No Place Like Home

If you are living under a rock and haven't heard that Catazon broke her ankle at Houston Roller Derby's Sixth Bout, then here's your news fix. Now that I finally got my PC moved to the living room and I can lounge in my recliner and type in my lap, I can personally share the whole story.

I am awaiting surgery to repair the compound fracture in my left ankle. In the ninth jam of the sixth bout of the season Sunday night, I got stuck on the rope lights while trying to cut inside to avoid a block. I would have avoided that block if I hadn't felt something funny and looked down to see my foot going one way and my ankle bones going the other. At the time, I thought well, hey, they can just pop that back in place like I did with my pinky finger when I was playing football and an errant pass dislocated it. We just popped it back in, taped it, and I kept on playing. Have I ever mentioned that I'm one of those people that doesn't even need alcohol to feel like I'm ten-foot-tall and bulletproof? Anyway, I figured out real quick that that wasn't what was going to happen when I looked to my right and saw the faces of the people sitting on the sidelines. So I just fell back, picked up my leg, and pointed at it so the paramedics could see what we were dealing with.

About twenty minutes later, I was about to take my first ambulance ride ever. On the way out on the stretcher, I have never heard so many cheers in my life. I commented that this was better than winning, because when I win, I get booed. Then it started to hurt, and it wasn't much fun after that. I stayed in the ER until 5:00 a.m., where they tried to set it four times and then told me I couldn't go home until I had surgery. I waited until Wednesday for surgery, when they told me that they couldn't operate because I had an oozing abrasion and they didn't want to risk infection. I told them to get me home somehow so they attached an external fixator to my leg on Thursday, and I escaped that night. My original surgeon told me on Friday that he didn't want to see me again until next Friday, so I called another surgeon. He'll see me on Monday and will hopefully operate soon after that. See, I'm trying to get to Austin on September 3rd to join the travel team that I was supposed to captain in my first inter-league bout. My determination is one of my greatest strengths, and a foot that flops around at the bottom of my leg does not abate it.

The one thing that everyone asks is whether or not I will skate on it again. I have no doubt that I will be able to skate again, but whether I want to or not is the question. I never planned to skate more than one year. A FULL YEAR, and travel at least once. Those goals were not achieved, and neither was the goal of not affecting my family in an adverse way. Do I ever want to put them through something like this again? This story is just beginning, so stay tuned over the next couple of months...