A 10 Year Anniversary (Part 1)
Next month I will "celebrate" an event that changed my life forever and affects me every day. But before I get to THOSE details, let's step back a year.
It was the summer/fall of 1996 and I was preparing for soccer season to start. It was my junion year in high school. I was scrimmaging with my teammates during optional pre-pre-season practices. When racing for a ball, I rolled my ankle. As it turns out, I severely sprained my ankle and fractured a bone. The worst part? I drove a stick and had to drive myself home. It was my left foot. That's the clutch foot for you automatic drivers. I drove home in second the entire time. When I got home I crawled into my house and waited for my mom to come home to take me to the hostpital. I did come back that season, but it was late in the season and I had gained a ton of weight.
After soccer season, still having some of my ankle weight, I started playing basketball quite a bit more often. It was a fateful Friday evening when, on a breakaway, I blew a layup. Frustrated with myself and for blowing the bunny. I punched a wall. A padded wall, but a wall regardless. It hurt. My hand was not right. In my 16 year old wisdom, I kept playing. I drove said stick home shifting with the same right hand I had punched the wall with. After a shower, I went to the ER with my mom and girlfriend-of-the-day. Broken hand. Boxer's fracture. Why it's called a boxer's fracture, as the ER doc so quaintly pointed out, no one knows. Boxers do NOT break their hands like this. They know how to punch properly.
Good bye basketball. Good bye exercise (to a large extent) for a while. Hello hand weight added to the ankle weight. I had to pins placed in my hand and had a cast on my hand for months. (Side note: I have a strong stomach and next to nothing grosses me out. When I had the cast removed and watched the doc pull the pins out of my hand with some plyers, I almost passed out. Watching it happen to someone else? Whatev. To myself? Almost game over. My mom said I went ghost white. This has never happened since.)
After going 16+ years with no broken bones or significant injuries to speak of, this was a helluva run. However, there was light at the end of this injury-ravaged tunnel... it was but a few months later that I had the best March of my life. I turned 17, I got my cast off of my hand, and I had my braces removed.
Just a normal teenage month you say? Not me. I was blessed (Thanks mom and dad!) with some jacked up teeth. Double overbite, large teeth with not enough room for them, slow to fallout teeth. I had teeth pulled so that new teeth could come in so that I could have braces slapped on them. I had a retainer that spread my teeth out so that the braces could bring'em back together, rubber bands, head gear (night only, thanks). And I had my braces for seven years. That is not a typo. I got the bottom braces on in the 4th grade. Tops on in the 5th grade. And I got them both off in the 11th grade. This, of course, ignores getting the wisdom teeth cut out. That came around my 18th birthday and went by uneventfully, I am proud to report. As much as I hated the nigh decade of braces at the time, my teeth are amazing straight and wonderful now. Thanks mom and dad (sarcasm-free)!
This was just the tip of my personal iceberg...
It was the summer/fall of 1996 and I was preparing for soccer season to start. It was my junion year in high school. I was scrimmaging with my teammates during optional pre-pre-season practices. When racing for a ball, I rolled my ankle. As it turns out, I severely sprained my ankle and fractured a bone. The worst part? I drove a stick and had to drive myself home. It was my left foot. That's the clutch foot for you automatic drivers. I drove home in second the entire time. When I got home I crawled into my house and waited for my mom to come home to take me to the hostpital. I did come back that season, but it was late in the season and I had gained a ton of weight.
After soccer season, still having some of my ankle weight, I started playing basketball quite a bit more often. It was a fateful Friday evening when, on a breakaway, I blew a layup. Frustrated with myself and for blowing the bunny. I punched a wall. A padded wall, but a wall regardless. It hurt. My hand was not right. In my 16 year old wisdom, I kept playing. I drove said stick home shifting with the same right hand I had punched the wall with. After a shower, I went to the ER with my mom and girlfriend-of-the-day. Broken hand. Boxer's fracture. Why it's called a boxer's fracture, as the ER doc so quaintly pointed out, no one knows. Boxers do NOT break their hands like this. They know how to punch properly.
Good bye basketball. Good bye exercise (to a large extent) for a while. Hello hand weight added to the ankle weight. I had to pins placed in my hand and had a cast on my hand for months. (Side note: I have a strong stomach and next to nothing grosses me out. When I had the cast removed and watched the doc pull the pins out of my hand with some plyers, I almost passed out. Watching it happen to someone else? Whatev. To myself? Almost game over. My mom said I went ghost white. This has never happened since.)
After going 16+ years with no broken bones or significant injuries to speak of, this was a helluva run. However, there was light at the end of this injury-ravaged tunnel... it was but a few months later that I had the best March of my life. I turned 17, I got my cast off of my hand, and I had my braces removed.
Just a normal teenage month you say? Not me. I was blessed (Thanks mom and dad!) with some jacked up teeth. Double overbite, large teeth with not enough room for them, slow to fallout teeth. I had teeth pulled so that new teeth could come in so that I could have braces slapped on them. I had a retainer that spread my teeth out so that the braces could bring'em back together, rubber bands, head gear (night only, thanks). And I had my braces for seven years. That is not a typo. I got the bottom braces on in the 4th grade. Tops on in the 5th grade. And I got them both off in the 11th grade. This, of course, ignores getting the wisdom teeth cut out. That came around my 18th birthday and went by uneventfully, I am proud to report. As much as I hated the nigh decade of braces at the time, my teeth are amazing straight and wonderful now. Thanks mom and dad (sarcasm-free)!
This was just the tip of my personal iceberg...
posted by MD at
4:11 PM
1 Comments:
*I said, "ow" when you had to drive the stick home. Twice. After injuries. That kills.
*I cannot believe you had your braces on for 7 years. Seven IS good luck, though - right? Right?
Ok, now going to read your next post.
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