No Limitations

NAHS alum overcomes hip surgeries to cheer in college

Jennifer Tennenbaum graduated from New Albany High School in 2019. Now a senior at Capital University, Tennenbaum is pursuing a degree in social work and has her sights set on graduation in May. She’s a cheerleader for Capital and has been cheering since around age 7. Her journey with the sport hasn’t been linear, however.

After two back-to-back hip dysplasia surgeries as a teenager, she missed out on high school cheerleading as she recovered. Still, she persevered and made the Capital cheer team as a freshman. This year, as a senior at Capital, she rose to the top flyer position – a spot she hasn’t been in since before surgery. Her journey has inspired her to pursue a social work degree to support athletes’ mental health; something she understands the importance of personally.

Her interview with Healthy New Albany Magazine has been edited for length and clarity.

Healthy New Albany Magazine: How did you know you needed hip surgery? What was going on before you had to see someone about it and started that process?

Jennifer Tennenbaum: I was doing competition and school cheer and I ended up just getting hip pain. I ended up going to the trainer at New Albany. We tried a few different things, just like PT and stretching. He was like, “I think this is a more serious problem than just stretching.” And so we made the appointment with Dr. (Kevin) Klingele (at Nationwide Children’s Hospital).

They did X-rays and talked about everything and then he was like, “Do you know what hip dysplasia is?” And me and my dad – we have two English mastiffs, which hip dysplasia is huge in big dogs – so we kind of laughed it off. And we were like, “Yeah, like we’re preventing our dogs from getting that.” And we were just kind of confused because we’ve never heard about it in people. And that’s when my whole entire life immediately changed.

I just hit seven years ago on my first surgery the other day. We had to do them six months apart. I finished out my cheer season (before the surgeries) because we thought I’d never be able to go back to it because most people don’t bounce back to their sports.

It went great. And then did rehab, six months later did the second one. And then we waited a year after the second one to get my screws out just because they bothered me because I was so tiny.

HNA: How did the recovery experience affect you and your perspective? In those six months, what was your life like?

JT: It was a plethora of different things. It was eye opening. It was honestly terrible. It’s something that I would never want to put any- one through, just because it is so intense. And I was in a wheelchair for two months almost, and then on crutches for six weeks.

It’s completely rotating your anatomy, basically. They cut your hip in three places and rotate it and put four screws in. And that young of an age, you never expected to go through something so intensive – and then the mental aspect. I think I have grown so much since then. It definitely was very hard mentally because I was so young. I was 14 or 15, 16, and I wasn’t cheering. I got to see all my friends go along with their lives and I had to miss out on things, like hanging out with friends. It was just like missing out on things and figuring out starting high school in a wheelchair. I think overall being in a wheelchair and on crutches opened my eyes so much to see, you don’t know what people are going through at all.

HNA: Tell me about the difference between the two separate recoveries.

JT: I remember going into my second surgery, and I’m in the prep room and I remember looking at my dad saying, please don’t make me do this. Because it was so intense and I still apologize to my dad to this day because I feel so bad. I broke his heart saying that, but since it was so much more displaced it was a little bit harder to fix and I ended up losing three pints of blood. The recovery time, I think was almost about the same, I believe, and it was just easier but also harder in a way. It was easier because I knew, “OK, when I get home and I’m out of the hospital, I know what to do now. I know what to do to make myself comfortable. I know what I’m about to go through.” But also much harder because I just recovered from the first one and I was like, “Wow, I’m doing this all over again.” I’m completely restarting from square one. Eventually I had a physical therapist who was a dancer. And so she understood me and my sport, and she was amazing. I had her all three times because I did physical therapy before my first surgery as well. And I just remember her saying like, “Do you want to get back to cheer?” And I was like, “Yeah, if I’m allowed.” And she was like, “Alright then, let’s get to it.”

HNA: What did it take to get back into the sport?

JT: The one thing Klingele said after my surgeries when I was cleared was “no limitations.” And my dad reminded me of that every day for years. It’s one of my favorite things now because without the support system around me, I definitely don’t think I would be where I am today. And I ended up doing some private lessons at a new cheer gym. And just like taking it really slow. I got a personal trainer. When I did private lessons, it was a coach that worked with athletes who were recovering from injuries. So he understood what I was going through, knew to take it slow but also push me a little bit. I eventually cheered there.

HNA: What should people know about you and your experience?

JT: That’s a hard question. It changed my life. It’s definitely made me a much more grateful person for the life that I have. I’m glad I had the resources and the opportunity to have a great surgeon who changed my life and got me out of pain. And definitely just live life to the fullest. I know everybody says that, but it definitely has made me love the little things and realize that you’re gonna have bad days, but that’s a bad day. It’s not a bad life. I was able to have my surgeries and I got to go back to my sport. And throughout the cheer world you have the people with bad attitudes and, you know, I try to uplift them and everybody’s like, “Aren’t you tired of cheer yet?” And I’m like, no. Because I got two years taken away from me from the thing that I loved most and I fell back in love with it. Because I know so many people that have had this surgery that had to quit their sports. They never got to do it again. And I’m lucky that I got to do it.

By Tyler Kirkendall