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Miley Pegg 0:00
Welcome to The Comeback, the podcast where we dive into the untold stories behind athletes recovering from injury. I’m Miley Pegg, and today we’re exploring not just the physical hurdles, but the mental and emotional journey that comes with getting back in the game.
Miley Pegg 0:18
Whether it’s a torn ACL, a broken bone or a surgery you never saw coming, these injuries don’t just affect performance. They shake an athlete’s identity, relationships and mental health in ways fans rarely ever see.
Miley Pegg 0:36
So what’s it really like to step away from the game you love, face months of recovery and then fight to return stronger than ever. Let’s find out.
Miley Pegg 0:52
This is Miley Pegg here with Haylee Majer, and today, Haley will be talking about her ACL recovery, her surgery, and just her overall experience with that. Um, where should I start? Um, how did you originally kind of get, like, realize that you were injured?
Haylee Majer 1:04
Um, okay, so my freshman year, I was starting on varsity, and we were playing at Naperville Central, and I’ve always kind of had, like, knee issues, but just because of, like, previous sports and everything, like, it was kind of like just kind of tucked under the bus, and I didn’t ever worry about it. But this game, I had slid into third base, I just hit a triple, and their field was pretty hard, like abnormally hard, and I slid the wrong way and completely landed on, like, a bad part of my knee, and I immediately knew, and I was like, oh, okay, it’s just a bone bruise, like something simple, and it just really hurt to slide, and then it was swollen in kind of an unusual spot. And I told my mom a few weeks later, I told her that it was swelling and it wasn’t going down. So we got a compression sleeve, nothing too drastic. And then I go on to play travel ball for the summer, and I catch most of the summer, and then just about two weeks before my season’s ending, I noticed that my knee is starting to catch and lock, which is totally not normal, and that’s when I kind of knew that something was more wrong than it should be. And my mom’s a nurse. She’s been in health care forever, so usually she can determine something like that’s going on, but the swelling being in an unusual spot, she had no idea what it was. And we’re like, oh, okay, if it goes down, whatever, it’s fine. So we go get an x ray. Nothing’s wrong with my knee, but I’m telling my mom, and I’m like, okay, well, there’s something wrong with my knee. Like, I can’t walk because it’s locking, or if I sit with it bent for too long, I can’t straighten it. And, like, it hurts to unlock it. I would almost force myself to move around with a bent knee because I was too scared to unlock it, because I knew it’s going to hurt. Then we get an MRI done, and we find out that everything in my knee is pretty much completely just shattered, and there’s cartilage stuck in my joints. And yeah. So then my options were pretty much surgery or quit sports.
Miley Pegg 3:08
And then last year, you were on crutches for a while and had multiple surgeries.
Haylee Majer 3:14
So this was a it wasn’t a completely different surgery, but almost. So I had the same quote injury on my right leg as I did my left leg. It just was not as severe because we caught it early enough. So they did a fixation and stuck screws in my knee to fix up the part that was about to be broken. So this was a faster recovery, and it was a longer surgery process because I was on crutches for six weeks, versus the first time I would just have to walk with my knee locked and I couldn’t bend it, but they had the screws in my knees. And then after the six weeks, I was full weight bearing, get back to activity as tolerated. And then six weeks after that, they took the screws out of my knee, and it was pretty much go on from there.
Miley Pegg 4:08
And how is that recovery process, like, mentally, physically, like, who was there for you?
Haylee Majer 4:15
Um, I think mentally, the second surgery was a lot harder than the first because I had always had this fear that it was going to happen again. And then in the winter last year, when I was feeling it, and I was like, okay, something’s wrong with my knee, like, what’s the chance that it’s the same thing? And it ended up being the same thing. And I think right now that still bothers me, because on days my knees do hurt, I’m sitting there thinking and stressing, saying to myself, oh, it happened again. Like, in my head, it’s still reoccurring. But a lot of my friends were extremely supportive. They always made sure to include me, help me, walk me to my car, carry my backpack. My parents were driving me to physical therapy and making sure I was doing everything. Even my grandma would help bring me to physical therapy.
Miley Pegg 5:10
What other mental tolls has it taken on you as an athlete and as a person?
Haylee Majer 5:18
As an athlete, I’ve had plenty of time taken away from sports. I missed volleyball my sophomore year, high school softball last year, and fall ball for travel. Sitting on the sideline watching everyone else do what you love is really hard. Recruiting was especially difficult. I was injured at the beginning of my recruiting window and missed camps and opportunities. It made me feel behind and it was hard to push myself.
Miley Pegg 7:14
Your boyfriend was injured around the same time. How did you support each other?
Haylee Majer 7:33
My boyfriend tore his UCL. He was in Florida when it happened, and I was on crutches. We both needed surgery the same week. I had experience, but helping someone else while still recovering was hard. But I knew what not to say and how to support him mentally.
Miley Pegg 10:44
Can you elaborate on things people said that didn’t help?
Haylee Majer 10:53
People asking when I was coming back was hard. No one asked how I was feeling mentally. So with Eli, I made sure to ask how he was feeling, not just about his injury.
Miley Pegg 12:40
Is there anything else you want people to understand?
Haylee Majer 12:56
My injury wasn’t common. I still deal with chronic pain and fear of reoccurrence. Overuse caused it, and you can’t always prevent that. Healing and chronic pain are different.
Miley Pegg 15:43
Now we’re going to listen to Eli Tate’s story.
Eli Tate 16:33
How did I know something was wrong? I dealt with minor elbow issues before. I pitched in the fall and didn’t take enough rest. During warmups in Florida, my elbow popped.
Eli Tate 18:12
I got an MRI and found out my UCL was torn. I had Tommy John surgery.
Eli Tate 19:20
Recovery was around nine months. Occupational therapy was slow and painful. Eventually I started throwing again.
Eli Tate 22:10
Mentally, it was hard. Being around my team helped. Haylee understood what I was going through and supported me.
Eli Tate 24:10
In the middle of recovery, I questioned whether I wanted to keep playing. But as I got stronger, those thoughts faded.
Miley Pegg 26:21
That was Eli Tate’s story. The journey back from injury isn’t just measured in games played or medals won. It’s about resilience, mental strength, and the quiet victories we often overlook. Thank you for tuning into the first episode of The Comeback. If you enjoyed this episode, subscribe, leave a review, and share it with someone who could use inspiration on their own comeback journey. Until next time, keep pushing forward.
