Physically Phfffft

It's March 2 and I'm already collecting material for my year-end "Lessons Learned in 2011" blog entry. 

Only two months after submitting my December 30, 2010 blog (which included a segment about learning a lesson after getting hurt in phy-ed class) and I've done it again. This time it wasn't eighth-grade boys - it was high school girls.

I didn't see the errant floor hockey puck flying toward me from the other side of the gym until it was under my foot.  My body, while in the process of converting itself from a vertical, full-speed running motion into a horizontal, motionless fetal position, attempted to self-diagnose the loud "snap" it heard a millisecond earlier. 

The sound might've come from either my cuboid or tarsal bone as they converted themselves from two pieces into five. Or that of the ligament which instantly disconnected itself from my foot - taking with it a chunk of the bone to which it was formerly attached.

After fitting me with a walking boot cast to immobilize my right foot, the podiatrist remarked how "lucky" I was.  The bone surrounding the attachment point of a tendon near the ball of my foot also started to break.  Fortunately, it remained attached.  If it hadn't, I risked a lifetime of discomfort and improper foot function.

I considered myself "lucky" my foot was hurt bad enough to warrant wearing a cast. Never mind a possible lifetime of disability - if I was sent home with only an ace bandage and an ice pack, my students would never let me live down the spectacle I made of myself - flopping around the gym floor, caterwauling like an infant.

For the remainder of the school year I intend to be only as physical active as needed to carry a clipboard and a whistle.  Or until I make my December 31, 2011 blog entry.  ~L