Against all odds, Trina Guytingco returned to the court more than a year after suffering a devastating eye injury — her vision dimmed, but her resolve shining brighter than ever — all for the love of basketball.
But before she could make her comeback, Guytingco first had to survive a long, painful, and uncertain journey — full of doubt, fear, and the lingering question of whether she would ever play again.
Guytingco sustained the nasty injury during last year’s Manila Hustle 3×3 after diving for a loose ball and colliding with Uratex Dream’s Li Renzhu, accidentally getting poked in the right eye in the process.
Writhing in pain on the floor, the former Ateneo star had to be carried off by the medical team.
And in a snap, what began as just another hustle play quickly turned into a life-changing injury — one that threatened to take away not only her sight but also the sport she loved.
“It was a grueling process, to say the least, because after the injury happened, it was unsure if I could still play. So I had to consult with various doctors, I had to rest and see if my vision would recover,” Guytingco told Tiebreaker Times.
The damage was severe. Guytingco lost a significant portion of vision in her right eye — a devastating blow for any athlete whose game relies on sharp sight and split-second decisions.
Her peripheral vision was gone, and her depth perception was severely impaired. Worse, her optic nerve had been damaged, turning the court she once saw so clearly into a blurred and uncertain battleground.
A Long and Uncertain Road to Recovery
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A couple of weeks later, Guytingco received devastating news from her doctors. They told her she might never play basketball again due to the severity of the injury.
The words cut deeper than the injury itself, leaving a pain no physical wound could ever match.
“A couple of weeks after the injury, the doctors were telling me that I couldn’t play basketball anymore. My optic nerve was harmed in the injury, so that in itself was something very hard for me to accept,” said Guytingco in a video posted by Slam Online PH.
Her road to recovery stretched for nearly eight months, but it was the first three that almost broke her.
Simple routines like working out or driving became impossible tasks. Indeed, it was in those quiet, frustrating days — when her body craved movement but her vision held her back — that the true weight of her injury sank in.
“Yeah, of course,” admitted Guytingco when asked if she ever considered stepping away from the sport completely. “Of course there was a time when the doctors were telling me that I can’t play anymore.
“I really thought that I couldn’t play anymore ‘cause it took months, like six, seven, eight months before I felt like I could go back to my normal routine like driving, the depth perception, and everything.”
A Relentless Spirit
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Slowly, Guytingco began to recover. But as an athlete her entire life, she couldn’t shake the restless itch — the need to move, to compete, to chase after something. She knew she had to find a new outlet to pour her energy into — something that was, painfully, not basketball.
The Gilas Pilipinas standout found comfort in running. She didn’t love it at first, but over time, she learned to embrace it, using every stride to pull herself out of her room and away from the suffocating grip of self-pity.
But even as she found solace in running, the itch never truly went away.
Friends and family encouraged her to explore other outlets, to pour her energy into new passions. Yet with every step forward in her recovery, the pull toward her first love only grew stronger.
“Eventually, it did (recover) a little bit. So once I started going back to my normal daily routine, then I realized I could still play basketball, but I would have to adjust because I’m basically playing with one eye,” she said.
What doctors saw as a career-ending injury, Guytingco chose to see as motivation — a challenge to prove that her story was far from over.
A Triumphant Return
(C) WMPBL
After working her way back to full health, she made a triumphant return to the court, suiting up for Pilipinas Aguilas in the 2025 Women’s Maharlika Pilipinas Basketball League (WMPBL) Invitational Tournament last January 29.
In her first official game back, she tallied three points, an assist, and a steal in the Aguilas’ 66-55 victory over New Zealand-Bluefire in almost 14 minutes of action.
Guytingco had her best game since making her comeback last February 16, finishing with 11 points built on three triples to go along with three rebounds, an assist, a steal, and a block in a dominant 113-55 win over EZ Jersey.
She came full circle as well, making her return to the Titans in the third season of the Manila Hustle 3×3 — the same tournament where her journey took a painful turn.
But despite her successful comeback, Guytingco knew the battle was far from over. There were still countless adjustments to make, from learning to play with protective glasses shielding her eye to recalibrating her game after losing the peripheral vision on her right side.
“Honestly, (I had to adjust to) everything. Because I lost my peripheral on my right (eye), so I basically had to re-adjust my court vision as a whole. Also, my reaction time, I think got a little bit slower because nga I lost a significant portion of my total vision. Those are just some things that I have to re-adjust,” she shared.
“It’s hard to go through any type of injury. There are things you need to adjust to, there’s fear you need to get over, and trauma, but as long as you know what you want and what you want to achieve, I think that outweighs anything.”
For Guytingco, every adjustment, every delayed reaction, every blurred moment is a price she’s more than willing to pay — because after everything she went through, just being back on the court is a gift she refuses to take for granted.
“Again, I’m stubborn, and I didn’t want to give up basketball just yet, so I had to dig deep mentally to pick myself up from this injury — losing a portion of my vision. Basically, self-motivation and self-fulfillment were the things that kept me going. But obviously, it was really hard,” said Guytingco.
Against every challenge thrown her way, from blurred vision to shattered confidence, she found a way to return to the court. And though the game may look different through her eyes now, the fire in her heart burns just the same.
Because for Guytingco, playing basketball — no matter the cost — will always be worth it.
“So I would say… basketball has been… I could say it’s been my first love. This is not how I wanted to end my playing career. I wanted to end it on a note that I can say that I was satisfied, and I was not satisfied with what happened, so I was not ready to let go,” she said.
“That was my main motivation. I just really wanted to keep playing while I still can ‘cause I’m still kinda young, so I still want to play until my body allows me despite the injury.”
