a self-portrait of Michele, Barb, and me in the snow before the last game

Barb tramps throw the snow to the rink

we get a scoring chance
(that's not me on the left; it's Laura, one of our Canadian subs, wearing my jersey)

Thu gets on her horse as possession changes faster than #4 can react.

Barbara goes for the puck

it worked. :)

14 April 2002
Why didn't I finish writing about the Calgary tournament when I was in Calgary? Mainly because there wasn't much to tell after I got injured. :( Yep, in the first period of our second game, against the Whitecourt Wanna Bs, I suddenly faced a body hurtling toward me on the ice. I don't know whether she dove or fell, but she did it at speed, and I wasn't able to get out of the way in time. She took my legs out (and my stick), and I fell hard on my right side.

I felt the pain in my hip immediately, and hollered. MAN, it hurt! OW, OW, OW, OW!!! One of the women on the other team was a doctor, so she came over and started poking me, while everyone else kept asking, "is it your knee?" I started to wonder if anyone had actually seen me HIT THE ICE. Hello? That stuff is HARD, especially in Canada (the ice up there is great, as long as you stay on your skates). The doctor poked my knee (does it hurt here? no.), pushed the back of my thigh (does it hurt here? no.), and then squeezed my hip (AIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!).

Finally somebody helped me up and off the ice. Trevor then hurriedly tried to figure out what to do; we only had 9 skaters left. As soon as he was done sorting out the lines, I asked him to get me some ice. I stood on the bench and iced my hip for a while, then went into the locker room to try to move around. It hurt so bad that I just sat in there and cried for a while. When I came back out to the bench, the buzzer rang, and I realized that the third period was starting. There was no way I was going to make it back into the game, so I changed into my street clothes. At this point, I realized that my shoulder was injured, too. It was extremely painful getting my shirt and sports bra off; I couldn't lift my arm over my head. Meanwhile, my hip was BURNING.

After the game I made it as far as the lobby under my own power, and then my hip started to burn so bad that tears sprang into my eyes again. Trevor decided I should go to the hospital for xrays. I tried getting into the back seat of his rental car, but couldn't make it. (It turned out that it would have been much easier to get in on the driver's side, but that was farther away.) I got stuck trying to wedge myself in. The rink people called an ambulance, and I rode in that to the hospital.

We Americans have always heard that because health care in Canada is free (for Canadians, anyway), the service sucks. It really wasn't that bad, though. Everybody was nice, and I only had to wait about 2 hours to be seen by a doctor and xrayed—and I got to wait in a hospital bed the whole time, rather than in the waiting room. That, I think, was the best thing for me; just sitting still for a while gave the bruise time to develop, which diffused the pain a bit. The xrays came back negative, indicating that nothing was broken. Thank god.

I was able to get dressed (though not without swearing profusely) and go back to the hotel. This time I got in the front seat, which was easier than the back. A couple hours later I was able to walk almost normally (though my stride was somewhat shortened), and we went back for the tournament banquet. By this time, the bruise was huge, dark purplish red, and ugly. And I couldn't reach for the corn chips on the table with my right hand.

So here we are, a week later. I missed my hockey game last Monday, and I'm going to miss tomorrow's too. My hip is still really sore to the touch, but the bruise is mostly light yellow now, with some brownish-purple around the edges. What really hurts is my shoulder. For the first few days I got a little more mobility each day, but the pain never went away. It basically hurts all the time, and then more sharply when I try to reach for things or hold anything over my head. I'm going to an orthopedist for a follow-up appointment on Tuesday; hopefully he'll be able to tell me what's up... and more importantly, when I can play again!