13 | Ditch The Guilt And Focus On HEALING After A Devastating Accident

[00:00:00] I would say that even though every injury is different and a lot of people do get injured,

[00:00:04] it affects everyone.

[00:00:06] It affects that individual more than people would know.

[00:00:10] Because if you remember, when I came back to my first practice, I had someone tell me

[00:00:14] that it was just an injury.

[00:00:15] You didn't need all that media.

[00:00:19] Or you didn't need all that public.

[00:00:23] You didn't need the public eye on you after what happened to you because everyone gets

[00:00:27] injured. to catching you podcasts. I am your co-host. Now with me is the co-host, Lacey Ham. And we have our guest back, my wife, Lacey's mom, Emily. Emily, say hi. Hi. Lacey, hi. Hi. Yeah, we're coming off the Comebacker

[00:01:42] into Lacey's goal into the second question. So last week, uh, girl named Micah Instagram message me and buy a couple

[00:03:00] questions, we answered the first one, which is, um, how do you, how do you get

[00:03:06] over even in a pitching slum?

[00:04:04] what the outcome is and just really focusing on hitting your pitches. But if you're scared of the ball,

[00:04:06] depending on why you're scared of the ball,

[00:04:08] you might want to practice getting

[00:04:10] hard ground balls hit back at you with your team.

[00:04:16] But it's definitely something that can be overcome. Sure.

[00:04:21] Yeah, especially like building ground balls.

[00:04:25] I think you do bruises for many weeks. I mean, if it has any part of your body, you're going to be fine. Except your head, of course. So wear a mask. Yeah.

[00:05:40] Then you have them all head back to you this weekend, like at your feet.

[00:05:44] You had that, yeah, it was kind of fast.

[00:06:41] It was like, holy cow. After that first game, we're like, okay.

[00:06:44] But you turned it on.

[00:06:46] You now you're kind of getting in a groove and we're, we're excited to watch you play.

[00:06:51] Um, and let's get into, she, then I see you talk about the support from her

[00:06:56] teammates and what did the member, they, they were leaving, I think that

[00:07:02] weekend, right?

[00:07:03] So to New Jersey.

[00:07:04] So talk about her support from her teammates and then what did the prior to leaving, they didn't want to, like, they didn't want to, first of all, they didn't want to go without you. Second of all, they made that position of, well, let's put our base on a piece of paper and bring her with us. Yeah. It was like a flat lacey, right? Cause they took a picture of her in the hospital with her thumbs up. You know, after you guys can, if you guys watch it and YouTube her,

[00:08:22] I've drove and they created a flat lacey and they took her, they took her

[00:08:26] wherever they were in New Jersey.

[00:08:27] Pretty cool stuff.

[00:09:23] having people come and having people respond on Facebook

[00:09:28] Distracted me a little bit from having to see you in so much pain

[00:09:34] so I appreciated everybody that was reaching out and being concerned with you and you were concerned because I

[00:09:38] Think there were moments where you were feeling really good. You're like mom. Can I do this? Can I do that? I'm like, no, you can't you can't watch TV. You can't be on your phone. You can't do this

[00:09:43] You can't you need the rest I never gonna light the offering to we had the light

[00:10:42] It's one of the bigger ones, right?

[00:10:47] Where like the top 14 years, you know, there's just a lot of college recruits out there, a lot of college, um, coaches out there recruiting 14 year olds at this

[00:10:52] time.

[00:10:52] Um, so talk about that at least a little bit, because I mean, this is like, this

[00:10:57] is top record recruiting period.

[00:11:00] And now you are, you're not playing.

[00:11:03] You're we went right.

[00:11:05] And we were worried because of the whole summer, I mean, I was focused on recovery. But then in the back of my mind, I'm definitely thinking how is this going to affect that and not to see you be a part of that too. Yeah, I think they won it, right? I think we won that tournament, which is kind of cool. Okay, so we come back from Colorado. You're thinking, did I just miss out on getting recruited?

[00:13:40] So like you said, you came back two months early, ear on that side as well. They tested your hearing. Your hearing was fine. They tested your vision. Your vision was fine. The pediatric doctor looked at your records. They did an exam and they said, all right, she's good. As long as she feels okay to get back, we're okay for her to get back.

[00:15:02] I was excited, yet terrified.

[00:15:06] Yeah. Uh, go in, wear the mask and the crowd is like cheering for me, even the other team's parents. Uh, so that was kind of crazy. Uh, and then I strike, I strike the first batter out of the gate. I have no, I just completely blank.

[00:16:22] I don't even know what I was doing, but I struck her out.

[00:17:22] as well as like all the families were there. They were cheering, they were screaming.

[00:17:25] They were like, just, yes, she's back, she's back,

[00:17:27] she's back, that type of thing.

[00:17:30] I think a lot of people were worried.

[00:17:31] Was it going to go with the getting back on the mount?

[00:17:38] How is it gonna be if she gets on there

[00:17:42] and she freaks out?

[00:17:45] Because it happened.

[00:18:45] or will it, Sarah Willis is pitching or she's at central Florida now, but, um,

[00:18:48] talk about that because Liv is pitching. We're playing the crone angels.

[00:18:49] It's a tight game.

[00:18:51] Uh, all of the colleges are extra innings.

[00:18:54] Is there flow softballs watching the games?

[00:18:57] It was a packed house and a ball gets hit pretty close to live right by her face.

[00:19:03] What did you do in the dugout when that happened?

[00:19:07] Yeah. for like the next inning. I mean, Mark's telling me like, please stop, please stop. Like it's fine, she's fine. And in my head, I couldn't even imagine what I would do if that same thing happened to my teammate. But just seeing it visually, just, I mean, you could call it a trigger. I mean, it just triggered something in my head,

[00:20:22] triggered something in my brain

[00:20:24] and I could not stop hyperventilating, crying.

[00:21:23] I can just watch the warm up which is horrible. And I'm like, oh, this is not good.

[00:21:24] And then you get the start and we're on the side field.

[00:21:27] We're not even on one of the main fields

[00:21:29] because it's eight o'clock in the morning, right?

[00:21:30] We're in the loser's bracket.

[00:21:32] We talked about that, you know, in 12 of you, right?

[00:21:34] When we lost at night and we had to come back

[00:21:36] the next morning and say,

[00:21:37] you're playing on these side fields

[00:21:39] that the mound is probably not the best, right?

[00:21:42] Can you, I don't know if you remember it.

[00:21:44] Maybe you blocked that game out.

[00:22:42] And then I just remember, I think it was a week later, mom, I got volleyball tryouts.

[00:22:44] Can I play ball?

[00:22:45] Am I going to be clear to play volleyball?

[00:22:48] What do I need to do?

[00:22:49] I need to talk to the coach.

[00:22:50] I'm like, yeah, you do need to talk to the coach because I

[00:22:53] oh.

[00:22:54] So she was excited to play volleyball.

[00:22:57] Volleyball was your fun sport, which I absolutely

[00:23:00] love that you were involved in that.

[00:23:03] And I think you made this was your sophomore year.

[00:23:06] So I think you were on the JV team. a few weeks after surgery, but you just can't. And every injury's different. But I would say that even though every injury's different and a lot of people do get injured, it affects everyone. It affects that individual more than people would know. Because if you remember,

[00:24:21] after I came back to my first practice,

[00:24:23] I had someone tell me that it was just an injury.

[00:24:25] You didn't need if I was going to get over having a ball hit at me and not having a panic attack. So it's just taking time to take time to reflect on how that injury made you

[00:25:40] feel and just be patient in the recovery process.

[00:25:44] Yeah.

[00:25:44] Cause that's huge.

[00:25:45] Right.

[00:26:44] continued reassurance, everything's gonna be okay, she's gonna be fine. It's okay, you can reach out, you can do this, you can do that.

[00:26:49] That made a huge difference.

[00:26:50] If I didn't have that community, if I didn't say anything to anybody,

[00:26:55] things would have been completely different.

[00:26:58] I probably would have been like, Lacey, you're not pitching,

[00:27:02] you're not pitching anymore, cuz I didn't want you to get hurt again.

[00:28:03] on Mark's team, we're number one team in the nation. We're supposed to win PGF and you're confident going into,

[00:28:06] you know, you didn't play a whole lot in high school.

[00:28:08] You were confident coming in this team

[00:28:09] that you were gonna play well,

[00:28:11] you were gonna get looked at by the power of high schools.

[00:28:14] And then it changed in one second, right?

[00:28:18] And then now you have to deal with

[00:28:19] these mental health issues, which it is.

[00:28:22] There are mental health issues out there, people.

[00:28:25] It's not just a thing.