Coming back from injury to win a national championship title and represent Team USA - By Nicholas D. Evans

 

In the summer of 2006, I broke my right ankle playing soccer with my kids in one of the parks in Highland Village. I had accidentally stepped on top of the ball at full running pace when the ball hit a patch of uncut grass and had slowed up unexpectedly. I twisted my ankle inwards as my foot rolled off the ball and, since standing up was not an option, had to be stretchered off the field and taken to the hospital for x-rays. 

My family and I had been existing patients of Orthopedic Associates in the past, so we choose Doctor Cantrell to perform my surgery. Since both my tibia and fibula were completely broken, I ended up with a plate and about nine screws in my ankle to hold everything together. Since I was home-office based, in addition to my work commitments, I spent a lot of the summer at home watching the World Cup on television as my injury healed.

The ankle needed considerable physical therapy to get back as much strength and range of motion as possible, but after a few months I was able to start walking and even running again. At the time, the running was a very slow jog around the athletic track at Briarhill Middle School. After about a year, I had progressed to much more strenuous workouts at the local gym, including the rowing machine, and with the consultation of Dr. Cantrell, we decided to remove the plate and screws to provide a bit more flexibility. 

I went about my usual routine for a couple of years, and then in late 2009 I decided to pick back up competitive sports in the form of triathlon. I had swum a lot for my local school and for the city where I grew up and had also been an avid cyclist. I had also competed in sailing, windsurfing and rowing in my younger days and had always enjoyed competition. After my first local triathlon, a Sprint distance event of a few laps in the pool, a 12 mile bike, and a 5K run I was hooked! I promptly entered a further three or four races that fall including the LifeTime Fitness Toyota U.S. Open. What was amazing was that the ankle held up perfectly and was perhaps even stronger than my other one. All the physical therapy had strengthened my legs, so that the only limitation was my fitness level.

 

 

As I continued to train and race in local events, and with the guidance of one of the top coaches out of California, I was able to elevate my fitness level to the point where I qualified for Team USA at the USA Triathlon national championships in Iowa in 2010 and then represented the U.S. at the ITU Sprint Distance World Championships the same year in Budapest, Hungary. More recently, in 2011 I won the National Championship title in the Sprint Distance triathlon in the Clydesdale (over 200 lbs), 40+ division. Today, I am truly enjoying the opportunity to race in these events and am thankful for the fine work of the doctors and medical staff that enabled me to get back to everyday life and in some ways even do more than I had in the past.