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I'm Rodrigo Balmaceda. I played soccer at the University of Texas, Dallas. I played soccer since I could walk. I was given a soccer ball when I was very, very little and it just stuck to my foot.

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What was your injury and how did it happen?

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My first injury happened in high school when I tore my left hamstring. And that was about four months recovery. ...then I pulled my left hamstring again after that.. then I pulled my right hamstring twice after that.

Freshman year of college, I came in very healthy, very fit. In a preseason, friendly in the warm up to a game. I felt a pop in my knee and I knew was in my knee. It was super evident to me. I didn't want to go to check it out. I wanted to keep playing.They basically told me that either I play with it and use my eligibility and wait till the season's over, or call it quits to that season and just don't play the rest of it where it really mattered.

So I said, Keep playing with it. And then one doctor told me it was my

hamstring again, the next doctor told me the same thing.

So my second  my knees still having problems and I end up losing another

year of eligibility. The doctors keep telling me it's my hamstring when I could

clearly feel it in my knee. I know my body and it wasn't my knee. 100% never 

doubted it. Every time I went to doctor and he told me that it was not my knee

and it was my hamstring. I knew they were wrong until the end of my

sophomore year where I really pulled my hamstring. I finally got an MRI.

And the person reading my MRI was shocked that nobody had noticed it.

His reaction was "Wow, you have a huge tear in your meniscus"...I was not

surprised at all. So that started my recovery process for the right knee and

those were not a fun five months of my life.

They basically repaired my meniscus because if they took that much out, I would have had arthritis for the next five years. As a 20 year old, that's not something you want to hear. So it was very slow process.

The huge knee brace becomes a part of you. You sleep with it, you only take it off when you shower. It's super uncomfortable, but it gets to the point where you you become dependent on it. So when you end up taking it off, you rely on it so much or you feel like it's sort of like the animal support dog to your knee. You know what I mean? Like maybe I didn't need it at that point, but whenever it was gone, I didn't feel safe. I didn't feel like I could do the things that I was being told that I could do and maybe that was because of trust issues that I had with what the doctors had told me before. I mean, they were so sure of it and it was so many of them telling me the same thing. But now whenever they told me, it's fine, there's no need to worry about it. I couldn't help but doubt it.

It took me five months of two hours every single day of rehab.

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Did you ever feel like you got back to 100%?

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Well, thing is I don't think I was ever able to get back up to what I thought was my 100%. Both of them and then my hamstring and my knee is obviously connected. So I was never able to really go back to 100% and even with my knee   right now. It clicks, it pops, it snaps. I don't know how long and you're talking countless and painful hours of rehab. I don't know what else I could have done to get it back.  I could tell you the next day when it's going to be cold.

It is what it is.

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How is your injury affect your quality of life to this day?

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Well, my hamstring injury will always haunt me. it's really high up in my hamstring to where it connects to the glute. So it's very, very difficult to heal. That's a direct quote from every trainer I've gone to. So I still repull that around every month. I mean, every month around every year, so I pull that again. I'm not doing the same intense therapy sessions anymore, so I don't really know when it's healed. So it's really a guesstimate, on whenever I'm good to do athletic activities.  In terms of my knee, well, it'll be great and then I do a lot of exercise for about five days in a row and then I can't walk well, because it hurts. I have to go back to all the Advil. But apart from that, I mean it's honestly not too bad. The hamstring sucks, cause I like being able to jog but that's also my fault I there's a lot more I could do. I'm just so tired of rehab. I'm tired of it. I know it's gonna happen again.

What's the point? Too much work for too little reward.

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What was your reaction immediately following your injuries so you can talk about maybe like

after each time you pulled your hamstring, our reaction changed.

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My reaction to every single hamstring pull after the first one was, "you're kidding.. again?"

It was just frustration that I knew how much work I had to do from that second onwards, because it doesn't stop. So you start stretching and you get better at stretching and "wow, I can touch my toes again.

Wow.  I could touch the floor in my hand". And you think, "Oh, fantastic.

My hamstring is 100%". Maybe six months have gone by, your

hamstrings are perfect. Wow, you feel great. And then out of nowhere.

Boom. You feel that pull up in your hamstring and you go

 "I'm gonna do it all over again. How fun". With my knee I think right when

I injured my knee, I knew exactly what was like. I felt the most precise click

inside of my knee. And I, I took a knee. I sat back and I thought "Oh my

knee just popped". I was kind of in denial I thought maybe it was like when

you crack your fingers, but just with my right knee. I mean, I played on with

it for two years. So I was clearly in denial about it, but at same time, I knew

exactly what was going on. 

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You're doing rehab. Like did it get easier as time went on? You feel more frustrated as time went on? You know, the longer you are like the closer you got to playing, did you actually feel happier? 

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So I love my sport. I still do I love I love soccer, right?

So you told me know, the first thing you do, I think every athlete does when they get injured is they look at their training and they say, "How much? Like how much longer do I have until can play?" And they'll give you an estimate. So when whatever they tell you "two months". You're like "Oh My God, two months".

So the first week you feel like you're doing nothing, because of the rehab is so minimal at that point. It's like if you injure an ankle, you're picking up marbles with your toes, but when you're doing hamstring, you're doing nothing. Your hamstring is string cheese at that point. If you're doing a knee thing, you're just bending your leg and you feel like you're really doing nothing. Right? So the first few weeks is just dreadful. Then it I feel like it really starts to speed up. You do  more fun rehabs. So you'll start jumping & will start doing box jumps. You start doing more balance, things that really bring your muscle back to what it was before. You kind of start to feel like you're kind of clawing and scratching at playing again and you're getting really really excited.

I felt way happier whenever I was a month away from from coming back. Whenever I was touching the ball again, it just feels like you're almost there.

 

What is the biggest mental roadblock you encountered during your recovery?

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Whenever I had knee surgery, I  had to keep my leg straight. I couldn't even bend it ,not even 30 degrees. I consider myself very happy person, and I was not in a good mental state. 

I don't think I left my room for two weeks. I'm super extroverted. I love being outside. I love doing things. But I lost 30 pounds in one month, just from not doing anything. I wasn't hungry, and I have never felt that way. So I remember my dad actually came to see me. He looked at me he said, "My God, your face looks different. Your arms are small". That was a wake up call. I hadn't weighed myself. I had no clue I had lost 30 pounds and for four weeks not just not being able to feel useful and do the things you like.

Even outside the sport, it was just," Hey, do you want to go to a sporting event"? I didn't have a like a wheelchair pass. I don't know why, my surgeon didn't give me one. So I had to take up two seats. We go to the Dallas Stars games and my knee was fully extended, and then people will give me the look for some reason.  I was helpless! Using crutches was horrible. So even going to class sucked. Why would I go to class? I'm going to crutch for 45 minutes to a 15 minute class, and then 45 minutes back. Now my arms are going to hurt. I'm going to be sweating like crazy. It was pointless. So I was immobile. So I just stayed in my room. Then my friends would come over, but obviously I wasn't in a very happy mood. Even showering is difficult. Because if you ever feel bad, I don't know, sometimes you just hop in the shower, you come back out, and feel fresh. I couldn't even shower because the scars were fresh or nobody could help me in and out from the shower.

It was hard.

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Who was your support system?

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I didn't want any help. I feel like I didn't need it. I like being the happy one. If I

go to a get-together like a little kickback with my friends, and I'm a downer,

then that's not me. So I didn't want to be with anyone. You are really close to

your trainers, because they're your friends and they're the ones helping you.

So you're there with them early in the morning. Then you guys start talking

and maybe you just find a lot of things about them.

 

How mentally prepared were you?

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I'm always involved with my friends, so if anyone on my team got hurt, I was always trying to keep up with them and they would express what they were going through. So I sort of knew what I was getting myself into.

I feel like right before the surgery, you're super optimistic. You're like "I can't wait to start the recovery!"" And then you really get going with it. See how much work you're putting in and how slow the processes is. You're putting in hours every day and nothing's changing. Maybe you had five degrees to your brace, and it's like, does that really help? And then you get to a milestone. Then it just boosts you so much. It's like, all right, today we're using a bike. Wow. Okay. Now I'm a little bit mobile. Today, we're jogging but only five miles an hour. Oh, wow. Fantastic. And then like, before you hit that first milestone, which for me, I think is a bike or maybe walking without crutches.

 

Would you have changed anything in the process?

 

No, I wouldn't change a thing.I had never seen that side of me. It was challenging emotionally, and it was so challenging mentally. I'll just put it this way when I came back and when I just started playing again, I felt like like a kid again.

Playing college soccer is so serious and it kind of takes the joy away from it. And then when I got back, man, I was so happy. I was so happy, so no, I wouldn't change anything. I'm glad I got to see that other side of me.

 

Tips

 

1. Don't feel sorry for yourself. It's already happened. Find the best way you can come out of it. So if that is putting in early hours in a lot of hours, and you truly want to be 100% when you come out then do it.

2. Listen to your trainer. They have so many years of education.

3. Really look within yourself because you're going to learn so much. This is not the most fun process honestly and you can learn a lot from it or you can feel sorry for yourself and just be a sad person the whole time. Just don't Do that there's no point.

4. Stretch every day.

(Stretch the hamstrings man.)

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