Bri Urbanski

My name is Bri Urbanski. I've always had problems with groin pulls and groin pain but my first injury happened in seventh grade when I went to take a shot at practice and my bone and muscle in my hip ripped apart from one another. The doctor called it an avulsion fracture. I was on crutches for eight weeks. All you can do for this injury is be on crutches and give it time to heal, then when its done healing you start physical therapy. After about 4 months I was able to go back to playing. I never felt 100% but I just kept playing on it cause the orthopedic just said "it's just a groin pull, you're fine". Fast forward to freshman year of high school the pain kept getting worse and I went to take a goal kick and after I hit the ball I fell to the ground and couldn't walk. My physical therapist decided to send me to Hospital for Special Surgeries in Manhattan, New York to meet with a Hip Specialist who is the doctor for the New York Ranger and New York Giants. After meeting with him he told me I had a torn labrum and a cam impingement and had to get surgery. After the surgery my surgeon told my family and I that the piece of bone that came off during my avulsion fracture healed wrong and that instead of attaching itself smoothly to another piece of bone, it healed like a shark tooth and every time I ran or kicked it was scraping at my ligaments and tendons which ultimately tore my labrum. I was out for 10 months and went back to playing. My hip still didn't feel 100% but I didn't want to tell my coaches, parents or my doctor because I didn't want them to think I was faking and I had to play to get recruited since I missed "prime time" recruiting. After playing almost a year on the pain in my hip, it got to the point again where I couldn't walk without a significant limp. I went back to my surgeon and he talked to other doctors, I ended up getting 6 cortisone shots in different parts of my hip to see if that would help. When that didn't help they decided to go back in my February of 2017, my junior year. My surgeon cleaned up my labrum and took out a lot of scar tissue, they thought I would be 100% after this surgery. I was starting to feel better and then all of the sudden I took a turn for the worse. The pain came back and I couldn't walk without a significant limp again. Again my surgeon talked to different doctors from different hospitals around the country and even out of the country, during November 2017, I had a third surgery. This time they went in to release my psoas muscle. But when they went in there was a lot more damage than they thought. I ended up not having blood flow in one part of my hip so my surgeon had to do a microfracture through my back into my cartilage to regain blood flow. Then I had a split tear in my psoas muscle and he cleaned up my labrum again. When I got out of surgery I couldn't believe I had all of this damage since I haven't played since November of 2016. My surgeon and my family thought that "third times a charm" and I would be able to play still in college. Unfortunately since this surgery I haven't been able to walk normal. I've been on and off crutches and have been going to several doctors to see if one of them can help me. I've had three nerve blocks, an epidural infusion and a dorsal root stimulator placed in my back and none of these have helped. I ended up getting my scholarship taking away May going into freshman year of college. During the summer, I was in the hospital for seven weeks doing an intensive physical therapy program which only made me worse. Since September of 2018 I've been on crutches and in a knee immobilizer because when I walk my knee buckles under me and I had to stay home from my freshman year of college and take online classes through my community college near my house since I struggle to move around. I've been doing physical therapy for three straight years and I haven't stepped on the field for over 2 and a half years. I am a 1% that this happens too. I am in a case study at Hospital for Special Surgery. Doctors still do not know what is wrong with me but they think I have a Neuromuscular Disorder which I am still waiting to see a doctor for. After going through this problem for over 5 years and still struggling everyday, my doctors and my family decided that I medically retire. I struggle with the reality of this because you dream of playing division 1 soccer since you are little and unfortunately I got that taken away from me because of my injuries but I know it's for the better because I haven't lived a "normal" live of a teenager in two years and I just want to be able to do the normal everyday life things. The nine scars on my hip and several other pokes from needles I've had, have only made me stronger and now I have to figure out who I am without soccer as my identity.