Cole's Story

He had been complaining of his foot for four or five days, and he's not our complainer.  So, you know after he had made the comment, he just came home one day after track and said my foot is just killing me. So my husband and I decided that okay, it's time to figure out what's going on. So we got a hold of Corrinne. 

When I saw cole initially, the coach at sent him in from practice, it was one of the days that I was scheduled to be out at the school and he came into the athletic training room and told me that his foot has been bothering him for a period of time and it just wasn't getting any better. 

We went to Corrine because we have some other friends who have had an injury with in the school system and how she reacted right away and how she was able to get them the treatment that they felt was best for their child.  And so we just went to Corrine right away, plus we really didn’t know what doctor that would be able to help him the best.  And we just felt like if we went to her first, it would kind of give us some direction in where she felt we should take him and where he could get the best care.

In Cole’s case, it was important for him to let the athletic trainer know, ah, what was going on.  Initially they tried treatment that they felt would get him better and when he was not, she was quick to get him into our office.

At that time I was able to have his dad schedule an appointment with Dr. Rayborn the next morning.

Dr, Rayborn saw him, ordered an xray, the xray came back inconclusive, so they went ahead and ordered an mri.  

There were several indications that just didn’t set right, even though the xray was normal, that worried me that there still could be possibly a stress fracture there.  It is not uncommon for there to be a early stress fracture that’s not seen on a xray so often further imaging, especially if there’s a high clinical suspicion, needs to be done or else that can progress and become a worse injury.  The last thing we would want would be for Cole to continue to run on a foot that had a fracture and then make it worse, have it crack through further and it’d be a much lengthier recovery for him and possibly even need surgical correction.

That was one thing that we were very appreciative of with Dr. Rayborn.  Um, once he found out that the xray was inconclusive, instead of making us wait and come back the next day or the following day, he did whatever he could do to make sure that mri, that we were able to get that mri done the same day.

He was seen in the office and then got an mri later that afternoon, and then subsequently had the results the next day of what was going on.

The mri was positive and we ended up placing him in a cam walking boot in order to decrease the pressure on his foot to allow that to heal.  Had he continued running on it, or even walking on it, it would have taken a lot longer to get better.  It speeds recovery, it is designed to take the pressure off of the foot in the fracture.

The athlete and the parent did not want to make an extra trip down to the office so I offered to bring Cole a walking boot out to the school. And I was able to fit him out at practice with a walking boot.

When Corrine had called us and told us he needed to get into the boot, we were like ehhhh, you know?  Shes like, don’t worry, she goes, I’ll make sure, you know, he gets to Russia, make sure that its fit right.  You know, at that point, it wasn’t so much that we knew we wouldn’t going to be able to get back, to get him to see Dr. Rayborn or see Corrine, how do we know if he just comes home with this boot, if we’re going to be able, if we have it on right?

As an athletic trainer, we are, we are trained with, you know, applying braces and putting braces on, um instructing athletes how to properly fit them and things like that.  So, it was something I was very familiar with, I had actually worked with Dr. Rayborn in his office, doing this for his patients years ago, when he first started and so, again it was something I felt pretty comfortable doing.

I think that she just has the type of personality that, you know when you, when you see her work with our athletes, on and off the court you can just tell she has, she truly loves what she does, and she truly cares about the athlete.  Um and I think for us, to me that means a lot, you know, that even though it’s not her son that she did what ever she was gonna do to get him healthy um and to make him better and stronger than what he was.

When we went for that 4 week appointment, we kinda knew, I kinda knew, that he probably wasn’t going to get out of it.  Um so we went for the appointment and Dr. Rayborn said, nope, you need to be in it for another 2 weeks.

Had Cole continued running he definitely could have had worsening injury, it could have cracked through the bone, um possibly required surgery to fix, had it not healed properly.

I was very appreciative of him, at that 4 week mark not, just saying, nope you’re good, go ahead, you know. He really made sure that he was completely healed before he cleared him.

When he said 4 weeks wasn’t enough, my heart just kinda dropped, ‘cause I was looking forward into getting back into track, and all the events.  But I also realized it was best for me, ‘cause that way it wouldn’t re-occur and come back again next year.  

Our first primary goal with athletes, in any injury, is that they can safely return to their sport.

When he vaulted, of course I kinda stood there with my, holding my breath, thinking, oh please don’t let anything happen, but he was, he was fine.  Um, and he hasn’t had any problems with that foot since then. 

And I was not real worried about my foot coming back, ‘cause I felt like I was in great hands with Dr. Rayborn.

As sports medicine physicians, we’re not necessarily making them better athetes.  I think the coaches and the training and the athletes themselves do that.  We’re there to make sure they’re doing that safely, we’re there to make sure they can try to stay on the field and do the activities they really want to do.

If anyone was to get hurt, you know she’s going to jump right up, she’s gonna give us parents advice on what we need to do.  So I think that it’s very, very important that she continues to be there and that Premier Health continues to support in having those athletic trainers within the schools.

Sports are only going to be there for your high school and maybe college careers, but health is going to be there for your whole life.