Benched Birdies

Stories by Sam Campbell, Phillip Pyle, Catherine Grosdidier (in order)

Ezekiel Taylor, freshman soccer player, is one of many to join the list of “Crippled Cardinals” at Eudora High School. His injury? A broken radius and ulna in his left arm.

Ezekiel previously broke his right wrist back in 2009, so arm injuries are nothing new to him. He suffered his current injury during an early season soccer game when a ball was kicked at him. An opposing Spring Hill player kicked the ball at Taylor at an unusually high speed.  The powerful shot broke his radius and ulna as he raised his arms to protect himself.

“They went in and put two pins in my wrist,” Taylor said.

Ezekiel will be in a cast for about seven weeks, giving his arm time to mend. During that time there is nothing he can do but sit and watch.

“I hate it,” Taylor said, “Sitting on the sidelines and watching is aggravating. I just want to jump back in and play.”

He’s not letting this setback keep his spirits down and continues to look on the bright side of things, saying that “everyone offers to help.”

Ezekiel will hopefully be back to having two fully-functional arms in no time and will not let this painful experience prevent him from participating in soccer in the future.

You have probably seen many different injured students in the halls this year. However, the one that may have caught your eye the most is Blake Reed.

He is easily spotted. His entire left leg clad in a large, black cast. For the first few weeks, his wheels squeaked eerily as he rolled down the halls. But recently, Reed has made the switch to a more efficient mode of transportation, crutches.

The interesting aspects of Reed’s injuries is that they came in two different waves. Having suffered from a stress fracture in his tibia at the Wamego cross country meet on Sept. 12, Reed was out for the cross country season. On Sept. 26, he went to the cross country meet to support the team, and before the race, he fell, snapping his tibia.

Reed has mixed feelings about the injury. However, one thing is certain: he misses running.

“I have more time to do schoolwork and free time, plus not having practice, but in the long run, I’ll have to work harder to get back to where I was before,” said Reed.

The recovery process is lengthy, with eight or more weeks of healing and progression.

Blake hopes to have a strong recovery process and to have a great off season and cross country season next year.

Madison Franklin is a senior on the volleyball team. Madison has played volleyball all four years of high school and plays the position of outside hitter. On Sept. 28, during a match against Tonganoxie, Franklin went up to attack the volleyball. When she came down, she could hear a big pop in her left leg. Family and friends in the stand could hear her cries of pain echo throughout the gym. Madison was carried off the court. After an MRI on the following Friday, doctors gave Madison the heartbreaking news.

“My ACL is completely torn,” Madison said, “as well as my medial and lateral meniscus.”

On Oct. 13, orthopaedic surgeons put Madison’s knee back together. Although the surgery was very successful, Madison will have to go through six months of physical therapy to strengthen her knee.

“I don’t like it at all, especially since it’s my last season, so I’m done with volleyball,” she said, “It’s not how I expected my last season to go at all.”

Some of the most difficult parts of her injury include walking through the halls with crutches attached at the hip. But, Madison shares that there are some benefits to having surgery on your leg.

“The pros would be getting food from people just for me,” she said. “and everyone helping out extra because it’s very hard to do things on my own, especially after my surgery.”

Over the next six months of her recovery, Madison with the help of head trainer Josh Aarnes and Coach Katzenmeier, will work to get her leg back into shape. During her weights hour, for example, Madison will be able use the ice cooler and constantly keep cold water cooling her knee to help with the swelling.

No senior ever wants to end their high school career with an injury, but Madison looks towards getting her leg back to full strength and being able to walk with both feet on the ground.