TMI from Uncle Gimpster

I highly doubt that anyone is really interested in the details of my (or anyone else's) injury, but it's pretty much all I've got going on right now, so read on if you like. Not quite two days since getting hurt, there's not that much clarity. My calf is noticeably swollen, which indicates a real injury, but it's not black and blue, which means it's probably not a tear. Aside from the walking very slowly thing, the biggest problem at the moment is that if I don't keep my leg elevated it swells more.

I've had stuff like this before. I once played in a weekend-long softball tournament with a pulled quad and then woke up Monday morning with my right thigh twice the size of my left. A calf strain is a different problem, because there's no room to swell on that part of the body and so if swelling is attempted it pulls the skin over my shin so tight that it feels like it's on fire. I'm already trying to picture myself teaching and keeping my right leg 3 feet off the ground at the same time. I'm not sure what it'll look like but I'll definitely want the video.

Part of the problem with getting hurt at my advanced age is that you start to lose the total confidence that whatever you hurt will get better. When you're young, you just assume that something will hurt for a while and then eventually will heal and you'll forget about it. When you're older, there's always the sneaking suspicion that whatever hurt this is will never go away.

We don't come by this conclusion randomly. A few years ago my shoulder was aching even though I hadn't injured it in any way. I asked my doctor why my shoulder hurt and he replied,"Because you didn't die when you were 40." I tore a muscle in my back over 20 years ago and though I rarely notice it, if I lift something too heavy the wrong way, it still barks at me.

It's not the worst thing in the world. It makes you more careful and gives you incentive to take better care of yourself. But unfortunately it makes you re-examine what you're doing whenever you hurt yourself. I'm not going to stop skiing or anything. I'm a good, careful skier and it was a freak injury that will probably heal 100 or 99%, so though I'm probably done for what passes as this ski season, I'll be back at it next year.