Friday, December 07, 2007

Adding Injury to Insult

Mark sprained his ankle at the basketball game last night. He was going for the jump ball, and after the tip-off, he came down and landed on a guy's foot, rolling his ankle. We didn't notice at first, then I saw he was limping, and his coach noticed and called a time-out for injury. I had thought the limp might be related to his knee or shins (he was complaining last week that his shins hurt...he hadn't been stretching properly, fool), but it wasn't.

We got him some ice and someone taped his ankle (not a great job, but it was done...poor Mark, it was adhesive sports tape and when I removed it later, he lost quite a bit of hair on his leg). I gave him an Advil (always carry those around with me, along with some Xanax, which I did not offer). He decided to go back into the game and play. That lasted not long. At. All. He wasn't able to really put any weight on it, and was in some obvious pain, so I told coach to pull him back out. Mark stretched his leg out on the bleachers behind his teammates for the rest of the game, icing off and on.

Today he went to school with my crutches (readjusted for his height) and an adjustable lace-up brace (boy, do I ever have the gear to handle an ankle injury...it's even the same ankle). He didn't prop his foot up on a chair like I told him to, and he tried to push it during the day, and when he came home his ankle was a little puffier than this morning. Natural, I know, but I had hoped it would heal faster...Mark usually heals freakishly fast.

He is DEVASTATED at the idea of missing the playoffs next week (Wednesday is quarterfinals). He lost so much of his season last year because of his thumb, he doesn't want to miss one single minute due to injury, and he missed pretty much the whole game yesterday. The team lost by 18 points, and we can't help but wonder if having Mark out there with the other experienced guys would have helped any. Not that I think that Mark playing would have meant a win for the boys, but maybe just a smaller point spread.

Anyway. It remains to be seen if he will be able to play. If he treats it right for the next couple of days, and does his wonder-healing thing, and we tape it up properly, he might be able to play Wednesday. Maybe. I don't want him to play on it if it's even remotely still injured, but the swelling doesn't really look that bad, and there's no discoloration, so maybe it'll be okay.

*************
OK. My son is SUCH a freak. I was just checking his ankle before I sent him off to bed, and putting a light compression wrap on it (the swelling is almost gone), and he decided to try again putting some weight on it. (Mind you, this morning he was unable to do this at all.) He faltered for the first step, then did better, then started walking pretty close to normally.

He is up in his room walking back and forth putting his clothes away, humming. I had to almost physically restrain him from attempting to jump up and touch the ceiling to see how that went (Mark can touch a point about 8'9" high when he jumps....my ceilings have no chance against him. I had to measure against my parents' Victorian ceilings, and he can almost touch their crown molding).

So. We'll see how it goes, but it's looking favorable for basketball next week. (the cautious injury-prone person who is just now recovering from her own ankle catastrophe is still whispering "CAUTION CAUTION CAUTION". ok, maybe not whispering.) mk

No comments: