Ultimate Frisbee and Why I Haven't Posted

I haven't posted on this blog much lately--except for my two posts below (you should read them first!). Even after I VOWED to post twice a week. I lied, clearly.

Anyway, I don't have a good reason for my poor showing here, and I know all of the readers out there in blog-o-land have missed me dearly, so I make a new vow: I will post EVERY DAY for one week. Let's see if I can do that! Isn't that exciting? After that, we'll see where it goes. Maybe I'll post every MINUTE! What's the record for most entries per hour? I could top that! Yes, that's what I'll do, or probably not.

So here's a tiny excuse as to why I haven't been as productive as I should have been this past month: I have been lying on the couch watching a lot of TV and movies. Not much of an excuse, right? But I HAD to lie on the couch because I couldn't walk! I was horribly injured in a frisbee tournament! The doctor wanted to perform foot-replacement surgery, but I said, "no way--I don't want a robot foot, unless the robot foot has like a drill bit for a big toe, and a switchblade for the little toe" and then I kind of went on and on like that for a while, dreaming of my ideal robot foot, when the doctor said, "I didn't say 'foot replacement surgery,' I said, 'sprained ankle' and it will heal in a few weeks, but you need to stay off of it." Oh. I misunderstood.

How did this injury occur, you ask? Well, it was a calm Sunday morning a few weeks ago...

My team, The Justice League, named thusly because of the Superman shirt I was wearing (to match my red shorts) (and because we were so friggin' awesome!) was playing against Jason Gamache's team in the first round of the tournament. After we scored a few quick points, there was a slight controversy about a foul that was called. I thought it was the correct call, but my team didn't, and so I demonstrated the rule that was violated. I showed them what you CAN'T do when you're defending a player. As I demonstrated what not to do, I leapt into the air and bumped into my teammate Trevor (showing exactly how the foul had occurred), and I landed on his foot, and my ankled turned over with a SNAP! I hopped around, swearing left and right, because I knew my tournament was over after only a few points.

I sat on the sideline, icing my ankle as it swelled to mythic proportions. But I couldn't just sit around and watch, so I told my team I'd rest a bit, tape up my ankle and wait for the finals to make my return. Yet even waiting for a few minutes, I grew bored. So I had teammate Mitch Maselli tape up my ankle so I could play in the very next game. It hurt to play on it. A lot. I couldn't really run. I could start to run, and then quickly hop on my left leg for a bit. That's about it. But I still played. And played. And played.

We made it to the finals, of course. And the finals were best-out-of-three (which we won in two), so that means I played 5 games on a badly sprained ankle. Not smart. At the end of the tournament, we recived gold medals, a team trophy, and two of us received individual trophies. They had kept stats for all the games, and they awarded Mitch with the "Most Touchdowns Caught" trophy, and I received "Most Touchdowns Thrown." That's right, even though I was barely able to walk, I was the hero of the tournament, the idol of millions. My teammates began calling me Curt Schilling. (I'll be travelling around New England with my trophy--check your local paper to see the dates and times.)

So I limped toward my car, trophy in hand, drove the 45 minutes back home, basking in my own glory, crawled to the front door of my house, and told my wife, "I need to go to the emergency room. Now."

The x-rays didn't show a break, luckily (which I knew anyway--I wasn't dumb enough to play on a BROKEN ankle), but the sprain was really bad and my entire foot (from the middle of my shin down to my toes) had swelled up enormously--it looked like a giant rubber hobbit foot. Blood had pooled below my ankle, beneath the skin on both sides. The doctor said it wasn't very smart to keep playing on it. I said, "check out my trophy, bizzatch," and she was immediately silenced.

I've had to wear an air cast since. I'm supposed to wear it for another week (although I didn't wear it when I went out yesterday, and my ankle is throbbing today), and I'm supposed to stay away from frisbee for 6-8 weeks.

So that's why I had to lie on the couch and watch all those TV shows and movies.

And that's why I couldn't blog. (Without a laptop, it's hard to blog and keep your foot elevated.)

But school is starting soon. And that means frisbee season is starting up at Drury. Can I wait two months to play? Nah. I'll just play with the air cast on! It will give me another horrible injury to blog about.