A Broken Dream
This story is really about dealing with a hardship that has changed your life 360 degrees.
All of us have dreams when we are kids. When I was five years old, my family moved to Greece and I started playing football. I immediately knew that this was what I wanted to do when I grew up. In school, I played with the boys, because not many girls were into football in 2005. My mother was surprised by the decision, but did not stop me in any way. She thought that this was only a temporary hobby.
However, I started training more seriously when my family came back to Bulgaria. My love for the game was only getting stronger. I was 11 at the time and started playing for this women’s football team, Olympia Sofia. We had practice every day. Even though I never got the chance to play for the senior side, I still felt as part of the team as I was allowed to train with those who had more experience and took part in the official games. In 2013, unfortunately, the team moved to another place and it was impossible for me to continue training there, even though it felt like a home. I moved to the team that was formed in my home town, Pernik, and played there for two years and again switched teams.
In 2015, I started playing for Rial Kovachevtsi. We were only seven girls, but with time we built a team. We were supposed to debut in the National Women’s Championship in 2016, but things fell apart and our dream was delayed.
That did not stop us. On the contrary, it motivated us to train even more and the results came soon enough. The next year, we finally made it. I was playing in the top level of women’s football in Bulgaria. Unfortunately, a few months before we made our debut in the Championship, my problems with injuries started. I hurt my right knee seriously, so I did not train for three months. The Championship started in September and even though I was not fully recovered, I played with the pain. The injury was not going to stop me from achieving my dream.
Two years ago I was accepted in the American University in Bulgaria, which is in Blagoevgrad. I did not have that much time to train and my form fell. My grades were not good and I was not feeling happy with my life. So I found a solution and started to train with the local team, Sportika Blagoevgrad, but played matches for Rial Kovachevtsi. The first part of the season passed.
That is when things started going bad and my dream was about to slip out of my grasp. I started experiencing back pains, which were new to me as in the past I had had problems only with my knees. I started going to physiotherapy and things got better for a while. The pain was less and I started playing again, but was not feeling the same. There was something wrong.
I played my last match on March 23, 2019 against the hegemon in Bulgarian women’s football, NSA Sofia. The fatal day was March 27. I played some tennis and then went to practice. The next day, I could not stand up on my own. A terrible pain paralyzed my leg and my back. An MRI showed the scariest picture a 19-year-old can see. I had three herniated discs. The shock I felt is something I cannot explain even now. My dream had come to an abrupt end and there was nothing I could do.
I finished the semester and started undergoing intensive treatment. I went to hospitals, had acupuncture, but nothing helped. That is when I decided that I should have surgery, even though my mother took some convincing until she agreed. It happened on August 20 and the road to recovery was difficult. It still is. I had the surgery only two weeks before the beginning of the school year.
The first month back in university was the toughest one in my life. I wasn’t feeling any relieve from the surgery and the pain was still there. My surgeon said that this was not normal and prescribed me some very strong pills. During this time, I was lost. After a while, things started getting better and I am back to doing little physical exercise. I go swimming at least twice a week and I have started practicing yoga. But the pain is still in my mind and in my heart. It is also still in my body.
Even till this day, I think about what I could have done differently. I ask myself the question “Why did it happen to me?” In Bulgarian we have the saying “В живота никога не знаеш кой трън ще настъпиш” (In life you never know which thorn you will step on). Life is full of surprises and you have to be ready for them at any time. If you love doing something, do it as there will be no tomorrow because in the blink of the moment it may be gone. I have learned how to live after the surgery and even though I wish the injury never happened, it did. In a way it actually opened new doors for me and taught me so much about life.
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Ilina Stoyanova is a Junior at the American University in Bulgaria. She still loves football.
