Too Fast, Crash, Disaster!

This is what it sounds like when doves cry ...

I have been moving things around at the house to accommodate the new TV in my bedroom. Wednesday (April 9th) saw a Cat6 ethernet cable and Xbox 360 VGA cable delivered to the house. I relocated my Xbox to my bedroom and then connected it to the new TV with the VGA cable to get the best resolution the 360 will offer. I also plugged into the router using the 100 foot long Cat6 cable, so that I could go online and not worry about losing my connection. Once I had the TV hooked up the way I wanted, I turned to the assortment of clothes all over my room. As a person whose weight has slid up and down the scale, I have clothes in various sizes in the house. I even have new clothes that I have bought myself as a reward for future weight loss. The biggest problem with all this is that I am a tremendous pack rat. I have way more clothes than I have space for clothes at this point. My cousin Liz tried to help me out with this problem a couple of years back by making me a lovely blanket from twelve of my UK t-shirts. The blanket looks great, but I am getting back into the problem she noticed with too many clothes that I can not currently wear and no place to store them. So the clothes end up stuffed in every closet in the house and occasionally stacked on a bed, couch or even the floor. I was in the process of cleaning up some of this mess during the wee hours of the Thursday morning when I noticed it was almost 5AM. Every Thursday morning, a group of guys from work get together and play basketball in Georgetown before work. For the last eighteen months, I’ve been asked to join them in their 6AM game. I made it cleat that the game was way too early for me and never gave them hope that I might show up. With the insomnia and the workouts, I had some extra energy to burn and was interested in playing some basketball again. I got a bag together with work clothes and headed out to the Pavilion in Gtown. I had planned to make my arrival a surprise, but the place was harder to find in the dark than I imagined. I ended up calling my coworker Derek to get final directions and showed up just in time for the game to start. This week’s theme was Superheroes versus Super villains. Each player was to pick a character from a movie and use that name throughout the game. I chose the honorable badass Mace Windu of the Jedi Council. There were four of us on the heroes’ side of the equation and three villains. The villains were my boss (Jeff) and coworker (Derek) and a TMMK specialist (Joe), all of which were capable of shooting the long ball. Derek is quick, so I renamed his Scott Evil character to Evil Flash. The heroes included a TMMK specialist (Charles), another coworker (Les), one of Joe’s friends (Audra) and me. Les is a couple of years older than the mean age, but he has a nice height advantage. Charles was our speed guy and Audrey would scrap with anyone (including a nice dive on the floor). I was planning on making an impact in the paint, but was not as productive as I would have liked. The first game was very competitive and went way beyond twenty-one. The score was tied at twenty-six all when the rules were changed from win-by-four to win-by-three. Charles immediately popped a three-point field goal to end the game. Everyone was relieved that the game was over and took rest and beverage breaks. We started the next game and Audra scored the first six points. The villains were still scoreless when I got a rebound and was preparing to bring the ball up court. Joe stayed behind on defense, so I made a quick move to get around him. I got past him and began to head up court to take advantage of the four on two numbers advantage. The next thing I know, I was falling on the ground. I felt like I had been kicked in the back of the leg and knew immediately that something was wrong. I crawled to the bleachers and tried to assess the situation. I knew there was an attachment at back of my left ankle that was mushy because it was no longer there. I was awkwardly helped to the elevator and then to my car. I drove to the Urgent Treatment Center in Georgetown and found they would not open for two more hours. I headed home and called my Mom to see if she could help me get to the emergency room. My Mom and Aunt Irene took me to Central Baptist ER and they looked things over and told me I would probably need surgery for an Achilles rupture. The nurse put a splint on my left leg before discharging me with a new set of crutches. I had an appointment the next day to see Dr. Michael Kirk, an orthopedic surgeon. He examined me and told me about my choices of a cast versus surgery. He explained the odds of re-injury were much higher in the case of a cast. I opted for the surgery and it was scheduled for Thursday April 17th. I was told to elevate my leg 95% of the time between now and then as well as ice on and off to reduce the swelling. I have my leg on a stack of pillows and only get on my feet to get food/drink, change the ice pack or use the bathroom. I am only sleeping a couple of hours a night even with the help of a lortab. My blood pressure is high due in part to the anxiousness that I feel about this coming week. Hopefully, things will start to calm down and I can get some sleep. In the meantime, I’m trying to enjoy some 360 games that I haven’t had a chance to get to and some movies that I’ve been waiting to see. It feels strange staying in bed as much as I have recently, but the doctor says I need to get the swelling down or they can’t perform the surgery. The elevation is also to help prevent a blood clot from forming in my leg that could kill me. So good times in the old town tonight.