Casting Your Vote

'Tis the season for football, cooler weather (some place), giving thanks and ELECTIONS. 

There are Senate and House of Representative seats open in both Texas and Arkansas, which can greatly affect our ATEAM legislation as well as Texas Governor and other critical races, causes and propositions.  Exercise your civic duty and cast your vote.

IN OTHER VOTING NEWS...
The NFL has once again opened the ballot for the Hall of Fame to the fans.  One of our own is once again a nominee.  Otho Davis is currently ranked 58th, For more information on one of the greats read this post from last year when he made it to the TOP 10!

It would be awesome for our profession to reach the pinnacle of recognition in the National Football League.  Take a minute and vote. and spread the word via Facebook, Twitter, text, smoke signal, whatever method you would like and help Otho, an athletic trainer, get into the Hall of Fame!

Treating the whole person

It's easy, as a young professional athletic trainer, to get caught up in the daily grind. Our days are full of early morning treatments followed by paperwork and other administrative duties, after which, we spend time rehabbing with our more significantly injured athletes. During the afternoon, we "triage" during athletic periods and put in some time educating our athletic training student aides. Then, we spend several hours attending after school practices, finally finishing up with post-practice treatments. I'm sure I don't have to tell you how busy we get. We all have our own stories of work "craziness" that, while different, are also so similar.

Personally, I love the craziness (or as I like to describe it, the controlled chaos). But sometimes, I find myself forgetting about the person I am treating. In the busy-ness of the day, I treat injuries but miss the fact that the owner of the injury I am treating is a person who is dealing with much more than just this injury.

A fact that I was brutally reminded of this morning.

This morning, my daily grind was interrupted. Rather than work on paperwork or continue rehab with a couple of athletes, I attended a funeral. It was the funeral of a mother of two of my athletes, a woman I barely knew other than to put a name with a face. Attending this funeral was not for my benefit, but to show support for two boys who were now parentless (They had lost their father when they were very young). As I stood at this funeral among a number of my other athletes who had also taken the time to show support, I was struck by two thoughts. One- I should pray for these two boys and two- what else is going on in the lives of all these other kids?

There are many reasons why I became an athletic trainer. But, one of the biggest reasons I was drawn to this profession is because we have the opportunity to develop relationships with our patients/athletes. In my opinion, if we are strictly treating an injury, we are only doing part of our job. As an athletic trainer, we are in a unique position to invest in the life of our patient. We are both privileged to celebrate their successes and responsible to help guide them through their failures. We are available to meet needs, great or small, and to bestow wisdom where we can.

Tomorrow, I'm sure I will, once again, get busy. But, hopefully, just once, I will remember that I am treating more than just an injury. I'm treating a whole person.

Changes

I think more changes happen in your life in the first ten years out of college than any other time period for the rest of your life. Maybe that is why we have a committee that solely addresses our needs and that helps us navigate this period of great change. In the last seven years, I became actively involved in my career and evolved as a professional, dated a few guys here and there and had so much fun being young and carefree, getting to know myself. I traveled all over the world and made great friends. I met a great man, married him, bought a house, got two dogs and now this…

I am about nine months pregnant. I have about four weeks to go and my little boy is going to obviously change my whole life. That change I am thrilled about. What I am most concerned about, however, is the effect that he will have on my professionalism. I am completely unnerved by how I am going to maintain my loyalty to my athletes, maintain my high professional standards, and still be a great athletic trainer while balancing motherhood. I don’t know what to expect from motherhood or how that will fit into my career.

I don’t know one female high school athletic trainer with a small child, let alone an infant. I have no model or confidant in this process. I don’t know how 18 hour days will work with a new baby and I super am concerned about that amount of work I will be dumping on my husband by working my long hours. My job is the only part of becoming a mother that makes me nervous.

The YP years are full of change and full of firsts. No matter what the situation, we are nervous and anxious, and mostly uncertain. But just like my first job or my first day at a new place of employment, I will take on this on and do the best I can, making it up as I go along. If you see a big preggo on the sidelines in the next couple of weeks, give me a shout out; I’ll need the smiles and the support :)