susannah kendrick

Growing up, I loved to be active. The way I did this was through cheerleading. I first started out on a local rec team, where we would cheer on the little league football teams on Saturday mornings. I didn’t start seriously getting involved in cheerleading until middle school. This is when I joined a local cheer gym, Ace Cheer Company's, competition cheerleading team. We would practice twice a week, and then would compete at competitions on the weekends. As I got older cheerleading became more serious and intense. It changed from a hobby to a sport. I would go to lots of team workouts to try and stay in shape, spend countless hours tumbling at the gym to try and improve my skills, and eventually cheer became my life. Cheer is a very high level, physically demanding sport. Because of this, injuries are very common. Going into my freshmen season of high school cheer, I badly injured my knee, causing me to have to have surgery. This was a very low point for me. I didn't know what to do, I couldn't cheer, and that practically was my life. This was my first major injury, but sadly would not be my last. While cheering on my high school varsity team, and my competitive cheer team, I injured my ankle, my toe, my back, and even got a concussion. Going through these injuries meant I had to see many doctors and specialists such as orthopedic physicians assistants. Because I spent so much time at the orthopedist, I was exposed to my true passion of hopefully one day becoming an orthopedic physician's assistant. Through this career path, I can help others find healing just like I did. Moreover, illustrating how because of cheerleading I now know my purpose in life.