me and making sure I was feeling ok which was just quite overwhelming when I wanted to just be left alone with my thoughts. 

Yet again all of the results were discussed in the next room over without me but I could still see what was going on. Everyone in the room didn't look hopeful and there was a few people on the phone and writing things down which didn't seem like a good thing. At this point I've come to accept that I'm not going to be playing for a long time so I just want to get on with my recovery as I need something to do all of this sitting around and waiting is driving me crazy. 

"So Gavi we are sorry to say that along with your acl tear you also have an associated injury to the meniscus which extends the recovery time so you are likely to be out for 7-9 months and you will need surgery which we have scheduled for next week on the 28th" the doctor told me 

No one else had anything to say to me and I just wanted to go home so my agent drove me home then left me so I could think about why this had to happen to me.