Volleyball's Lexi Sullivan: Surgery and The Recovery Process

Lexi Sullivan will be writing a blog as she works her way back from an injury she suffered against Idaho State in the fall.

Waking up at six to go to the hospital was not a fun time. My friend Noel Guevara on the soccer team went with my mom and I. I was not that nervous for surgery, I was more nervous for what I would feel when I woke up. It took the nurses four stabs to find my little veins and then came the leg block. What a weird feeling that was! I got a numbing shot in my groin so they would make the feeling in my leg go away for 48 hours, and I am so glad I did it because when I woke up I did not feel my knee or hamstring at all. Instead, I was extremely nauseous from the anesthesia and had to stay there until two.

Sleep was my favorite thing for the next four days thanks to the Oxycodone that I was on for the pain. The third day was the worst though. The pain was terrible. I could not even get up and crutch to the bathroom without wanting to cut my leg off. I had to start bending the day after surgery to start to get my range of motion back, which did not feel too good either. Ice was also a continuous thing to try to get the swelling down. Then came the quad….or I should say the non-existing one. It looked almost as if my muscle had deflated. There was nothing there! I would try to flex during therapy and there would be NO movement. Talk about frustrating when you see what it used to look like on my other leg. I had to get stim treatment to try and get my muscle to wake up again.

It was also getting a lot harder to watch the sport I love. Especially because our last three matches were away so all I could do was watch and hope they could pull out a win against one of the top three teams in the conference. I have never wanted to play so bad in my life.

I am at six weeks now, but it seems like my injury was forever ago. I get new exercises in therapy every week but the wait to get better is not a fun one. All I want to do is run and jump around but I have another three months until I can run and even longer until I can jump. The one thing I have learned since sitting out is how easy the game is. When you are forced to watch your sport for a long period of time you notice things you never understood or saw before. I can completely see why coaches get so frustrated with their players now because unforced errors should hardly ever happen. It is just you, a ball, and six people trying to stop you from winning. Just six, and there will always be a chance to score if you are smart about it.

Injuries are difficult, but playing the game, that’s easy!