Mia Rose is a 14 year old level 9 artistic gymnast who sustained a lisfranc injury (fractures and dislocation) to her left foot on November 9, 2016 while doing a back tuck (flip) on the balance beam. We decided to start this blog because there are so few positive stories of recovering from this injury out there, and none that we could find related to female gymnasts. She is now 3 months into her recovery and doing extremely well so we’re taking time to share her story and will continue to update on her progress as she continues to recover. There is tons of information online regarding what a lisfranc injury is, so I won’t go into that on this blog.
The mental impact of a lisfranc injury and many months long recovery process is at least as difficult as the physical impact, especially for an athlete. We are very fortunate to have wonderful support from other families at the gym and especially from her fantastic coaches who have been encouraging from the moment of the injury. They have also been extremely patient with me as I have spent a lot more time on the gym than usual watching to be sure that Mia Rose strictly abides by her doctors orders (gymnasts are notorious for pushing through injury and in this case the consequences of not following orders could be catastrophic as her doctor put it), grabbing them for frequent updates, and taking lots of videos of what she was doing throughout her recovery so that I can share through this blog in order to give others going through this some hope, as there is so little hope to be found online in general.
We would have loved to read about other gymnasts who had successfully come back from this injury and are hoping that by sharing her story, we can offer hope to other athletes who are working hard to come back from this serious injury. A lisfranc injury is typically a season ending and often career ending injury for high level athletes, so we want to make sure other athletes know that it is possible to come back.