After recently being plagued with another mishap I tried to recall some of my wounds over the years and most have come from playing competitive or friendly sports.
My earliest injury I can recall came in Kindergarten or perhaps Grade 1. I was just five years old when I was climbing on a jungle gym type apparatus in the playground at Marmora Street School. Hanging upside down I lost my grip and dropped like a large piece of ham onto the ground and landed on my tailbone. The instant agony was more than I could handle. Of course I hobbled home in tears and upon entering the apartment I couldn’t climb the stairs. As I recall, I didn’t receive much sympathy from my dad which is probably one reason I toughened up in future years. Plus I made sure I went to mom from then on.
Playing ball as a young lad I sustained numerous bumps and bruises. I recollect a game in Brighton at the public school where I was playing first base and took a short hop in the mouth chipping a tooth. I eventually became a catcher and that led to plenty of foul tips to the “Jewels”. I could never understand why people always said to “walk it off” because the last thing I ever wanted to do was go for a walk after taking a fastball to the “boys”.In high school I played football and rugby and my weak ankles that kept me from wearing skates and becoming the next NHL superstar came into play once again. It seemed as though I was forever turning my ankles and pulling or tearing things that worked better when they weren’t abused like that. To this day my ankles still cause me pain and during my lob-ball years the day after games I would have to hobble around. And I played a lot of ball.
My most painful football wound came in my very last game in Grade 13 on the second play of the game. We were in Belleville at Centennial Secondary School and I came off the line to block my man when I pulled my groin muscle and the pain was excruciating. I wouldn’t class myself as a tough guy but knowing that this could be my last game there was no way I was coming out. Coach Tom Nigro wanted to bench me but I told him I was finishing the game. I think he used a roll and a half of tape to wrap my thigh and back in I went to finish. It hurt like hell and by the end of the game I was in tears but I had to play. I can still remember to this day how painful it was just trying to lift my leg in bed from this injury.
Next it was an injury that ended my baseball playing days. It was the Wednesday Night fun league in town and as I swung the bat I felt a pop in my left hand and the intense pain quickly followed on the follow through. I knew I had broken something. I tried to finish the game but it hurt to just catch the baseball so I had to pack it in. After I had x-rays taken I had a visit with my family doctor and he told me it wasn’t broken but I had pulled or torn something. I insisted that he was wrong despite the x-rays showing no break. He decided to send me for an MRI to be sure and the technician and I could see the broken bone right away. I love it when I’m right but this was bitter sweet. It was called the Ken Griffey Jr. injury since he had done the exact same thing. It hurt to golf as well so you can imagine how angry I was when I was two years from the time of diagnosis until I finally had the operation to remove the floating piece of bone in my wrist. At least I was left with a cool mean looking scar.
My latest injury is in my left foot. I was out golfing a couple of weeks ago when I took a step following my second shot of the round and felt another pop in my foot. Despite the pain I was able to finish my round and didn’t do too bad considering I was hitting off my back foot the rest of the round. I eventually went to the hospital and had x-rays which found a fracture in one bone but more likely the pain was coming from torn or badly pulled ligaments. Either way, it’s still very uncomfortable and I have yet to hear anything from my family doctor on this one. Perhaps I’ll have to force his hand again and make the correct diagnosis before anything is done to fix this problem.So as you can see I haven’t had as many injuries as some but I have had my share and I can honestly say…they all suck.
No comments:
Post a Comment