How do you cheer up a 2 sports kid that just

Tore his ACL, MCL, LCL & meniscus.

The kid is devastated & rehab is going to be a bitch. He was a QB & Point Guard as a Senior on those teams. Indiana State had an interest in him & he was to visit the campus this coming weekend. Well, that's been canceled.

I want to cheer this kid up. Two years ago he shoveled our driveway in Michigan when we had to travel there after getting robbed by a scumbag neighbor. The kid just did it on his own.

I wonder if there is a book that contains stories of athletes that overcame a terrible injury. He's going to need motivation during rehab that's for sure. His life was just turned upside down.

Just some legit responses please. No smartass answers.

The Champion’s Comeback is supposedly a good book that was recommended to me. 
I have never read it and do not know if it addresses injury or not.  But I heard a lot on the mental attitude.  I know a PhD wrote it. 

There is also a good article from a lady about the aspects of kinesiophobia — the fear of reinjury, and the psychological aspects of it.  You can search for the article. Or if you cannot find it — I can look later. 

There are some decent articles and books about soccer players that have recovered from ACL surgery.  If any of those seem promising.  I can look them up for you later.  I think they are sort of on the inspirational side. 

How are his grades? I think, as a senior, he should already have his plans in order. He needs to focus on the college experience, even if just at a JC. The main thing is not getting down on himself. He's still a young man, and the world is still his oyster. He blew everything in that knee, and i'm not sure he will play again. He needs to figure out what's next, and hit the books. And not forget to have a little fun while he's at it.

Great responses. Thanks

I found the Champion's Comeback. He's not a "big" reader so I'm going to check with his Mom before I purchase it.

Stu, the kid is from a small Michigan town & sports were his life. His grades are nothing special & believe sports were his ticket to college. Otherwise, he may end up working in his Dad's HVAC business.

They are getting a 2nd opinion just to satisfy him but he's scheduled for surgery this Friday. 

@Raiders22

 Glad we agree on the possibility of the Champion's Comeback.

Thanks

Working at his dad's HVAC business isn't the worst prospect, even if he doesn't see that at this point. College is always an option, even if just starting at a JC. He's still an 18 year old kid. He has so much life ahead of him.

@Midnight1

The guy that told me about it really enjoyed it.

If you liked the idea of it -- maybe I will read it soon.

I know a good ortho guy -- I will reach out to him and see if he has any ideas.  He works on a lot of athletes -- not sure how many younger ones.

He reminded me that the movie Soul Surfer is pretty inspiring.  The story about the surfer Bethany Hamilton that lost her arm in a shark attack.

I know the story but have not seen the movie or heard her speak.

He says the book ‘Rebound: Train Your Mind to Bounce Back Stronger from Sports Injuries’ is very good for the mental aspect of the recovery process.

He says he has recommended the movie ‘The Comeback: Tegan Nox’.  But mainly to some of his young girls.  I had never heard of her.  But she was a WWE girl that came back from two knee injuries when she was a young football player in Wales.  Then got into wrestling.

He sent a few links that relate to this.  But a lot of them also covered other type of recoveries that were not strictly injury related.  But this one is good to look into some of these stories.

https://www.mensjournal.com/sports/13-athletes-who-made-amazing-comebacks-after-career-threatening-injuries

I remember some of these guys they never expected to play again.  Like Paul George, for example.

These reminded me of the Aron Ralston story.  The guy that was hiking when the boulder fell on his arm and he had to chop it off.  His book Between a Rock and a Hard Place is supposed to be very good.

I know you were not sure how much of a reader he was.  Maybe he might like the movie about it:  127 Hours.

I have not read the book, or seen the movie, But remember the excerpt from Rick Reilly’s book about it.

It does make us realize that no matter what we are going through, there is always someone that has gone through something tougher.

https://vault.si.com/vault/2003/05/19/extreme-measures

That is the link.  But I figured I would just copy the whole thing in here.  It is not too long.

In 25 years I've been to at least 1,000 press conferences. World
Series, Super Bowls, prizefights--huge rooms full of tough guys.
But the most gripping press conference, the most unforgettable
one, was last Thursday in a little room in Grand Junction, Colo.,
starring a guy as skinny as a two-iron.

That was when 27-year-old adventurer Aron Ralston described for
the world how he had saved his life by cutting off his lower
right arm with a dull pocketknife.

For five days Ralston's arm was pinned by an 800-pound
boulder--after he'd lowered himself off it, the boulder had
shifted onto his arm--in a forbidding three-foot-wide crevice in
the remote Bluejohn Canyon in southeastern Utah. He tried
everything to move the boulder, throwing his body at it, chipping
away at it. The thing didn't budge.

On the third day, out of food and water and ideas, he stared at
his cheap multiuse tool, the kind you get free with a $15
flashlight, and realized what he had to do. He used a pair of
cycling shorts for a tourniquet, picked up the knife, took a deep
breath and began sawing into his own skin.

The blade was too dull to even do that. "Wouldn't even cut my arm
hairs," he said.

Still, for two more days, he kept at it--through skin, muscle and
agony. As he spoke, his parents, Donna and Larry, sitting on
either side of him, wept quietly. Donna held Aron's left hand
under the table. Hardened members of the media, people who'd
covered wars, were crying, but Aron didn't cry. He told his story
like a man describing how he had fixed his lawnmower.

But imagine it. How do you keep slicing into yourself against
unthinkable pain, when you know it's you inflicting that pain? "I
felt pain," he said with a half smile. "I coped. I moved on."
Then he stopped cutting. He had to. He couldn't get through the
bone.

Now, even for a Carnegie Mellon honors grad, a former mechanical
engineer for Intel, a man who has climbed solo 45 peaks of at
least 14,000 feet, all in winter, often after midnight, usually
without oxygen canisters, GPS or radio, this seemed a problem he
couldn't solve. "I needed a bone saw."

Alternating between depression and visions of family members,
friends and dreams of "tall, tasty margaritas," getting a "kind
of peace" from the idea of death and yet willing himself on, a
revelation suddenly came to him: "It occurred to me that if I
could break my bones up at the wrist, where they were trapped, I
could be freed."

It occurred to you? It occurred to you that if you snapped the
bones of your own arm, this would be a solution?

Sorry, but if it's me, I'm dead. Bring on the wolves and the
vultures. Let the winds spread my remains over the sandstone. In
fact I'm pretty sure I don't even saw into my arm. I weep when
removing a Garfield Band-Aid.

But not Aron Ralston. He found a way to live. "All the desires,
joys and euphorias of a future life came rushing into me," he
said. "Maybe this is how I handled the pain. I was so happy to be
taking action."

It took him most of the morning, but--and how often do you get to
write this sentence?--he was finally able to break the wrist
bones in half. Yes, he did. Using torque and the strength he had
left, the man purposely broke two bones in his already flayed
arm. As he described that, everyone in the room forgot to blink,
scribble, breathe.

Though he declined to describe what he had to do next, there is
only one thing Ralston could've done--and a hospital official
later explained this: He would've had to stretch his body away
from that trapped hand to separate the broken ends of those
bones. That would be the only way to make a path for the
pocketknife to pass through.

Who's hungry?

That done, "it took about an hour," he said, to finish the
amputation. Amazing. The man sawed off a body part and timed
himself.

Finally free, the mountain-shop worker from Aspen crawled through
that narrow, winding stretch of canyon, rappelled 60 feet down a
cliff and hiked about six miles, all with one arm and one
profusely bleeding stump, until he met what had to be two
horrified Dutch hikers.

Ralston may never play concert piano again (he minored in
performance piano composition at Carnegie Mellon), but he vows to
keep exploring every inch of the West, as did the great John
Wesley Powell, for whom Lake Powell is named--the great one-armed
explorer, John Wesley Powell.

They call Ralston an extreme athlete, but the courage and will he
displayed over those five days is not extreme, it's legendary.
Don't care who you meet, you'll never find anybody tougher than
this guy. After the press conference, back in his hospital room,
he said, "I wish I could've been funnier."

Yeah, Aron. Next time, can you do something to liven it up?

@Raiders22

 Thanks for your input. I decided on "The Champion's Comeback" for his Mom to read. She can pass along the words of wisdom in her own words so they become even more meaningful to her son. She texted me earlier that the surgery went well.

@StumpTownStu

 You're right that he has his whole life ahead of him but he can't grasp that right now. How he handles himself in rehab will determine how he'll move forward. Right now, he's devastated & it's the end of the world. I would venture a guess that as a teenager or young adult we've all had an incident that played with our psyche. It may have been the passing of a loved one or being the cause of losing a big game or loving someone who didn't love you back. At the age of 16, I was devastated in a different way.

I had a crush on a chick that worked in the neighborhood dry cleaners. I'd volunteer to pickup/drop off any family dry cleaning just so I could get a whiff of her essence. I would let customers go ahead of me in line just so I could be served by her while trying to hide my growing boner. I knew her address, her phone #, her work hours etc.

My brother contracted meningitis at the age of 4 & lost his hearing. He attended a school for the deaf until the 7th grade when my parents decided to move him into a hearing school since he would have to learn & work in a speaking world. He became an excellent lip reader which gave us some laughs when he would the read the lips of a hockey player cursing out a ref on his way to the penalty box. Since he couldn't use the telephone, it was my job as his little brother to call girls & arrange Friday & Saturday night dates. It wasn't a big deal until one day. 

He gave me a phone # to call & arrange a date for him. Immediately I recognized the # & felt like I just got kicked in the balls. I tried to convince him to call somebody else because he wouldn't like her at all but he persisted. So I called my "dream girl" for him. When she answered the phone & I introduced myself to her, she said "What do you want?" I thought "what do I want?" I want to caress your breasts, taste your lips, hump your ass. grab your crotch etc. Instead I had to tell he that I was calling for my brother who wanted to know if she would like to go bowling Saturday night. She immediately responded "I'd love to go with him." 

I was devastated but I recovered just like this kid in Michigan will.

I found a website that allows you to pick/choose items to put in a basket as a Get Well gift & it's pretty cool.

So I sent a Detroit Lions hoodie, cashews, thin mints, Famous Amos cookies, UNO, Lions skull cap, Sports Illustrated subscription which includes the swimwear addition (that's the best edition), a plastic football game with the goalposts, playing surface to play on a table & a little football that you try to "flick" between the posts. As a kid we used a folded piece of paper & our fingers as the goalposts. I'm sure you've played it as a kid or while in college. The last item was a pair of hand grips that he can use sitting or laying down. Even if he never plays ball again, at least he'll have a strong handshake which will always serve him well.

@Midnight1

 Tell him to go play at a prep school next year if he wants to be a player. Trust me. 

@Midnight1

 Very good to know his surgery went well.

Let me know how his mom likes the book.

I might get it myself. Then give it to my nephew.