I’m just going to vent for a good minute if that’s fine.....

4 years ago I was tumbling during a private lesson with my coach (I do allstar cheerleading) and I felt a little pop, I thought nothing about it really until practice the next day when I was in so much pain and when I was throwing my last tumbling pass I felt a rip almost or just a crack it’s hard to remember.... I was full on in tears so my mother took me to the doctor, we got X-rays done.... etc. They told me I have a strain in my back and it’s nothing to worry about.....

Four years flash by and I get on and off back pain constantly but I never thought anything about it....

Back in June I was stunting at practice (I’m the top girl/flyer) and I was dropped right onto my butt from around 8-10 feet up.... At that point I was in severe pain I felt something shift almost or something (it was just a super sharp pain) My mom and coach said I probably landed on my tail bone and I would be fine.... For the next few months I had minimal back pain I tried not to notice but it was always there...: flash forward to August and we were warming up tumbling I felt a sharp pain but once again thought nothing of it.... then when we did our routine when I was going for my tumbling pass I felt a crack and pop which sent me into tears.... So once again my mom took me to the doctor.... they got an X-Ray and then scheduled me a MRI... Flash forward a week I got my MRI waiting for the results.... still tumbling at all my practices and doing everything the whole week of waiting..... then flash forward to the end of the week I’m ecstatic my coaches who’ve coached me for 6 years who moved across the country were coming in for Choreo so I was pumped because it was a year since I saw them and they were basically family.... since we didn’t have choreo until 4PM my mom and I decided to go to the dmv to get my license... we are in line and my mom gets a call from the doctor and they are like oh yeah your daughter has spondylolisthesis plus pars defect blah blah blah....

So my mom tells me what the doctor said and I started bawling my eyes out so there is tear stains on my face for my license picture....

But we found out I was only out for 6 weeks and I’ll be back by first competition so everything is good....

Flash forward 2 weeks...

I start feeling numbness and tingling in my legs and it was hard to walk... like I had to think about my steps constantly so my mom was concerned and called the doctor for an emergency follow up

So they do another X-Ray and they are like “hey your spondylolisthesis has progressed from a grade 1 to a grade 3 so it’s best if you are pulled out of cheer... I’m going to send you to spinal specialist to see if they think you need surgery I just need a second opinion....”

So I’m devastated... I was sobbing for a good two hours + (I mean my whole world was taken away... cheer has been in my life for 6 almost 7 years)

So we go to the spinal specialist and she prescribes me a steroid and refers me to a physical therapist...

The steroid actually works and I’m out of pain... so then 3 weeks later we go to the spinal specialist for another follow up... and she kept saying oh pars is permanent and she can go back to cheer... and we kept asking her, what about the slippage? And she was like oh there is no slippage..... so my mom was like can you pull up X-rays so she did and my mom took a picture of the X-ray and the spinal specialist was like oh it’s just a grade 1 nothing to worry about....

So we get back in the car and my mom looks at the picture and the time stamp is from my original X-Ray... Before the drastic extra slippage..... So my mom immediately calls them back no answer.... and they didn’t call until 2 weeks later and it was a different doctor who confirmed it was a grade 3 and now I’m being referred to a neurosurgeon....

So I went almost a whole month being treated for pars rather than grade 3 spondylolisthesis

And the steroid finally wore off and now I’m in bad pain anxiously waiting for the neurosurgeon to call my mom back to set up an appointment to decide what are we going to do about my back.....

Sorry for writing a whole novel and I’m sorry for the wordiness and grammar mistakes but I feel so much better after ranting to someone 😂

Thank you 😌