Getting back in the game: Vikes, Vals fight to come back from injuries to be part of BHS' basketball program

The old saying "you don't know what you got until it's gone" became a reality for multiple Bigfork High School athletes this fall season as they incurred serious injuries that kept them from playing some of their favorite sports. Many student athletes become injured at some point during a season, especially those who push themselves the hardest. However, this year some of those injuries meant time spent in a hospital for Bigfork's student athletes and a few even required surgery. Although they are young enough to still be quick healers, they have all had to struggle with missing playing time and the idea that they may not even recover in time for the start of the basketball season. They are all nearly back to their old selves, but they have all learned some valuable lessons from the incidents.

The Bigfork Eagle is following their roads to recovery as they work their way through their injuries and onto the basketball court.

This week, read about Carter Sorensen, a junior at BHS, whose kidney was lacerated during his second football game this season with the Vikings.

Junior Carter Sorensen's kidney was lacerated when he was struck by an opponent's helmet during a junior varsity football game in St. Ignatius.

Sorensen was reaching up to catch a pass when a St. Ignatius defender attempted to tackle him and hit his lower abdomen with his helmet. Sorensen felt pain immediately, but having caught the ball, he decided to take it into the end zone for a touchdown, where he quickly collapsed.

"I didn't think it was that serious at the time," Sorensen said. "I thought I had just had the wind knocked out of me."

As he sat on the bench for the remainder of the game, it become clear to Sorensen, as well as the Vikings coaching staff, that it wasn't a minor injury.

"I couldn't get into a comfortable position at all," Sorensen said. "Even sitting was terrible. I started feeling around and I started putting it together. I had a bump on my back that turned out to be blood."

BHS assistant football coach Jim Epperly had Sorensen drink water in the hopes that they could determine if their was blood in his urine, which would imply that there was a problem with his kidneys. However, Sorensen couldn't make it that far. He vomited all of the water he consumed.

Sorensen's dad, Chris, picked him up at the school at about 7 p.m. He took a couple of Tylenol and laid on the couch. Although he was able to keep food down, he was still unable to digest any liquids.

Finally, at midnight he discovered blood in his urine and woke his dad up to take him to the hospital.

The doctor on-call in the emergency room soon notified Sorensen that he had lacerated his kidney and that he would not be able to play football for the remainder of the season.

"I kind of just broke down," he said. "That was the last thing I wanted to hear. I thought maybe I'd be out for a couple of weeks, but not the whole season. I was mad and sad at the same time."

Fueling Sorensen's disappointment was the fact that the scenario was a repeat of the previous season. Last year Sorensen was playing safety for the Vikings in a game in Stevensville when he was hit from the side by an opponent while he was moving the opposite direction. Sorensen dislocated his patella tendon in his left knee and strained some adjacent ligaments.

He was taken by ambulance to St. Patrick's Hospital in Missoula.

"Even to this day, I can still feel it," Sorensen said. "It will never be the same and that sucks."

The injury didn't require surgery, but it did keep him from playing for the remainder of the season.

Also, ironically, as was the case this year, the game was just the second of the season for Sorensen.

"Everyone is saying I'm sitting out the second game next year since I got hurt two years in a row during the second game," he said.

Even though he missed out on playing this season, Sorensen still found a way to improve his game from the sideline.

"It was good in a sense for me because I knew exactly what was going on on the team and I helped the younger kids out and helped the coaches," he said. "It gave me an interesting perspective on the game. Also, I liked cheering on the team. It's nice to support the team. I like keeping everyone in the game."

Next year, though, he wants to be in the game and since he'll be a senior, he has a lot of lost time to make up in his final year.

"Not being able to play makes me feel like next year I'm really going to appreciate it," Sorensen said. "It's like you don't know how bad you want something until it's gone. Next year I'm going to play that much harder and it will mean that much more. It will make me appreciate my last season more and makes me want to make the most of it. It has given me a lot more motivation for next year."

For Sorensen, the sitting around and waiting was the hardest part.

He spent nearly two weeks in the hospital recovering and then was sent home for another week-and-a-half of bedrest.

He wasn't allowed to even go to school because the doctors worried he could get bumped into and incur further damage.

"With my knee injury that pain was bad and constant even on crutches, but with my kidney it felt fine by the time I got home from the hospital," Sorensen said. "I felt like I could've run a mile or something. But I had to remind myself that I had a broken kidney and I had to take it easy and give it time to heal."

The worst part of the bedrest for Sorensen was not being able to attend the Vikings' game against Plains in which Bigfork earned their first win after three seasons without a victory. The game also happened to be played on Sorensen's birthday, who was receiving text message updates from his friends about the status of the game.

Finally, he convinced his dad to take him to watch the end of the game.

"It was kind of hard not being on the field in uniform and not exactly being a part of the team when they got their first win," Sorensen said. "I'm glad I got to be there, though. It was tough too that we got four wins this season and I didn't get to be out there with the team for any of them."

Although he is looking forward to getting back onto the football field, his current priority is basketball.

After being cleared in October, Sorensen began preparing for the upcoming season and this week he participated in tryouts with his team.

"I feel grateful to be able to play," Sorensen said. "After going out for football and practicing all pre-season and not getting to play, I'm really excited to get to play basketball. I'm a really athletic kid and sports have always been a big part of my life, so I'm happy to get back into that."

He is no longer in pain and there isn't any blood in his urine. However, his kidney is still trying to heal itself, which will take seven or eight months.

The top half of Sorensen's kidney was torn off, so there is also a possibility that it will just shrivel up and he will just have half of that kidney for the rest of his life.

He will undergo a CAT Scan next month to check the status of the organ.

While he is feeling fine and is glad to be back playing sports, Sorensen has one lingering side-effect from the injury. He has to wear a compression shirt, which is a padded garment, from now on when he plays sports.

"If I take a hard shot in basketball it could be a serious problem," Sorensen said. "I don't think it will make me play any less hard though. I think I'll be right back to running around and playing like I always do. Of course I'll have that in the back of my mind, but I don't think it will effect me too much."