During a soccer game this fall, sophomore Husaam Qureishy was dribbling and cut to the right. His ankle bent outwards and cracked in a no-contact injury.  

“At the beginning it wasn’t a big deal. It was just another thing off my bucket list. I’d always wanted to know how it felt to break a bone,” Husaam said.

Initially, the prognosis was a four week recovery time. Ultimately, Qureishy missed the entire winter soccer season as an x-ray showed the recovery would require more time.

“After two weeks I got restless. At four weeks, I got an early x-ray because I thought I was healed. Eventually my recovery time got extended to eight weeks and now I just hate it.”  

First, Qureishy was prescribed a boot which he was told not to take off at all. He used crutches with the boot, avoiding putting his foot on the ground. After around two weeks of wearing the boot, he was allowed to take it off at home.

“I was so bummed out at four weeks when I saw it wasn’t healed, we asked my dad’s friend who is a radiologist for a second opinion. He said I had to keep the boot on, but could begin walking on the boot without crutches,” Qureishy said.

One reason Qureishy was bummed out was that the injury limited his independence.

“I don’t like to have people look after me, so it was kinda bad because I always needed help at lunch and people always had to wait for me because I had to take the elevator.”

From now on, Qureishy feels that he will value both his independence and his foot more. Although he has been working out at home, he still feels the hardest part about getting back will be regaining his strength.

“For the most part, soccer and fitness in general are one of those things if you stop for a little bit then you’re screwed for a while,” he said. “It will ultimately be about three months before I’m back in the same shape as I was in when I was injured. Two and a half months with the boot, two weeks of spring break, and probably another two weeks of running before I’m back in shape.”

Senior Emerson Egly faced injury that affected his basketball season this school year.

“Technically I hurt myself myself in the fall but I didn’t really realize until winter, right around the turn of the year,” senior Emerson Egly said. Soon after, in the second week of January, Egly had surgery.

Ultimately, the doctors determined that he tore some cartilage in his right knee. This could have been a result of landing on it funny once or from stress over time. This is Egly’s second surgery on the same knee.

“I had surgery last spring on this right knee. I was hoping it would go away, but I reinjured it,” he said.

To help his recovery, Egly goes to physical therapy. Recently, he has been able to resume shooting and running a little bit again.

“It will depend how I progress and how my knee holds up as I begin to do faster-paced stuff, but I hope to be back for playoffs,” Egly said.

Egly says that there have been benefits for the team because of his injury.

“People who didn’t have as big of a role have had to adapt. I think it will help the program in future years. Next year, the younger guys will have had some experience in larger roles,” he said.

“We could have had a good year this year. We had a lot of young talent, but there was nothing I could really do about it,” Egly said. “Hopefully I can get back and we can make a deep run in playoffs.”