The first time I snow boarded, I was hooked. I'd never felt so free; just me and the mountain. I had a two day pass at a resort near Lake Tahoe. The conditions were excellent. The first day was rough as I was still learning how to keep my face out of the snow but by the second day, I was keeping up with, and in some cases passing my more practiced friends. I learned the hard way that when snowboarding, you never call, "last run." It's bad luck to tell the mountain you're leaving. I never got the memo, so I called, "last run" and ventured down the mountain at breakneck speed, or break-back speed in my case. I saw the ramp in time to go around but I was having a good day and I had clearly forgotten that it was Sunday. I hit the ramp full on and attempted to perform a trick that didn't yet exist and for good reason. As I flew through the air in a tangled mass of limbs and rented equipment, I realized much too late that I had rotated in a horrible direction. My hypothesis was verified when I hit the hard packed landing area spine-first. Immediately after the impact, I would have sworn my lower back had a roaring bon fire on it but the pain was partially masked by the rage I felt for letting Sunday do it to me again. In a sea of white powder, I saw only red as I forced myself to my feet, collected my equipment and staggered down the hill yelling every profanity I could think of and inventing a few more along the way. The two hour drive to the hospital was excruciating. It felt as if I'd been shot in the lower back with a rabid piranha. X-rays revealed a hairline fracture of the 4th lumbar vertebra but more than that, I had completely annihilated the muscle tissue at the point of impact. Question: What everyday activities involve lower back muscles? Answer: Every single, last one of them. Months went by before I could walk straight, and even as I type this, I can still feel the shadow of that awful injury; it's how Sunday reminds me of its victory.
At the age of 21, I threw a party on a Saturday night and thought I was safe but the wiser readers will realize, just like I did, that the problem with Saturday is that it's immediately followed by Sunday, and any party worth having, will surely spill over into that damned, dark day of torment. Such was the case when a friend of mine named Sean challenged me to a wrestling match in my living room. Sean is a short guy and he's never wrestled a day in his life, so I put him down with relative ease and assumed that would be that; I figured wrong. When I took Sean down, I landed across his body with my abdomen over his face but more to the point, my ribs were over his chin. When the rest of the party decided to dog pile us, the weight drove my ribs straight into Sean's chin and well past the audible and very painful "pop!" made by my rib as it fractured ever so slowly. When the pile dispersed, I was left breathless, clutching my ribs on the floor. I decided that sleep was more important than medical attention, so I had a few friends help me to my room so I could pass out in pain. As I lay on my bed, I glanced over at the clock; it was 12:12am. I went into a rage and began throwing everything I could reach. My girlfriend at the time told me I was crazy and tried to calm me down but she didn't understand; there was a day trying to kill me. I remember trying to explain it to her but it came out exactly like one would probably imagine; I sounded like a damn crazy person. She left me to my ranting and as she exited the room in anger, she looked back at me and said, "You know, you're going to die alone." She slammed the door before I could answer, "And you can bet the farm it'll be on a Sunday!"
When I was honorably discharged from the military, I bought a motorcycle. (If you, the reader, find yourself yelling at your monitor and calling me a moron, I'll understand but please, keep reading; it gets better.) The idea was to save money on gas during my marathon daily commute from my apartment, to work and to school. In total, I averaged 6 hours a day on the road, five days a week. I look back on that time with a scowl and a sore posterior. Prior to my first day of school, I wanted to find out just how long it would take me to get to the campus. So I took a leisurely Sunday ride to college. I remember almost running a yellow light but stopping myself because, after all, it was Sunday. I knew it was Sunday because my mom always calls me on Sunday to remind me it's Sunday... for obvious reasons. So I stopped at the light and waited my turn. The light turned green and I accelerated smoothly around a gradual right hand turn. At the apex of the turn, I saw a maroon Dodge Caravan exiting a parking lot. I made eye contact with the driver just like they teach you in motorcycle school. He looked right at me, waited until I was about to pass him and then pulled out into my lane and stopped. I didn't even have time to hit the brakes. I hit the minivan centerline on the front axle and the momentum sent me flying over the van and clear of the accident. I did one complete revolution and landed with a thud on my back about thirty feet down the road. I laid there for a few seconds before assessing the damage I'd done. I started by moving my toes and legs, then my hands and arms, and then my neck. I didn't feel any serious damage but the damage I did feel was in the immediate vicinity of my 4th lumbar vertebra. "Of course it is!" I screamed inside my helmet. The driver ran over and asked me if I was okay. I don't remember my exact choice of words but I think I told him to go fornicate with himself. When I stood up, I pulled my helmet off and examined it for cracks. There wasn't a scratch on it... but then I saw my bike, and noticed it was a good foot and a half shorter than it ought to be. Seeing my brand new Suzuki lying there hemorrhaging oil and brake fluid pained me and I spiked my pristine, unscratched helmet on the concrete. I didn't have any broken bones but once again, the muscle tissue around my lower back was destroyed. Sunday, the bastard, was toying with me and poking sticks at old wounds. In utter contempt and disregard for my own safety, I immediately bought another motorcycle and proceeded to put 14 thousand miles on it in less than a year and amazingly, without incident.
By the time I was 26, I'd become an excellent snowboarder. I wasn't so much into tricks and big-air jumps but I could really ride. A good friend and I try to make it to the mountain as often as possible, even if that means boarding at night. The problems with boarding at night are; you can't see, obviously, and the snow that has melted during the day begins to freeze in the absence of solar energy. It was the first problem that got me...followed immediately by the second problem. It was around 8pm on a very frigid Sunday and I was going down an iced embankment that leveled out near the bottom, or so I thought. Near the bottom was a two foot drop that I simply did not see. When I tried to make a smooth transition from slope to flat, Sunday whispered in my ear, "You're forgetting Newton's first law of motion, sweet pea." I caught an edge when I dropped those two sneaky feet and when a person catches an edge on a snowboard, the edge acts as a force multiplier so it flicked me into the ground, or in this case, the ice, hard and fast like a cold booger. "Crunch" was the sound my left shoulder made as my A/C (Acromioclavicular) joint became my A/C gap. I had a grade II A/C sprain. The problem with the A/C joint is that if it doesn't heal right, it can cause lasting shoulder pain. And since the A/C joint in question was my A/C joint, I knew that it wouldn't heal correctly. I was right, and Sunday is still a jerk face.
I survived 6 years of football and 4 years of wrestling, not counting freestyle, without a single injury. At the age of 29, my wife convinced me to try soccer. (If you've read this far into my hazardous existence, you already know how I feel about soccer, so I'll spare you the refresher.) As it happens, I'm very not-bad at soccer. I can't handle the ball worth a damn but I turned out to be a hell of a defender. I never had a desire to play goalie. It looked too boring to me. I like to run and I'm fast, so why sit there in a weird shirt and Mickey Mouse gloves trying to look interested? The last game of the season was a wet one but not as wet as it would have been had we played on Saturday like we normally do. There it is; you see what I'm talking about? There's no escaping it. Our game was rescheduled for the following day, Sunday, and naturally, our goalie had previous engagements. So I was bullied into the silly shirt and goofy gloves. This lasted for about three minutes. The largest man I had ever seen on a soccer field was dribbling the ball with his head down, straight at me. I knew how this was going to end. I could see Sunday sitting on the sideline laughing at me; laughing and pointing. He was daring me to make the save, and being the moron I am, I dove head first at the ball and collided with the big man. I made the save but I also separated my A/C joint but lucky me, this time, it was my right shoulder, you know, the one I damaged all those years ago wrestling? The irony here is I was already slated to have surgery on my right shoulder to repair the damage from my wrestling days. I was one week away from an arthroscopic rotator cuff repair and a subacromial decompression. But now, I had to wait for my A/C joint to heal, and of course, it didn't heal right. A month later I had the surgery and instead of a complete success, I got a partial success and a nagging pain that may never, ever go away. Meanwhile, back in hell, Sunday laughs his sadistic butt off.
