After 3 straight years of injuries, South's Bussey making the most of her senior season

Experiencing and coming back from an injury can be tough. Suffering the same injury over and over again can be infuriating.

Pueblo South’s Madison Bussey knows a thing or two about overcoming injuries, as she's experienced them every year of her high school basketball career.

This year as a senior, Bussey is finally healthy, playing a full season and enjoying every minute.

“Every year I've broken my arm at least once, so this is the only year I haven't,” Bussey said. “That grind was impossible because it takes a lot to play basketball and have a broken arm. I still got back into it but it was hard, definitely.”

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Bussey has endured that type of injury three times since she began playing high school basketball, with last year's injury perhaps the most difficult to overcome.

“My junior year, I broke both my arms, actually, on the fall,” Bussey said. “That took, I don't know, not even a month to get back because I was just so determined. I wanted to play, so the rehab was pretty stressful because I was going every day for three hours just trying to do my best to get back in.”

Bussey said rehab was one of the hardest things she's had to deal with during her experiences with injuries. She badly wanted to play the game she’s loved for many years with her teammates. Fortunately for Bussey, the rehab process went well enough for her to return in her junior season after missing some time.

The rehab process motivated Bussey get back to playing basketball, not only for herself but for those who've helped her and pushed her to reach this point.

“I think it gave me the motivation to keep going,” Bussey said. “It hurt sitting on the bench watching my team play and not being able to do anything ... I had to help them out because they need me.”

She's enjoying her final campaign as a Colt, even though the season has seen some of the team's starters miss time with injuries and hasn’t really panned out the way she hoped.

“I think because most of our starters were hurt, that kind of brought the team down a little bit,” Bussey said. “But I can see them trying and they're all going to therapy and I can say that the team is down, but when they get back, I think that'll definitely give us motivation again.”

Bussey said the absence of some of the team's top players has created a great opportunity for younger girls to step up and not only get playing time, but learn how to play at the high school level. She said those lessons should leave a solid base for the team to build around in the future.

“They're asking me questions and it's nice because I'm a senior and I could help them,” Bussey said. “When I leave, they could take that with them, because like I said, the younger girls are stepping up and they're doing good at practice, they show up every day and enjoy it.”

Basketball has been a big part of Bussey's life since she was only 4 years old. Her father is one of her biggest supporters and is one of the main reasons big reason she plays the sport. In her downtime, when she isn't playing basketball, Bussey enjoys building Lego sets.

Building complex structures out of tiny blocks requires lots of patience — a skill Bussey likely has in abundance after her experiences rehabbing her injuries.

“I used to collect Legos every single day,” Bussey said. “I think I have over 1,000. It takes your mind off of things and that makes me very calm.”

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Christopher Abdelmalek is a sports reporter for the Pueblo Chieftain and can be reached at cabdelmalek@gannett.com or on Twitter: @chowebacca

This article originally appeared on The Pueblo Chieftain: South's Bussey making the most of her senior season following injuries