When athletes at Westbrook High School get hurt, they turn to athletic trainer Kristin Ryan.
Lately, though, Ryan, 28, has been dealing with some of her own aches and pains.
In March, Ryan fell while demonstrating a strength and conditioning drill. At first, she thought she had just sprained her ankle.
“I went to the doctor and he said I had fractured a bone in my foot,” Ryan says. “A few weeks later it wasn’t healing. They did an MRI, but that only showed scar tissue, so they had no idea what they were going to find when they went in to do surgery.”
What the surgeon found was more damage than had been anticipated.
“They re-broke the bone and made ligaments out of existing scar tissue because I didn’t have any ligaments left. They also had to take out part of one of my tendons.”
Ryan was in a cast for six weeks and is still going through rehab, but she says that her recovery seems snagged and doctors are considering operating again next summer to finish the job.
“That would be more invasive,” she says. “They’re going to go in and take tendons out of my hip – if it comes down to that.”
Ryan has been under the knife before. A native of South Portland, she played field hockey, basketball and softball for the Red Riots – tearing up her knees in the process. She had them both repaired via surgery, and had both of her oft-sprained ankles operated on 10 years ago as well.
The bright spot for Ryan amongst all her medical woes is that she discovered her career along the way. Spending time being tended to by trainers and other medical professionals allowed her to see them doing something that she realized she might enjoy.
“I’m not stuck in an office. I’m outdoors. I’m watching games, and I’m hanging out with some awesome kids,” says Ryan, in her second year as Westbrook’s trainer. “It’s a much better fit for me because I was an athlete. I love competition, and I love how athletes want to make themselves better. I love being here.”
Ryan scheduled her surgery immediately after the spring sports season, so that she would be back for Blue Blazes football this fall. However, the school’s success in the state baseball tournament forced her to move the operation back a week.
Her ankle is still sore, but Ryan dashes out onto the playing field when she has to treat an injured athlete.
“I tape it up, I brace myself and I’m out there,” she says, “(but) at the end of the night I’m paying for it.”
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