Surviving The Chaos: Idaho Part 9

I usually take the summer off from playing tennis but because my team was going to sectionals in August, I wanted to make sure that I got a little bit of practice in while I was gone. I found a great country club facility and picked a couple of drills classes to attend. The first one was a women's 3.5 class and it was awesome! I had a really really good practice, felt great about my form and shots and was feeling pumped to have played so well after being off the courts for a month.

The second class I went to was a mixed intermediate class on a Saturday morning. It was early and quite cold and I didn't feel like I was playing my best - frankly I was still waking up. About an hour into the class during a game, I went up for a shot that I realized was going to be long so I pulled myself down, out of my jump, and I landed wrong on my ankle. Really wrong. I immediately felt a pulling sensation wrap around my ankle, over the top of my foot and out to my toes. It. Hurt. So. Badly. I fell right to the ground and couldn't get up. The first thought to cross my mind was, I can't believe this just happened. So stupid. I have sectionals in three weeks!

After being helped off the court by a couple of male players, I sat on a bench and realized my foot was already swelling. Another player ran and got me ice and I began icing and elevating right away. I called Rick to come pick me up because I knew I couldn't drive home...it was my right foot, I couldn't bend it down and the pain was making me nauseous.

About 20 minutes after we got home, a neighbor, who happens to also be a doctor that treats ISU athletes, came over to the house to take a look at it for me. He suspected it was a bad sprain and that I should get an x-ray after a couple of days just to be sure. I was laid up that entire weekend - icing and elevating it. I had to use crutches because any weight on it at all caused an incredible amount of pain. I did get an x-ray and it wasn't broken. As suspect, it was a bad sprain. I had no idea a sprained ankle came with so much pain. After a couple of days I had some nasty bruising along the side of my foot, around the ankle and at my toes. I was on crutches up until we got to the airport five days later to board our flight to Seattle for our cruise. I know it's never a good time to be injured but the timing on this one was especially terrible.

It's now been seven weeks and it's still not healed. The doctor said it could take up to a year for it to really heal properly and even then it will never be the same. I managed all of these years to never get any major sports injury - I couldn't believe it happened by such a simple dumb move during a tennis drills class. I did end up playing at sectionals (more to come on that in another post) but haven't started the new season because of the injury. Still hoping it gets better really soon!