Kayla Reich

I'm Kayla Reich, a senior at Milton Area High School. 

My life made a gigantic turn my sophomore year. The year for change. 

Softball has always been a big part of who I am and why I am who I am today. 

December of 2015, I was playing travel ball in dome. It was a normal day of softball. I was up to bat when the pitch came in on me, inside. When I turned on the pitch, my shoulder did not turn with my body. Instead, my shoulder went straight towards the pitcher and right then & there, I dislocated it. I called time out, we fixed it & I went from there. 

Almost a year later, in August 2016, I finally made the decision of going to the doctors. I went through physical therapy for 6 months & also always weight lifted on my own time. Nothing helped; therefore, we had come to the conclusion that getting rotator cuff surgery was the best bet (January of 2017). A few weeks went by & I started PT again for recovery. 6 months later, I was getting back into the swing of things. which also means,6 months after the procedure, I found out that the surgery had failed and I would need another one. 

I decided to deal with the pain & discomfort that this issue causes me and to continue playing through it. 

Nothing has ever taught me more self discipline & determination. This injury has taught me so much about life & sports, both. There are so many opportunities in life and when someone goes through a change of events, there's always so much realization. 

An incident to someone is never the end for you. It's the beginning of new things you're going to be able to do with yourself.