I think I might of ruined Sporty’s cheetah speed.

I have this deep, sinking feeling that her latest surgery ruined her cheetah speed.  I told her it would be locked away in her cast, ready to emerge once she was healed.  But it hasn’t returned and 7 months later, I’m worried it might not and it is absolutely eating away at me.  She’s been able to compete, and hang in there but at one of her softball tryouts this weekend, one of the league coaches called her out on it.  She texted me afterwards (yes, my 8 year old texts me from her dad’s phone) to tell me she did well but “Coach C told me I wasn’t running as fast as I could.”  She told him she was still recovering from surgery but she’d get it back.  Problem is, I think she was running as fast as she could.  She just can’t get the motor going, it literally looks like her legs are bricks when she runs.  I hope I’m wrong, I hope it’s her AFO slowing her down and limiting her mobility.  At her second tryout (yes, she had 2 because she’s Sporty and she doesn’t stop trying despite it being 95 degrees out and her lack of cheetah speed), she was the slowest runner at tryouts, only by .4 seconds, but she used to be the fastest.

She was fast, she was fine.  She wasn’t in pain.  Her foot was tight and relapsing but it wasn’t impacting her life.  Why did I take that all away from her?  Even if she never gets her cheetah speed back and she can forgive me, I’ll never forgive myself.  She was cheetah speed, that’s what made her Sporty.  How could I be the one to take it away from her?