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Serious Knee Injury |
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Today is the 17th of February. Yesterday was P-day. We went to go play basketball as a district at a nearby outdoor court. But, unfortunately we had an incident: We had the game started...the battle of companionships, Anz. Perry and I were getting warmed up waiting for our turn to strike and take the lead. I passed it in, Anz. Perry made a couple attempts to get into good position, finally passing back to me when none were presented.
I made a quick drive to the basket and stopped short for a jumper. The ball arched high and true through the air - My heart was beating with excitement of a point scored. As the ball descended from its arch, my attention was suddenly called to a sharp pain in my knee. The lower half of my right leg landed a little at an angle with the ground, while the upper part (along with the rest of my body) was still straight.
This caused a high amount of stress to be applied to the knee joint. This stress instantaneously caused the joint to slide to the side and out of socket. Finally resulting in a high level of pain. I immediately shifted the weight to my left leg - (so as to relieve the stress) and the joint popped back into socket.
Then I sat down on the ground to assess the situation. It was hard for me to think over the level of pain assaulting me from my knee, and also over the volume of my cries of discomfort. Finally I got a hold of myself and felt a certain level of calm.
I rested for a bit, thinking, and finally got up and walked a bit. The range of motion was severely limited and the knee was unable to support much weight. Needless to say...that ended our basketball outing.
Now for the implications of this injury...I can hardly walk, and when I do, it is through much pain. Anz. Perry and I had an apptmnt that night, so I had to walk down to the bus stop - and to the church. After that I had to traverse the giant hill to get back to the apartment. It was slightly painful.
It was surprisingly easy to sleep last night, although I did wake up once feeling a lot of pain from the knee. I've been keeping it elevated w/ice - and it hasn't swollen up much because of it, but I'm sure it'll be black and blue soon enough.
Today I'm in the emergency room with Anz Bowen on splits to see what the Italian highly efficient medical staff has to say. I've been waiting for almost an hour and expect to have to wait many more.
I never realized how high my desire is to do this work until it had been practically taken from me. This, sincerely, SUCKS....big time. I'm a missionary, I'm supposed to be doing the work of the Lord, full time, not stuck in bed or hospitals - hindering the work of the whole district. It is very upsetting - and frustrating - I just hope I heal fast, and it's not too serious. I know the Lord understands though, and will help me get through this.
But there is something else that is also on my mind. I finally received a letter from Carrie this morning...after a month. This letter SUCKS. I thought they couldn't get any worse than the last one, but this one strikes upon new heights of suckiness. It's one page - typed - with absolutely nothing interesting. All it serves for me is to know that she's still alive.
She says the same exact thing in every letter: 1) School: hard - I study all the time - 2) Friends: I love my roommates, they're great - 3) Other friends - she has them = 4) Some lame quote (quote = attempt to enlighten or add flavor to the letter...result = LAME.) 5) <3 Carrie
What made this particular one so lame was that she mentions dating - big no - either don't mention it at all (preferred) or at least explain it if you do mention it. This is unacceptable: "Dating is always interesting...but I'm sure you don't want to hear about that." Then why'd you mention it? And to top it all off: "You're a good guy Nick, I like you [smiley face] <3 Carrie" ---->????
This has got to be one of the most retarded sentences ever written by a girl to a missionary - especially in our particular situation. Maybe I'm not understanding this correctly - but, if I ever wrote that sentence to someone, this is what I would be trying to say with it:
"That's nice that we had some time together before you mission, but now I don't have any feelings whatsoever for you and am just too chicken to come out and say it, so I will subject you to a slow painful process in which I will be nice and pretend something (almost) tat I don't really feel just because I don't want to be mean or offend you because that would make ME the bad person, so instead I put up this front and do the absolute minimum possible and just hope that all these things just solve themselves and somehow magically disappear."
But I'm not sure...amd I reading into this a bit? [smiley face]
But honestly...what the heck is going on with this girl? I'd rather get no mail from her than these pale attempts at correspondence. It's a disappointment EVERY time.
Here's something funny: I just got called into the doctor's room to get checked out. This is what happened: I sat on the table, one of the two emergency personnel guys came up - shoved his hand into my knee and said: "fa molto male?" And I said "Si" so they wrote down some stuff and sent me to get an X-ray. Now I'm sitting here waiting for them to call me in for my X-ray. I've been here for about 1/2 hour already. Italy is very disorganized.
I sent Carrie a postcard for Valentine's day and also our 1-year anniversary. It had a very cheesy picture of an Italian couple riding bikes - on the back I wrote a very cheesy poem. It was very funny - but sweet. She didn't send me anything. |
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