Machias High School softball pitcher Kate Whitney is having a memorable spring, but for awhile she thought she might never be able to pitch again.
Eighteen months ago, Whitney was in the school gym pitching to her father, Patrick Whitney. Throwing a softball was a passion for her. She began taking pitching lessons from Rick Roberts in Ellsworth when she was 11.
On this particular day, after releasing a pitch, she heard a pop in her elbow.
“And the pinkie on my right hand went numb,” she said. “I figured it was a one time thing, so I let it go.
“But then it kept recurring,” added Whitney, who also had some numbness in her ring finger.
She eventually sought medical help and underwent physical therapy and chiropractic assistance to try to cure the problem, but it didn’t work.
It bothered her when she was shooting a basketball but she played through it.
She soldiered through the discomfort last spring during softball season but there would be episodes of excruciating pain so her father, who is also the Machias softball coach, would limit her innings. She threw 39 innings.
“She didn’t want to come out,” Patrick Whitney said.
The condition was getting worse.
“It would hurt more and more every time I threw,” she said.
So her father searched the Internet for an orthopedic surgeon.
“I wanted to find a young, female doctor Kate would feel comfortable with,” her father said.
He found one in Bangor — Dr. Jessica Aronowitz at Orthopedic Surgery Maine. The Whitneys made an appointment and were impressed with Aronowitz.
“She had an athletic background and she knew her business. There was no doubt when we left her office that she knew what she was talking about,” Patrick Whitney said.
The diagnosis was a compressed ulnar nerve.
The ulnar nerve runs along the inside of the elbow and when Whitney would throw, the nerve would “pop up over the elbow” and that would cause the sensation, according to her father.
They first tried a nonsurgical procedure.
“I had to sleep with my elbow in a brace that would keep the arm from bending,” said Kate Whitney, who tried that for five weeks but it didn’t work.
She said there were times when she wasn’t sure if she would ever play softball again. So the decision was made to have surgery.
Aronowitz operated on Whitney last August to decompress and transpose the nerve so it wasn’t touching the elbow when she threw.
“I was very, very nervous about the surgery,” Whitney said.
The surgery turned out to be a big success.
“[Dr. Aronowitz] did a wonderful job. She was great. I really like her,” Whitney said.
There was significant recovery time and there was pain in the elbow but the pain gradually subsided.
“I wasn’t able to even light toss a softball for six to eight weeks,” she said.
Whitney also runs cross country but didn’t join the team until later in the season “because they didn’t want me to fall on my arm. I wore a special sleeve over my elbow.”
The breakthrough for her came during basketball season.
“We had just started the season and it didn’t hurt to shoot any more,” she said. “If it didn’t hurt to shoot any more, why would it hurt to pitch?”
But she still had some hurdles to clear when she began pitching again in preparation for this season.
She had returned to Roberts to continue her pitching lessons but she wasn’t throwing nearly as hard as she had been when she was healthy. Her fastball was in the 40 and 50-miles per hour range instead of the 60s where it had been.
Her curve and her rise had been difficult to throw before her surgery because they put more stress on the elbow. So it took time to regain those pitches after the surgery.
“The most difficult part was the pain. I was really frustrated because I wasn’t able to throw like I had been and I couldn’t throw all my pitches. I felt like I was going backwards,” Whitney said.
But she gradually got better, the pain subsided and all of her pitches came back.
Her fastball was clocked at 63 mph by Roberts last Sunday.
She has thrown 34 innings and is 6-2 with a 1.32 earned run average. She has struck out 88 and allowed just 13 hits. She has walked 16.
She shares the pitching with fellow junior Makayla Prout.
“I have never seen her throw any better than she is now. She is pitching as well as she ever has,” said Patrick Whitney, whose Bulldogs are 9-4.
Kate Whitney admitted that she is surprised she has been able to bounce back.
”But I’m really happy that I have,” she said. “I started out a little rocky but everything has fallen into place. My curve and rise are better than they were [before the injury].”
She also throws a drop and changeup.
“The pain was definitely worth it to get me where I am,” she said.