Moving on Over

If you want to read about Adventures in Refereeland, I'm here now:

Baby Ref Queenie

If a skater posts an update and no one reads it, is it still and update?

I suppose at this point this is more for my benefit than anything.

Inching ever closer to being back on skates (36 days, not like I'm COUNTING OR ANYTHING).  

I am one of three coaches for Fresh Meat now, which so far has been a lot of fun.  (We've only had one session so far.)  Twenty people came, hopefully they will stick around!

NSOing is going well; I'm actually going to be scorekeeping a real official bout on Saturday!  Eep!

so, yeah

the doctor appointment went very well; they did say I should wait the six months before going back on skates, but I was expecting that. 

the season starts up again this week; hip hip hooray!

making the switch

so so far in NSO land during scrimmages I have been a scorekeeper twice and penalty timer once.  (and I literally mean once.  I had ONE skater come into the box.)

The travel team I was on just won the All 8 On the Floor Tournament.  I really wish I could've been there skating, as I spent the vast majority of my playing career thinking "Why can't B teams go to tournaments, why do the charter teams get all the glory".

Today (in less than an hour) I have a followup appointment with Shoulder Doc and Nurse Practitioner.  I really hope they say "you can start skating again", though I am not very optimistic.  A few weeks ago NP was like "if you go to the amusement park, you can go on the merry-go-round and that's about it, unless you want to risk re-injuring your shoulder."  Which I do not want to do.

Our fresh meat training coach is retiring and the league is looking for a replacement.  I sent out feelers for anyone else who might be interested in a co-coaching thing.  I am a horrible teacher, but (I think, anyway) that I'm good at strategy and rules and can help out there.

So, yeah.

I was asked to submit my resignation in LEGO form

I started to lose it about three skaters before I was supposed to be introduced.

Then the announcer skipped me in the listing so that I would be introduced last.

Then I completely lost it.

The other team also awarded me Most Valuable Blocker even though I didn't play.

I love my league so much.

So yeah. Hi.

Tomorrow is the last bout of the season; I asked to be honorarily rostered (since it's not an official game, just a mixup of skaters into two teams, we don't have to limit ourselves to 14) so I can skate intros and whatnot. 

Then, after that, I officially retire as a skater.

I didn't want to end my skating career this way; I wanted to end on a blaze of glory after an amazing win or whatever, not "year of mishaps and surgeries and injuries that led me to not skate at all."  If you don't count the scrimmage we played in February? March? (the one with the screwed up track dimensions) it's been almost exactly one year since I have bouted.

Siiiiiiiiiiigh. 

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But, in happier news - I never talked about the WFTDA conference in Vegas!  OMFG THAT WAS AMAZEBALLS.  I learned so much and had so much fun.  I was the only person from my league who went, so I was kinda worried that I'd be by myself the whole time and all that.  Nope!  I'd go up to a group of skaters and say "hey, can I glom onto you?" and they'd say "SURE!"   One night I was trying to figure out what to do, and I decided I'd walk the Strip (by myself) and I ended up behind a group, and one of them turned around, realized she'd met me earlier in the day and said "Hey, Queenie, wanna come with us to get tacos?" and I was like "YES PLEASE".

So, so much fun.

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I've been studying the rules so I can be a good ref - mostly taking the Roller Derby Test O'Matic and writing down the ones I get wrong.  I have this notebook thing that I've set up for my derby stuff that I carry around with me all the time.  I'm dorkily excited.

it's been a while

but there's really not much to say.  I miss skating and playing.  I go to scrimmage on Thursdays and help bench manage, but it's not the same.

Our team had a bout this past Saturday but I had a bout of food poisoning so I wasn't able to go.  

A week from tomorrow I leave for Vegas for the WFTDA Annual Conference; I'm looking forward to that.

Other than that, I've been brushing up on the rules in anticipation of hopefully becoming a ref.  When I go to practices, I kinda pretend to be a pack ref and do "out of play" and whatnot.  I feel like I've got the rules pretty much under my cap, but it's a matter of accessing them quickly and applying them when necessary that will be the tricky part.  We'll see how it goes.

so here we are

The surgery went well, from what I was told.  I now have three incisions in my shoulder; fortunately they didn't have to cut through any of my tattoos.

It's a bit painful still; the PT sucks and it makes me feel so pathetic.  "Lie down on the floor and use your left hand to raise and lower your right arm" and I can only get up about 3" before it hurts.  Ah well.  I keep plugging away at it and do what I can.

Still haven't found a comfortable sleeping position though.

Going to practice for the first time since surgery - gotta bench manage during the scrimmage.  Not *quite* sure how I'm going to do it; since I need two hands.  We'll see.

T minus 5 days

Last night was my first night officially bench managing.  (Last week it was just a "the first five people on the bench go out" deal.)   

I hadn't bench managed in years - I think the last time I did it was in, like, 2009.  Derby was so different then!  We had people assigned to each particular position!  You play back, you play outside and so on!  It was a lot easier now - just send four people out and they'll figure out where to play.  

At any rate, once I figured out a system that worked for me (one that did not involve calling a lineup that was already out on the track), it went well.  Several people, including the coach, came up to me afterwards and told me what a good job I'd done.  So that's encouraging.

Unfortunately I won't be able to bench manage the team's next bout, as it's three days after my surgery and I will be in a drug-enduced haze or something.

pre-op appointment

(I'm going to be twins with Al Roker!) 

the guy was impressed with my range of motion and strength (yay me?) and said he thought I would be a good candidate for a full recovery.

He also had me try on the sling I'm going to have to wear.  Um.  Four to six weeks* with my right arm strapped across my chest; whee!  Not sure how I'm going to operate a computer; although I'm left handed I use a mouse right-handed.  Whee.

*he said that the number of sutures they have to use to fix the tear will determine how long I have to be in the sling.  

So there's a bout on Saturday - I don't think I mentioned that - (my team isn't playing).  I'm not going, though, doing something with the family.  One of my leaguemates has stepped up to be Box Office Manager, and she's done this before, so I am very grateful to her.   

The night before there's an open Retro Skate at the venue, and I'm going.  I'll skate, too - it'll be my last chance for a long, long while.  I figure as long as no one knocks me down, I'll be ok.  

so it's been a while.

My shoulder has been doing a lot better, and I was like "OMG maybe it got misdiagnosed and I can still play and everything'll be okay!"  

Then yesterday I was reading Cycle of Lies (about Lance Armstrong) and read about him getting (amongst everything else under the sun) cortisone shots, and I remembered "oh yeah, I got a cortisone shot when I went to the doctor.  God dammit."

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The surgery is scheduled for April 16.  I just wanted to get it done and over with.   Six weeks without driving is going to absolutely suck, lemme tell ya.  We'll have to figure out how I'm going to get to work and whatnot.  My friends have stepped forward with getting me to practices, so that's taken care of.

People that I've talked to say that Shoulder Doc Guy is THE guy in our area to see, so that's encouraging.  

Going to the WFTDA conference in May in Vegas will be interesting - cross country travel with my arm in a brace!  Wheeeeeeeeee!

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Our coach has asked me to be the team's bench manager.  I'll miss a few bouts but will be doing that for the remainder of the travel season (end of July/beginning of August).  After that, I'll NSO.

I am supposed to take it easy for six months after the surgery, which puts me at mid-October.  (mid-home season.)    

At that point, I think I am going to try to be a referee.

Everyone I've mentioned this too thinks it's an awesome idea.  We'll see what happens.

Stage 1: Denial, mixed with "this fucking sucks", with a splash of more denial

I don't like being late for doctor's appointments.  I was about ten minutes late to this one; my boss had clients in signing their wills and I had to be a witness.  

I fill out the paperwork (which I've filled out many times before; for knee and ankle and knee again) and after about ten minutes or so, I'm called in.

I get my vitals taken by one technician and then x-rays by another.  Eight all together - four for each shoulder.  (My left one gives me issues, though nowhere near as bad as my right.)  I'm directed to an exam room, where I wait and wait and wait. I joke on Facebook about how they have forgotten me, and then how I'm in exam room #13 and WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE.

Eventually a resident comes in, has me position my arm, tells me to resist pressure he puts on it, analyzes.  Apparently at some point in the past I separated my left shoulder - who knew?

He figures that I've done something to the labrum in my right shoulder (a bunch of cartilege stuff that deepens the ball socket that is one's shoulder), but that he'll have Shoulder Doc Guy come and take a look at it also.

Shoulder Doc Guy comes in, does the same thing.  "You've got a bone spur that's irritating the tendons," he says confidently.  You'll have to do PT, and we'll put you on some inflamatories and give you a cortisone shot.  If it's better after six weeks, you don't need to see me again. If it's not better, we'll give you an MRI." He tells the nurse? technician part 2? that's come in with him to get the ultrasound machine - he just wants to check that before I leave.

She comes back with the machine, puts the goo on my shoulder, and Shoulder Doc Guy starts pushing the wand around, saying "Picture" occasionally.  The nurse? technician part 2? hits a button and the machine beeps.

Eventually he gets to where the major source of my pain is.

"The rotator cuff is torn," he says.

I'm supposed to call tomorrow to schedule my surgery.  After it happens, I'll be in a brace for six weeks.  No driving at all for those six weeks.  No lifting anything heavy for six months.

I asked him if I could still play roller derby, and he said he couldn't recommend it.

So.  I guess that's that, or something.

OMG YOU GUYS

I ran yesterday.  

Voluntarily.

For an extended chunk of time.

I'm not sure what I have and haven't said, but I got a membership to Planet Fitness. It's $10 a month, it's close to my house (and on the way home from work), so I figured it wouldn't be too painful.

I've only been once before in the three weeks or so since I got my membership, so I went yesterday.  I put the Zombies, Run! app on my phone and went to town.

I didn't keep track of my run (because I had the app set to GPS and not accelerometer, and I stopped and started the program on the treadmill a few times), but it was something like 2.25 miles in 25 minutes, YAY ME.  

And I didn't feel horrible or injure myself in any way afterwards!

My ortho appointment for my shoulder is this afternoon.  Hopefully it will go encouragingly.

and things progress

our bout was crazy-well attended, which was awesome.

Practice last night went well; I loaded up on naproxen for my shoulder and it survived.  

I think I finally got hockey stops down (at least the ones where you turn counter-clockwise).  Basically it's like half a plow stop, and it's the planted foot that makes you turn.

I jammed once during the scrimmage part of our practice - the jam was set up as a power jam for the other team, and I sat on the bench with the jammer cover on my head.  When our coach gestured for me to come on the track, I did it so quickly that the other team didn't have time to react until the absolute last second, and I got through relatively easily.

On my scoring pass, I ended up right behind the other jammer.  We both stopped, and she turned around and was trying to be intimidating, getting in my face, and I was like "um, you're not intimidating me" and I basically stood there until she realized it wasn't going to work, and then we made our way through the pack.

On the second scoring pass (we run jams like this so there's no lead jammer, we just go until our coach tells us to stop) I ended up on the outside, about an inch away from the edge of the track.  I managed to get around a player on the other team on my toe stops, step by careful step, staying in bounds, and continued on my merry way.  (This got a lot of compliments.)

(It was at some point during this jamming that I lost the captive bead in my eyebrow piercing.  I should probably switch to a barbell or actually tape it down during practices or something.)

When I got home, and took off my socks, I was greeted with this:

I've never had so many  bruises at one time, much less on my foot, so I can only think it was from those hockey stops.

so it's been a while

I haven't had the best of weeks.  I didn't make the roster for tomorrow's bout, which was frustrating.  Granted, it's only the second time in five and a half years that I haven't made a roster for which I was eligible, and I made the roster for the bout on the 29th, but it still hurt, especially since I now have to spend the home bout doing production stuff, which is nowhere near as exciting as playing.

I've been going to Sunday morning practices.  The leadup to the first one was horrible, culminating in me bursting into tears on about five separate occasions, but it was better last week.  (we don't have practice this Sunday because of the bout, which is nice.)  

Unfortunately, this new-found determination to go to Sunday practices and to not give up on things like this has exacerbated my right shoulder.  I've had shoulder issues for over 15 years now, tendinitis, but I've been able to adapt my life around them.  Now, with pushups and planks and the like, it's gotten a lot worse.  I saw my doctor on Wednesday and he thinks I might have fucked up my rotator cuff.  (I have an appointment with the ortho guy I've seen in the past for my knees (apparently he's King Shoulder Guy) this upcoming Wednesday.  

I swear, it's so frustrating.  I try to do stuff beyond just derby and I end up putting myself out of commission with injuries.  Getting old really sucks.

wheeee

Tuesday night we had a scrimmage against a newer team about an hour away from us.  They practice in a gymnasium and the floor was very very very slick.

I lined for the first jam I was in and was like "whoa.  the track boundaries are wrong."   The jammer line was waaaaay too long; you would have needed at least six blockers to cover it properly.  When we started talking about it; people were like "Yeah, I thought it was just me!"  (We decided that when they set up the track, they tipped the inside oval the wrong way.)  It threw off our muscle memory and we got a lot of track cutting penalties.

We won, though, so that was good.

ow ow ow

so after that instance at scrimmage where I kept falling on my knee and my kneepad slipped, I developed a nice scab on my kneecap.

This morning I managed to rip it off and am back to square one.  Ow, ow, ow.

I need help, or something

our practice space is unavailable for us this week because the kids are on Winter Break, so we did an off-skates practice on Monday, and it went pretty much as expected.


I don't feel better after exercising; I don't get the serotonin/dopamine/whatever flow.  I just feel tired and hungry and bitchy, oh so bitchy.  I spend the entire time going this sucks I could be doing umpteen billion things that are so much more interesting and less painful than this, which sucks. 

I know it's a matter of finding something I enjoy doing.  I mean, I have no problem going to a regular derby practice for two and a half/three hours straight.  Any time I try to do something else, though, I injure myself.  Running?  I screw up my ankle.  Parkour?  I screw up my knee. 

I've had shoulder issues for the last almost 20 years, so trying to do any lifting/whatever just bugs it.

Blaaaaaaaah.

whee?

So I'm officially a member of the B team again; yay! 

Last night was annoying, mostly because my knee pad slid not once, not twice, but THREE TIMES during scrimmage. My knee is all skinned now and it HURTS.  So I am in the market for new pads.

Other than that, I was feeling pretty low energy last night so I was kinda zombie derby.  I did get the jammer to cut me once, which was pretty cool.

so I never have to do that again until next year

fitness and drills last night.  My on-skates fitness slipped only a little bit from last year (86 laps in 15 minutes vs. 87 [which was still better than average from what I was told]; 6.25 laps in 60 seconds v. 3.25 laps in 30 seconds).  I'm pleased with that because I basically did nothing the last five months of the year.  

My off-skates, however, suuuuuuuuuuuucked.  1:23 plank (and my shoulder's still janked up from that) and 51 squats in a minute.  Oh well; now it's just time to wait.

and the fun continues

last night was the first part of my travel team tryout - scrimmage and written test.  I think I did okay on the scrimmage.  The test was interesting - it was multiple choice but I ended up turning every question into an essay, because some of them were strategy questions and I was like "ok, I might do B in a certain situation, or I might do D in a different situation."  One of the questions involved being a jammer in a very dire situation and I wrote "I would question my coach's abilities if he/she put me in as a jammer in such a circumstance."

(I also drew pictures and used the word "easierly".)

So Monday is the skills/fitness part, to which I am not looking forward at all.  Planks make me want to cry.

happy happy!

I scrimmaged yesterday with my knee brace on and it worked!  My knee was fine.  BIG RELIEF.  I think I might need to buy a new brace, though; this one is kinda falling apart and is a little small.

Heard back from the plate company; they want me to send them the plate to see if it would be covered under warranty.  On the one hand, I understand that; on the other, I can't be without my skates for whatever extended period of time it would take them to look at it.

I was trying to deny it by covering it with a thick gloss polyurethane, but

my knee is not better.

Last Thursday after scrimmage I got home and was afraid to walk lest my knee just fail underneath me.

I have one more trick to try (wearing my brace to practice) but if that doesn't work....I've got nothing.

We'll see.

Upcoming stuff and whatnot

ECDX is coming up, and if I want to do a fun challenge bout, I'll have to start thinking about it soon.

Hopefully my team will get one of the non-fun challenge bouts.  (When I say "non-fun", I mean, like, not one of the "stars vs. stripes" or whatever bouts.) 

Scrimmaged last night - jammed twice.  Didn't break the pack either time but I did not stop moving my feet and I did not give up, which I guess counts for something.  I got a bruise on my hand from my wrist guard; ow.

Like I said, ow.

In other news, remember all the trouble I had last year with my left skate plate and my toestop?  IT'S HAPPENING WITH THE RIGHT ONE NOW.  Whee.  I'm gonna have to write to the company. I mean, I love the plates otherwise; they're light and awesome and all that, but it's a pain.

I've been using the small wheels on my skates, too, and it seems to be going pretty well.  I can keep up with the packs and whatnot.  I have a little bit more of an issue with plow stops, but that's nothing that practice won't cure.  My leaguemates are intrigued by them; one friend of mine says they're Fisher-Price wheels.

wheeeeeeee yay

oh derby, I missed you so.

I'm definitely not where I was before, but I'll work on it.

Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay

So yesterday I practiced with the B team; yay!  I definitely should've kept up with off-skates workouts; I could tell I was winded and whatnot. 

I also wasn't as effective as I like to be during scrimmage, but that'll come in time.

IT WAS SO AWESOME TO BE BACK ZOMFG.  I missed having people run into me.  I missed spinning around blockers to get past them. I missed hanging with my friends. 

:)

Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!!!!

I totally lost any sort of fitness I might have had once upon a time
my hip really started to bug me at one point
BUT MY KNEE WAS FINE AND I AM BACK YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY

test

this is just a test, nothing to see here

it's on like the proverbial donkey kong

Doctor thinks it was just a nerve tweak

I AM SO READY FOR JANUARY 12 IT'S NOT FUNNY

well, fuck

this afternoon, after merely standing/sitting at my son's bowling match, my knee started hurting in exactly the same way (and just as bad) as it did back in October after playing in that one scrimmage.

It begins anew (hopefully)

The new season starts on Thursday, the 9th.  I can't skate, though, until I've gone to one new skater practice and proven that I'm not a danger to myself and/or others.  That's on Sunday the 12th.  Hopefully that won't be too much of an issue, and I can start practicing in anticipation of my travel season tryout on Monday the 13th.

My knee's been doing okay; just the occasional flicker of stiffness.  I think if I wear my knee brace while practicing I should be okay.  CROSS ALL THE APPENDAGES.