Grounded

Listening to: Husker Du-Candy Apple Grey

So this week all four of my sports teams have made finals (admittedly one was a 'thanks for turning up' minor final, but a final nonetheless), three indoor netball and one indoor football ("I pity the fool", "SPAHZ", "Suspect" and "O for awesome" respectively).

Too bad I can only play in two of them. Those who saw my sudden exit from Monday night's netball may recall there were indications of a shoulder injury. I iced it at the time, and the beer, while probably not a good idea, certainly had a relaxant effect.

Tuesday morning found the shoulder still sore, but managable even if I had to heavily favour it, but getting in and out of my work coveralls soon moved beyond merely uncomfortable to downright painful. Sensing something was probably more wrong than the bruising I suspected, I improvised a sling from some tube bandaging and suspended my left arm for the rest of the day, feeling somewhat over-reactive and drama-queeny. Still it was more comfortable than not slinging it, and seemed beneficial in not aggravating anything. I spent the day telling people it looked worse than it was, and coming up with increasingly fanciful stories about how I sustained my injury before admitting the truth ("I was pulling a baby from a burning car". "I robbed a bank but one of the guards winged me" etc etc); I accidentally denied landing space to an opposition player by watching the ball and not him, and wound up wearing the player as a result.

I noted that if you wander around work the day after you have publicly announced your resignation with your arm in a sling, you will get a lot of attention.

Feeling much improved today, but wanting a professional opinion, I checked in with the work physiotherapist. After examination, my shoulder was defined as having been slightly sprained when the opposition centre landed on it (damaging either or both the coro-acromial and coro-humeral ligaments). Moreover, the sling was deemed to be not over-cautious, but in fact a jolly good idea, likely contributing to the feeling much better today than yesterday.

Thats a new one. So far in my sporting career I have sprained ankles, fingers, thumbs and hands (I'm counting falling off a trampoline at a party as 'sport' for this).

I missed last nights football final as a caution, and the physio grounded me for until Monday so I miss tomorrows netball final as well (both for work teams).

Well actually she said I could play if I wanted to, but it wouldn't be a good idea, her official recommendation was "No", and casually dropped into the conversation that while mild sprains can clear up in 7-10 days, a ligament or muscle tear can take weeks or months to heal, and indoor netball is a high energy unpredictable sport etc etc, as physios are wont to do. Then she noticed the old-school Transformers T-shirt I was wearing so we talked about transformers for a while.

I'll have to strap it for a week or so when I do play. More shaving.

Incidentally, my work netball team now has three key players out with injury, all centre/attacks, all incurred within 24 hours of each other. One sprained ankle playing indoor netball last night, another ankle sprained playing indoor soccer while I watched, and me.

Should be an interesting game to watch.