Kaitlyn Heffner is showing that victories aren’t always about the final score.
The fact the former Greenwood standout, now a freshman third baseman at Grace College, is playing at all is a win for not only Heffner but her family and the school she represents.
She was diagnosed in September with a break in the bone in the lower region of the spine and spent more than six months recuperating before entering the Lancers’ lineup in the first game of a doubleheader at Mount Vernon Nazarene (Ohio) on March 23.
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Her collegiate softball debut included one at-bat. Never had a strikeout felt so good.
“I feel great,” Heffner said. “I have a couple of flare-ups, but my back is so much better than it was at the beginning.”
While working out with teammates in early September, Heffner was doing an abdominal exercise in which she holds a 10-pound dumbbell over her head. She felt a pop in her lower back and had X-rays performed the next day.
It wasn’t the way Heffner envisioned starting her college experience.
“When you get to college, you walk everywhere,” said Heffner, a criminal justice major who wants to be a K9 police officer. “I couldn’t sit for a long period of time, and there were times when I couldn’t walk long distances.
“At the beginning, I struggled to wonder why something like this would happen to me. It was very hard for me to fully process relationships when so much of my time was being spent on therapy and getting the help I needed.”
In addition to two cortisone shots in November to help lessen the pain in her back, Heffner’s recovery centered around rest, twice-weekly physical therapy sessions and doing exercises to strengthen her core.
Heffner benefited from an electrical muscle stimulation machine in the Grace training room that used a series of electronic vibrations.
By January, Heffner began to feel the positive effects of her work as her pain, which had been so grueling for four months, began to slowly subside.
The next step was for Heffner to work her way back into softball condition. This included overcoming the psychological hurdles associated with swinging a bat, bending down to scoop up a ground ball and making throws to teammates without fear of pain.
Heffner watched Grace play its first 20 games without her before she finally got an opportunity. Her first career hit came March 30 against Huntington.
As parents, Mike and Kelly Heffner sensed the pain and disappointment their daughter was going through during the months she wasn’t playing softball.
“You have the highs and lows trying to help her manage through the difficulties of life. You’re going to have setbacks,” Mike Heffner said. “From our perspective, it was very difficult to see Kaitlyn suffer the way she did, but we’re proud of the way she’s persevered.”
