Contact sports

I do love a good game of ice hockey every now and again, and recognize the risks that come with it...I've already lost a perfectly good ACL in my left knee, had a few concussions to boot, and yet keep coming back for more (maybe those hits in the head are why all good sense and reason have escaped me here). Alas, I have learned a few good lessons in the past 2 weeks or so. 1. Mouthguards are good. There is always the potential for some bizarre injury, such as someone coming up and blindsiding you, sending you flying and knocking your helmet's chin piece up so that it almost breaks your nose, and your jaw slams together with your tongue in the middle, like an oreo sandwich of sorts. Chomp Chomp. Luckily, I had a mouthguard on, or I would have lost the first third of my tongue that day (super-bummer). Looking in the mirror there was a nice clear line across the top which indicated where it would have been severed. And I talked with a sthmall listh for a few momentsths. Good times.

#2. Neckguards are good too (but no one wears them. Of course, I'm leaving for vacation on Tuesday, and have a game on Sunday, before which my mom reminded me: "Don't get hurt right before your vacation, or else!" As usual, I should always heed her warnings. This time was very interesting, as the goalie on the other team went for my head instead of the puck...she took a nice slice out of my neck, a few inches long with the blade end of her stick (I was actually quite lucky that it wasn't worse). Best part was that it wasn't just a smack to the neck; when pulling away, she runs it all the way across, gives a nice solid friction burn across the right side of my neck, and ripping my helmet off my head. (B*TCH!!) For the next 2 days, it felt kind of like someone putting out cigars on my neck, and was extremely pleasant to sit on the bench and at home to pick shards of fiberglass out of my neck. Yummy. Now, only thinking I got clipped a bit, when I finally got a good look at it, it was about 4 inches long from my throat back to my ear...oops. And wouldn't you know...I didn't seem to get all the fiberglass out of my neck, alas, when I get to my destination for vacation...infected gash, and a neck that doesn't turn quite right.

Spent the last few days figuring out how to get this monster to calm down, and people kind of looked at me funny as if I had just performed thyroid surgery on myself with a makeup mirror or gotten a ferocious hickey as part of a sick bet or something. So, next step, go to pilates with the trainer to see about getting my arse in gear. And what response do I get? "Wow - your neck is messed up! So are your shoulders too!" Thanks, genius, I had already noticed that. So, I get dragged over next door to the chiropractor to schedule an appointment to have an "adjustment" (translation = bones cracked in a painful manner via manual tourquing). Entering the office I noticed the calming color of blue on the walls, and a shoeless young man in dreadlocks comes out with a rastafarian accent saying "Ohhh - that'sa bad, ya. Dontcha worry, hun, we'll get you all fissed up nice today. Come back at 130." Me = "Uh, ok." I've never been a big fan of chiropractors, I worry that someone's going to pull my head off, or crack my back in such a way that I'll have a worse gait and posture than I already do now (though that might be hard to do...). But hey, I was smoking wacky tobacc-y or something and agreed to it based on the recommendations of many folks who had been to him, and apparently, my neck was going to fall off if i didn't go.

Back at 130, Dr. Jason invites me in, and we talk for a bit He comments on how "that hockey a nasty sport, eh? You gotta be careful bout dem sticks comin up at yer head and neck, ya know? Don-a-you worry, I'll make it all betta for you." Oh what the heck, go ahead, just don't break me. The adjusting begins...he's a chatty fellow, and goes through with a bunch of "oh man, you gotta fix this, you see here da problem." Apparently one side of my rib cage decided to improperly attach itself to my spine recently, and it needed to be put back into place. So up and down my upper back he goes, giving a pretty strong heave downward into my ribs, kind of like an elephant tapdancing and pushing the air out of my lungs with each "pop". As we're trying to converse, he'd push down and of course expel all air in my lungs, causing a "HUH" to be placed intermittently among words. Me = "This is pretty inter-HUH-esting. I've -HUH- never -HUH- done an adjust-HUH-ment before. HEEE..." Each HUH was usually followed by a short whimper. So there's a few vertebrae and ribs that weren't quite so cooperative and wouldn't pop, so we moved onto the lower back and hip, where you're turned on your side, your leg is ripped off at the joint like a drumstick being pulled off a chicken, and pop pop pop goes your lower back (it actually felt pretty good). What doesn't feel so delightful is the whole drumstick thing; when it gets tugged on, he digs his hand down between my hip and top of leg (basically, your outer rear end) and does a deep tissue massage, and good heavens I thought I was on the rack being pulled and having my hip scraped with the pointy end of a hammer in the process. Me = OUCH. He = "oh dats ok hun, you getta feel much betta when i finished. Maybe not today, because itsa gonna burn a lot, but soon." Then onto the neck, where 1 side cooperates with a resounding pop, and the other direction not so much. After a few sharp twists with no positive result ("heave! ho! oops!), he decides "we save that one for next time, yah?" Instead, we do pressure point between shoulder blades, yah." For a moment I thought he rammed a railroad spike through that muscle back there, and it still kind of feels like that today... 45 minutes later, with ribs realigned and connected, railroad spike removed from shoulder, and leg reattached, I get picked up to go home and cry a bit in the corner...but my back actually feels a tad better. Next appointment = Monday. HUH!