The Need For Speed

As usual, we went ice-skating last Sunday - - - it was Father’s Day and the lack of attendance at the rink made skating a wonderfully private event. As usual, I had to have a few fast laps around the rink - - and as I was happily speeding down the ice I noticed a patch of water at about the same time I touched it with my skate blade. The presence of the water created somewhat of a braking effect and I didn’t have time to adjust my balance for it. However, rather than land face first on the ice I did manage to shift my weight and bend my knees a bit so as to land properly (or so I thought). Even so, I landed squarely on my rear end and at that moment a feeling of both extreme pain and a wash of intense heat inside my lower trunk took place. I then crawled out of what seemed to be about a quarter-inch of water standing at the end of the rink! Lola came over to see if I was ok and I sat in the bleachers for about ten minutes, all the while fighting nausea and light-headedness that accompanied the pain and numbness in my butt and tingling in my hands! I do hate that when I’m injured my body betrays me by acting ill!

So there I sat, scolding myself for having a need for speed, and gradually the light-headedness subsided. So what did I do? Why, I got back out there on the ice and skated some more, of course!! I didn’t hurt as much at that point, although I knew that pain-free feeling wouldn’t last.

When we went home the reality began to set in. I couldn’t bend over, couldn’t sit in a chair without looking startlingly akin to Tim Conway in his famous “old man” skit, and had a hilarious time crawing (literally) into bed, all the while muttering “ow, ow, OW!” under my breath. Lola, of course, was thinking this was quite entertaining, but was maybe just a LITTLE sympathetic.

Getting up the next morning for work was an adventure in itself. I knew it would take longer than usual. I called the doctor and set up an appointment to see what she could determine. I had x-rays taken at lunchtime. The doctor asked if I was taking anything for the pain and I was literally surprised, because it never occurred to me that I could have done that. Why? I don’t know. I guess I just figured it was my own fault for going too fast and therefore I felt as though I was pretty much destined to own the pain. The option of taking an Advil or whatever was not even in my realm of thinking!

After the x-rays I went back to work and by late afternoon felt ok enough to attend my first official ice skating lesson. My instructor was very understanding and I had a good time in spite of hurting!

I didn’t get the x-ray results back until today, and per the radiologist, nothing is broken! HOORAY!!!!!! So all I need to do is relax and chill out and wait to heal whatever got scrambled around in there. And yes, it still hurts! But it’s getting slightly less intense each day…