A split second is all it takes to define weeks, months or even years of an athletic career. The life-altering impact of an injury arrives not only unwanted, but also unexpected.

Perhaps no one knows that better than UBC men’s hockey player Jake Kryski.

The play began just like any other for Kryski, simply dumping the puck off to start a line change. But, this routine play he had done a thousand times before took a devastating turn.

“It was quite a minor hit — I didn’t even fall down or anything,” said Kryski. “One of their guys was changing right when [the injury] happened. I didn’t really see him, and then he hit me from my right side. I put all my weight on my left leg, and I felt a weird feeling that I never really felt before.”

The weird feeling was a torn ACL in Kryski’s knee, which would sideline him for the remainder of the 2021/22 season and the first half of the 2022/23 season. While he eventually returned to the ice, viewing his journey as a straight line to recovery is a disservice to the turbulent and lengthy process that he and many other injured athletes have to endure.

“I ended up getting three surgeries,” Kryski said. “The first one, I got an infection in it, and then I got another surgery to try and clean it out. Then that didn’t work, so I got another surgery and then they removed my ACL.”

The average sports fan is unable to see setbacks like the failed surgeries and the nagging chronic pain. This hidden struggle inherent in the recovery process can make it difficult for athletes to have realistic expectations about their own timeline.

Lisa Trainor, a PhD candidate in kinesiology and sport psychology at UBC, emphasized the healing process is not always linear.

“You start to feel a little bit better, and you’re doing a little bit more, and things are really going great,” Trainor said. “Then you tweak something or it’s not holding up as well. Then all of a sudden, your thoughts are like, ‘Oh my God, this is all for nothing.’”

Former Thunderbird track and field athlete Glynis Sim is all too familiar with that feeling. She started her collegiate career at Arizona State University where, during the first few years, she dealt with chronic stress injuries in her tibias. While her initial outlook on the injury was positive, her perspective quickly changed.

“[Recovery] definitely took a bit more time because it wasn’t too severe the first time, so I didn’t think I needed to take as much time away from running,” Sim said. “But I tried to progress back too quickly, and then that led to injury recurring again.”

Her injury recurred five more times and eventually ended her time on the ASU team. Doctors deemed it unsafe for her to continue running, forcing her into an early athletic retirement. While the physical pain of her injury was undoubtedly hard to bear, the part that stung more was knowing the sport that played such a key part of her life was gone.

“I was there to get an education, but I was [also] there to run, and at a high level. It felt like the end of the world at that point, and there was no support after I was finished on the team there,” said Sim.

Lack of support, like Sim experienced at ASU, can be detrimental for injured athletes.

Going from an environment that is highly team-oriented to experiencing an intimately personal struggle can be extremely isolating. While teammates, friends and doctors can assist in recovery, none of them constantly carry the same pain or burden as an injured athlete.

Isolation was something Trainor identified as a “challenging situation to navigate” for recovering athletes.

“The other big thing is that the support of networks that you normally had ... [are] all on the hockey team or within that sport world [and] then you’re not a part of that,” Trainor said. “They still get to be a part of that team and you’re not able to.”

With this isolation, feelings of guilt can arise for recovering athletes. They can feel that they are not able to be there for their teammates, or that they are letting them down. This can result in the injured athlete ignoring their body’s signals and playing through the pain.

For Elise Domingo, ignoring that instinct to push through pain can be incredibly difficult. The UBC Cheer member recently suffered whiplash in a team practice, after a mishap with a stunt.

“[But] sometimes it’s easy, especially here just on the side, as you watch all your other friends and teammates do the actual things they have to do. Sometimes you feel like you’re not doing enough, even though you know you’re doing the most that you can,” said Domingo.

Adding the mental pain of isolation and guilt on top of the physical pain can be too much to carry. Fortunately, some student-athletes are working together to lessen that burden through community.

The UBC Recovering Athlete Peer-Support Program (RAP) is a student-run group operating with the sole focus of assisting injured athletes through their recovery by providing a solution to the isolation prevalent in injury — connection.

For Sarah Johns, one of the founders of the organization, RAP is built on the type of empathy only possible through interactions with those who have first-hand experience dealing with injury.

RAP hosts weekly meetings and the facilitators are often athletes who have gone through injuries in the past.

At these meetings, the group discusses coping strategies for injuries, as well as stress from school or personal lives, and also focuses on goal-setting as part of the recovery.

According to Johns, self-worth as an athlete is heavily tied to performance on the field, and being able to discuss small accomplishments during the recovery process can be helpful.

When talking about injury, it is important to celebrate the successes. Kryski returned to hockey without an ACL and Sim returned to running at UBC and hopes to run for the Canadian national team. However, it is also crucial to recognize that within every success story, there are setbacks, stress and hardships. The mental struggle that comes with injury can often be invisible to those who don’t directly experience it — but that doesn’t make it any less real.

According to Trainor, overcoming those invisible hurdles takes patience, determination and willingness to reach out to others and, most importantly, compassion.

“I think there’s a lot of merit to being compassionate towards yourself. It’s okay if it’s a struggle, if you’re not getting anywhere. Just take some time; you’ll get there eventually or you’ll find a new normal and things will be okay.”