A very derby weekend

So two weekends ago was very derby-eventful:

Hehe, Mouse with a mouse. I am so funny sometimes.
(Photo: Bettie Lockdown)

Thursday was the league's Trunk or Treat at the skate rink. Basically all this means is we do Halloweeny stuff and give out candy to the local kids. I can't say that this event is a great success, since there's usually a godawful low turnout of children (well, the rink is kinda far away from everything really), but I got to eat a shit load of candy bars and pixie sticks. And I revived the pikachu outfit but this time it was family friendly and I was sober (but full of sugar).

Halloween is also the anniversary of my munty hand injuries. One year later, my fingers are still slightly crooked and still require physical therapy. Good times.

Friday was a party at Pumpkin's house. Pumpkin is my Team Pie collaborator here at NRV. She is super artsy and makes awesome food. So a party at hers means a shit load of awesome food and lots of nice homemade arts and crafts things. A bunch of people from the league showed up (in costume!!) and I learned about some awesome American cultural practices like this totally INSANE game where you wear oven mitts and punch open boxes (yes, WTF!) and then we did things like drink a lot of booze and play spooky bingo.

Arrak-Kiss and I wanted to play a geography game where people would have to list the states in Australia (given that I get shit for not knowing where ANYTHING is in the US, I thought it'd be nice to reciprocate), but we had maps of Australia and Canada and I didn't even know Canada looked like how it did until someone pointed out that I was looking at a map of Canada. MEGA FAIL. :P But it was a super fun night, yay.

Okay, seriously, how the fuck was I supposed to know? :P

Then Saturday was pre-bout day! The B-team had a bout out in WV, and a few of us decided to take Beth's RV and go camping the night before. Hell, it was more like GLAMping--this RV is the fucking shit. It was super fancy and had a TV with cable and a fancy kitchen and oven and running water and everything. It was seriously good fun and an awesome team bonding experience.

FANCY SHIZ YO! (Note presence of TV)

And we got to have fire-roasted bananas and smores for breakfast the next day! How fucking fancypants is that, really!

Fucking breakfast of champions!
(Probably not really, because too much chocolate = crash)

And finally, Sunday was bout day! We had a lazy morning (complete with smores--see above), showered, played with some of the native wildlife (well, some of us wanted to throw grasshoppers in to the fire... :/), then we packed up the RV, and then headed over to the Civic Center in Charleston for some bout prep. There's an entry about it here, but this was basically the pinnacle of an awesomely derbylicious weekend. Yeah. That felt good.

Post Tax Smackaroo

So Post Tax was this weekend. There were four womens' teams and three co-ed ones. I just did the women's bout; I think co-ed is something I'll need to work up to.

Psycho, Maluvicen, Caboose and Iron Man get cute little
MVP trophies and also calendars from the SPCA for
being awesome at the co-ed bout finals.

Overall it was fun; I saw some people again that I met at Beatings last year, and met some new skaters too. Anyway, it turned out that most of the people on my team were relatively new. In our first bout, it turned out that only one person said that they jammed regularly, although we had a few "I'll jam if I have to" people. I think I was one of those, but maybe more to the "I'm okay jamming" side. So, as a result of that, I was given the jammer panty for the first jam of the first bout. I was a bit like O_o.

O_o turns to :O very quickly when the jam whistle goes.
(Photo credit: Albert Hartley aka Mr. Whip)

But when the benchie gives you the panty, you take it and you put it on your helmet. So there I was, jamming in the starting lineup. I didn't get lead, and I think I got hit a bit and fell. But I made it through the pack. Yay! I jammed a few more times that bout, although I did get boxed twice. The first was for "taking a knee to avoid a hit" which seriously was a bit of a WTF (okay, so I get that I'm short and if I'm using my toe stop and in derby stance I'm low, but my knee didn't make contact with the ground).

Sweaty head bandana also doubles as a bandage.

The second was for a low block, where I fell over someone on the opposing team who was down, and someone fell on me, and I got boxed. Bleh. But that time when I came out of the box, my shin was really hurting. I thought I had crazy shin splints, and I barely even made it through the pack without getting the crap pummelled out of me. At this point, I also got can opened, and I've never been on the receiving end of a can opener, but my boobs hurt and it felt like an elephant kicked me in the sternum. (Almost a week later, it still hurts, and it feels all crackly.)

After the bout, I looked at my shins and it turned out in the low block sandwich fall I had landed on someone's trucks on my shins and they were doing purple. I had to ice my shins. Then Beth taped it for me so I could do my second bout.

I didn't jam as much in the second one because my shins and ankles were all crying, but I did manage some good hits I think. I like creeping up on opposing blockers and hitting them when they are not looking, hahaha. I also have to work on not throwing myself at the opposing jammer, and leaning more into them with my hips I think. My shoulders are bony, but I think most of the time if I just do that I bounce off them, whereas I might get more power and control in my hits if I am leaning them out. Anyway, we din't win that bout either, and as a result our team was eliminated from the finals. Sadface.

Beer in a bowl, hooray!

There were a total of 7 bouts I think throughout the day, so I had a bit of time to also just hang out and watch some good derby. I learned a bunch just from watching other teams, in terms of working out strategies and that sort of thing. I should have written it down though. :P

And then we had giant bowls of beer at Macados and more shennanigans were had, when our party of 6 people turned into an alternative to the after party when 5 other tables of loud, smelly derby people showed up.

We took up one whole section of the restaurant and probably scared off a bunch of people. Apparently part of the section we were sitting was reserved for a bunch of high school kids going to their prom dinner or whatever, but they ended up reseating them faaaaar away from us. :P Hahahaha. At least we tipped our poor server guy well; I think he was probably traumatized by the whole incident.

MRI Arthrogram, Part 1

Last week I had to get an MRI arthrogram done on my right shoulder. There is nothing to be worried about; I have had some shoulder pain since I dislocated it about two years ago when I started doing derby. I went to physiotherapist a bit then but it isn't really working so when I was at the doctor's office last week I asked about it and she said there was probably a torn piece of cartilage in my shoulder.

The MRI was basically just to see how much damage there is. I don't think it is very bad and I have almost full mobility in the joint but it would be good to know. It just hurts sometimes to sleep on that side, I can't extend my arm fully (which is bad since I teach and point at things a lot), my whips suck, and too many shoulder checks make it feel weird. Plus I figured knowing is better than not knowing, so there's also that.

The procedure is basically described in  this video. It's gross though. I guess my description of it is also gross, so whatever: 

The comments on that youtube video did NOT make me feel good going into the hosptial.

So basically I spent the afternoon getting prodded and poked by medical machinery. First I checked in and had to wear one of those giant tent gowns again, and then I was sent to radiology. I had to do a MRI first which was SO boring. I've never had a MRI done before but I've seen the tube in TV shows and stuff. What I didn't know was that you have to lie in the MRI tube thing and you aren't allowed to move at all. The technicians put a sandbag on my arm so it would be extended properly, so I couldn't move that and it was falling asleep.

And the machine is really loud. I had earplugs in but I could hear the machine banging and clicking and stuff. So I started humming songs from TV shows and whatever, and then the MRI man came on the microphone and told me to stop moving, hahahaha.

The first MRI was about 30 minutes or something. Then after that I did the Arthrogram, which was by far the worst thing I had to do at the hospital. First I did some static X Rays, so basically you just get X rays done by a technician per usual. The problem was that shoulders are hard to X ray from top down so that required getting into weird positions leaning over the X ray table or whatever. But that wasn't so bad.

Then the fluroscopy bit came next. I had to lie on an X ray table. My shoulder was "prepped" so they sterilized my skin with this blue alcohol stuff and dressed with one of those surgery cloths they have with the little hole in the middle for operating. That seemed a bit serious, but hey, this is a serious procedure.

The X ray table I was on was relaying realtime information about my bones. There was a monitor hooked up to it so while I was lying on the table, if I moved my arm I could see my arm bones on the monitor also moving. (The doctor had to wear a lead suit while doing the procedure in case you were wondering.)

X ray table. The black thing in the back is the monitor
that the doctor used for the fluroscopy. I took this photo while
we were waiting for the doctor, but I don't know about using
phones in high magnetic and radioactive environments.

 This is the gross bit, so you can skip this paragraph if you want. So I'm on the table with the X ray thingy going and my arm prepped and then I was given an anaesthetic. It was like the same feeling as when you go to the dentist and they do the anaesthteic needle for your fillings, so it felt a bit painful and fat at the same time. But once that had taken effect, the fun bit started. The doctor put a hollow needle into the shoulder joint, using the X ray screen thing for guidance. Then he put a thinner, longer needle into the cartilage in the joint via the hollow needle (which was taped down onto my shoulder). There was a tube attached to the second needle, and and he put radioactive/magnetic dye in it and injected that into my shoulder.

Needless to say, the whole time you can see it on the X ray. It was REALLY gross watching the needle go in and I almost threw up on the table. Also it hurt a bunch because it was a needle in between my bones! The medical staff were really good though; I told them I hated needles and they were really reassuring and made me feel better about the procedure when otherwise I probably would just have shit my pants.

I saw this on a car on my way out of
the hospital and thought it was appropriate.
(I didn't actually cry though, but you get the idea.)

And then after they put the dye in there were some normal X rays and then another MRI, which felt really weird because there is magnetic stuff in the dye and when I was in the MRI machine it felt like my arm was being pulled! The second MRI was shorter, maybe 25 minutes. It was still really boring. My arm was sore though, so getting it to lay still in the MRI sucked a bit.

Obviously I wasn't allowed to take pictures of the procedure while it was happening. But that's good; the mental pictures I have of seeing random shit going into my shoulder and my shoulder joints were fucking gross. Plus there was blood coming out of the needle site. I don't even know how I managed to keep swearing at a minimum.

Also, my shoulder got dyed bright blue as a result and it didn't wash off for three days. Plus I have a bruise where the needles went in. And my arm is sore.

On the upside I had cake to make myself feel better.

My right side is borked

No, that is not a transformers mask.

I went to a sports doctor/orthapedic surgeon today. Last week, I went to my regular doctor and in passing asked her what was up with my crooked fingers (which I injured in October last year and got X rays on and it never healed) and she ordered more X rays which came out negative (so no fractures) but then referred me to an orthapedic surgeon to see what was up with that.

So I spent two hours at the orthapedic surgeon's office today. The good news is that the hand is munted officially but my fingers are not broken; they just healed funny when they were splinted (on the suspicion of being broken) last year. All the soft tissue knitted up weirdly so that is why my mobility is limited. But it's not bad enough to require anything serious; just some physical therapy should fix that over time. Phew. It's annoying though, since I'm right handed and holding pens is a bit wonky, and not being able to straighten/bend them properly means by typing has gotten really bad so I type like a drunken monkey smashing its head on a keyboard.

Knee bondage rubber fetish time.

But then I also got the doctor to look at two other things: my right knee (which has been crap since I played hockey 10 years ago) and my shoulder. My knee just gets sore a bit, and basically the ligaments holding the kneecap in place are a bit loose so it means there's less support, which means my knee bones actually end up rubbing on each other. It gets really irritated when I do knee falls in derby though, what with the extra force of the ground smashing on it and everything. Even though I am wearing kneepads there's still some kneecap jiggling going on there I guess.

I got some X rays done on that too, and nothing was broken (which was expected, otherwise I don't know how I would have been walking). But since there's a lack of support in the knee, short of building up extra quad strength instantly (leg lifts with weights, leg presses etc--but not squats, because that makes my knee super crunchy) I'd need some extra support on it. It's not like my quads are weak to start with, but it just needs more support. Jumping, changing direction quickly etc. are all pretty brutal on one's joints.

So now I have a super fancy rubberized knee brace thing to wear. It feels really awkward but it does hold my kneecap in a bit which helps I guess. I'll see how well it goes with the kneepads (if at all; it feels kinda bulky) but we can try that out. Otherwise it's back to taping my knee for me. Ugh.

Finally, in passing I was just like "oh hey, my right shoulder is a little bit crunchy and it's been like that since I dislocated it two years ago" (which I talked about here: sadly I didn't seem to follow the moral that I left for myself at the end of the entry). That actually turned out to be the worst of the lot. It doesn't bother me a lot; I usually don't sleep on that side though, when I work I can't use my right arm to point at things, it gets stiff when it's cold and my whips suck as a result.

My hospital appointment form.
Details have been removed to protect the munty.

The diagnosis: a slap tear. That's what happens when you munt the cartilage in your shoulder joint. Basically you've got your scapula, and there's a ring of cartilage on that so that when your arm bone goes into the socket there it isn't grinding on bone. In my case, I've torn some of the cartilage, so when I rotate my arm the arm bone is catching on the flappy piece of cartilage, hence the crunchiness.

For a proper diagnosis, I've got to go to the hospital and get something called a MRI Arthrogram. From what I understand, you do an MRI, but they inject dye into your shoulder and if it leaks into your cartilage then that's how they can tell if there is a tear. The doctor was pretty sure that there was one, but this should confirm it.

And then there's only one way to fix it and that is with surgery. I REALLY do not like the idea of surgery. Ze Boyfriend is saying that ignoring the problem won't help, and that's true. And I guess there's a sense in which the injury limits my ability to do the things that I actually want to be able to do, like point at things and sleep on my right side and give non-wimpy whips. So I should get it fixed. But the idea of surgery (or rather, the subsequent being out of commission for up to SIX MONTHS) sounds really, really horrible.

The upside (relatively speaking) is that the surgery is elective: I only need it if the shoulder REALLY bothers me. That sounds pretty subjective. But I think I should get it done at some point. There's not a super urgency on it or something and being out of commission for 5-6 months is suboptimal; obviously that is a lot of derby time away but also in terms of having my work done, if I can't point at things (the board, students, etc.) that will also suck.

So I am a little bit sadface right now. I am going to make cupcakes, which will help, but yeah, I guess after the MRI I have to decide if I want surgery, and when. Booooooo.

Now I'm beat, part 1

OMFG SO MUCH FUN. I'm super tired now and just got home and my brain, arms and legs don't work properly, but I'll see if I can write this out before I forget.

We drove up to Richmond yesterday at 6am, and we got to the venue around 9:15 or so. The event was hosted my River City Rollergirls, and they were all super fun. My first bout (with Banned Aid) was at 10:30, so we got there, got our gear on and warmed up for a bit. It was at the Richmond Convention Centre in one of their big convention hall/pavillion things. They had set up the room so there were rows of chairs around a bit marked off as the track.

Inside the pavillion, from the corner. It was a big room.

The surface we were skating on was polished concrete. It was just the floor of the room, and outlined with a rope that was duct taped down. Basically, it was slick as fuck, and REALLY hard to fall on. There was no give (unlike the roller rink floor at NRV). Basically if you fell, you just went THUD and then slid for about 20 feet. I had four of my old super Gs on as well as my new yellow bullets, since my pink bullets were 91s. And even then I had trouble slowing down. I tried doing some plow stops on it and it took a LOT of push to try to stop within a reasonable distance. I tried hockey stops and almost fell on my face. It was tough.

SO SLICK. I'm surprised I didn't break my face.

I think the first bout was my favorite one of the day. It was Zombies vs. Vampires, and I skated for team Vamp so I didn't have to bring multiple shirts. Haha. 40 (our benchie) had done the mass email where we all introduced ourselves, so at least we felt like we had known each other a little before we met. Lineups felt pretty organized, even though we'd all only met each other. We were encouraged to try whatever positions and stuff, and it was all for fun and experience, so why not?

I have to admit I was pretty nervous jamming though, but once I got into the hang of it it was fine. On my first go as jammer (I think jam #4 or something), I appparently forearmed someone on the way out of the pack and didn't get lead, but then the other jammer got binned so I had to jam the full two minutes myself. I think I scored like 17 points on that one; it was super awesome and I felt great afterwards when I fell onto the bench. Haha. Also, because of the floor, there were times I came out of a corner and almost just fell on my ass for no reason. I think everyone was skating slower than what they were used to because the floor was so weird. But it was good; once we got the hang of it things picked up.

I need medical assistance and chapstick.

I jammed a few times again after that, and also did some blocking. They were only half hour bouts, so not very long at all. At one point I hit a girl out so my jammer could get through, and as she got through she thanked me by hitting me in the mouth with her elbow. :P Then for the rest of that jam I was skating with blood on my face and in my mouthguard and all over my teeth. Gross. When that jam ended, I had to go to the EMT to get my mouth and mouthguard rinsed out, and stop my mouth from bleeding. But then I was on my 4th minor and binned, so I had to sit in the bin while washing out my mouth and spitting into a cup and icing my lip which ended up getting all fat and bloody. Ugh. I have to say, for team Vamp, I'm not really liking the taste of my own blood. I am however happy to report that that was the extent of my muntings; hooray!

That was pretty much the end of the bout, and we won! Hooray. I was about to jam the next lineup but then we ran out of time. Actually, it turned out that I was always going to jam the next lineup when the bout was over. WTF. Haha. Every time we did the hug/high five line I had a jammer panty on my head. HA. But yeah, I felt really good after that bout; in the hug/H5 line random people from other leagues and in the audience were congratulating me and talking about how I did well and stuff and all these little kids wanted high fives. :D Hahaha. It made me feel less sucky about my skating abilities, and I think I am slowly getting over my fear of jamming and taking hard hits.

Ghetto icepack, and lunch sandwich

Anyway, after that bout the EMTs gave me a towel covering a makeshift icepack, which turned out to be a rubber glove full of ice. It was fine, but then then it was lunchtime so not very good for eating. I stayed and watched the co-ed bout (Hanukkah vs Christmas) and that was fun; Gritz was in that one and she knocked some boys over.

The second bout (sugar plums vs. candy canes) was after the lunch break, and some of the girls on the Vamp team were also on that one, so we had an idea of how each other worked. I don't think our lineups were as organized. Our benchie basically designated people positions, and unless you said something you were put into some position; like she just handed out the jammer/pivot panties instead of like in the first one with 40 when had chairs designated J, P, 1, 2, 3 and you could sit where you wanted to try out that position.

All I did for that bout was jam. I jammed like every 3rd one I think. It was exhausting, but I pulled in some points (although not enough for us to win, boo). I need to work on my conditioning. I think I really like jamming; I like finding holes and pushing through people and I forced a couple of out of plays because I would just come up on someone positionally blocking me and roll right into her butt and push her out of the way. It was fun. I have to admit that I also like that the commentators got to the point when they were like "and it's Chairman Mouse jamming again" and people would cheer. :D

Random wares for sale at Beatings

But yeah, I think our defense was good for that one, but we just didn't score many points because for half the bout the jammer was in the bin. :P So we ended up losing. But it was still a fun game, and then it was time for a massive break! I had over 6 hours until my next bout, so I did a bit of random derby shopping (pink astro-nuts for $6/8, yellow sparkly derbyskinz(!!!) for $20) and checked out some of the other stuff they had. In retrospect I should have probably got some wristguards without the slide-on thing like what mine currently do, but instead the velcro straps, just because right now my fingers are so crooked that it sucks to put those wristguards on. But I forgot to. Whoops.

I ended up going back to the hotel and then doing a bit of work and then passing out. When I woke up, I had a bit of time to get ready for the third bout, but I'll write about it in the next post or something,

More adventures with the US healthcare system

After my munting I thought things would be better, so I just tried to go to sleep. Then the next day everything was fucking shit. The blood pooled in my butt bruise overnight so I had this fucking huge purple ass crack, and my fingers were swollen up like little sausages and didn't bend at all. I dropped my toothbrush twice when I was trying to brush my teeth. Also I was going to a conference that afternoon.

Splints, hospital ID bracelet, hospital gowns.

So I stopped by the hospital on the way to the airport to fly out to said conference. The doctors put me in for some scans, since there was so much swelling and pain they couldn't really poke at anything to see if it was broken. They pushed on random bits of my spine and above my pelvis it seemed okay, but my sacrum/tailbone area hurt like the dickens. Then they also brought in the sports medicine doctor who said that even if I could bend my fingers they could still have fractures, so they splinted up my hands and then sent me off to radiology for some X-rays.

Because they were X-raying my butt, they made me change out of my jeans (with metal bits on them) into a hospital gown which seriously was draping on the ground because I was so short. They were nice though and gave me two so I could wear one backwards and one forwards and have my ass totally covered the whole time when I was walking through the hospital. The hospital gowns were stupidly huge and didn't do up (not that I could use my hands to tie the little tie-y things together anyway because my hands were in splints) but wearing a backwards and a forwards tent at the same time was at least not too terrible, even if it was really... breezy. Also lying on a cold X-ray table in a variety of different positions on a giant squishy bruise was not comfortable.

My whole that thing is brused and sore.

Anyway, so then they were done with the X-rays and I could get back and get dressed. I didn't get the results that day, but basically it turned out that there aren't any fractures, just a crap load of "soft tissue damage" in my joints and also possibly what looks like tears along my finger ligaments. Also, I found out that my tailbone is a fucking weird abnormal shape, which is why they couldn't tell on the X-ray if my tailbone is broken. Normally tailbones curve anyway into your pelvis thingy (yes, I'm so good at medical terms) but mine has a tiny kink in it. I've never had a problem with it but that is why on the X-rays they didn't know right away if something was up with it. So that was pretty cool to find out. But I don't know if that will ruin my dreams of having a prehensile tail at some point.

Anyway, so basically I'm out of action for at least 3-4 weeks, depending on how long it takes to recover. This also sucks because that would be riiiiiight when we are doing the league-wide WFTDA skills test. I'd hate to not be able to test because of my stupid muntings. They only do these every 6 months too, which sucks.

I'll post the X-rays when I get them!

And also here is a random leg bruise I got but
didn't notice until I was at hospital.

Trick or treat

Mostly tricks for me tonight. We were doing a new drill where you had to juke through a giant pack while still cutting to both the inside and outside lines. It was fine, but then there was a bit of a pileup. Chatterbox fell and took out RayWoWW, and they were both behind me and I was like "yeah I can get out of the way" and then the next minute I was flat on my back on the ground. Two things hurt like the dickens: my butt, and my right hand. I had to stop skating and that was the end of practice for me. Sadface.

Foreground: fingers taped together for sprain.
Background: bag of ice on cushioned chair.

Gritz got me some ice and I spent my time alternating between icing my hand and sitting on a giant ziploc bag of ice. I think two of my fingers are sprained or jarred or something because I fell awkwardly my hand, but I can bend them a bit, so nothing broken there, I am sure. The butt is a whole other story. I have to be really slow with sitting and getting up and putting weight on it sucks. I am sitting on a bag of ice right now. I tried to shower before and even stepping into the shower (over the lip of the tub) resulted in a load of cussing and shit. Also because my hand is munted I couldn't shampoo my hair properly. Argh.

Apparently what happened was that  Chatter fell and as she did her leg came up and took me out. I'm not sure how: either she kicked me square in the butt as she was falling, or I fell and landed square on her skate. Either way, there was butt-to-skate contact and it was hard.

Anyway, this is what my facebook status says now:

Trick: I might have broken my ass (literally) at derby.
Treat: I am getting an awesome bruise.
Trick: I can't show anyone because of its inappropriate location.

Because I am pretty sure I can't post a picture of it here either without violating Blogger's terms of service, let me describe it for you: I am starting to get a bruise on my ass, right at the base of my spine where my spine intersects with my pelvis, basically at the top of my ass crack. And then the bruise goes INTO MY ASS CRACK AND ON EITHER SIDE ON MY BUTT CHEEKS. WHAT THE FUCKING FUCK.

I'm sure you all just had to think about my butt. I'm sorry. I will have it checked out but apparently there's nothing doctors can do for a broken tailbone? Also I have a conference to go to tomorrow which means sitting on a plane for the whole day, and then sitting for two days after that. Fuck. Also this post took over an hour to write because I can only use one hand. Happy Halloween.

Breaking the pack

So because of the awesome efforts of the executive and training committee at NRV and VDL, I was cleared for scrimmaging even though I haven't done my WFTDA test yet. Eeeee! Scrimmaging takes place at the end of the training, and I was pumped for it. But because I am awesome I happened to hurt my crotch hip flexor at training doing a hockey stop, so I decided to sit out scrimmaging. Boo. :( But I did learn some things about pack-breaking from Goliath while I was watching.

Basically, the thing to do these days is scrum starts. That is, you've got your jammers on the jammer line, and then your blockers are pretty much lined up on the jammer line as well. And one team will take a knee right on the jammer line to release the jammers right away, since if one team is on their knees you've got no pack.

In this AWESOME diagram, K= knee start:

In this case, Blue is forcing a no pack and the
jammers are released immediately.

But then you can also have no pack if the pack is split. So if everyone is at the jammer line in the scrum start and one blocker skates to the pivot line, the pack is split, and the jammers are released. (Of course, then that blocker will need to skate back to reform the pack, but still, a no pack.)

Red blocker has split the pack, so there is no pack, and
the jammers are released immediately.

However, if everyone is on the jammer line and a blocker goes to split the pack, and then a second blocker (at the jammer line, on the same team) takes a knee, then the second blocker has broken the pack and gets majored for it.

I couldn't convey "you shouldn't do this" so I wrote "Boo" instead.

 
Basically it seems that the moral is that either your whole team has to be at the jammer line and on their knee, or someone has to be on the pivot line and everyone is on their feet, but not some weird combination of both.


I'm pretty bad at derby strategy, so even getting my head around this took about 20 minutes. And I'm not sure I got it right. But maybe when I scrim on Tuesday I can actually be part of this and it'll make more sense.

Impatience

Sorry for the lack of updates. Southwest Virginia is nice, but NO DERBY YET BECAUSE MY STUPID HEALTH INSURANCE IS TAKING AGES TO GO THROUGH. Argh!! It's frustrating. Apart from skating with Boudi in San Francisco, I haven't skated for about six weeks now. I'm not going to skate without my insurance though because I am the Queen of Munt and will probably  break my face or something.

Stupid university administration; how long does it take you to do someone's insurance application?! Boooooo! Seriously, I can't wait to start skating again. I'm hearing about everyone learning these new things and having open scrims and I'm totally jealous and want to play too. Sadface.

Anyway, on an unrelated note, here's a picture of a slice of pizza that is bigger than my head that I ate at the my work's welcome reception on the way to a welcome dinner with my work peeps:

NOMTASTIC.

Hopefully I'll be back on skates next week, but we'll see how effective the administrative machinery is around here.

The Other Side

I don't remember very much about what happened today. And not because I'm concussed or anything. Yes--I'm relatively injury free! Whoo!! Anyway, let's start at the beginning. We started with a team breakfast, where I thought at first I would be too nervous to eat, but then my inner fat kid got the better of me and I ate two poached eggs with fancy weird shaped toast, three hashbrowns and Tori's spinach from her eggs florentine (haha, why the hell would you get eggs florentine if you weren't going to eat the spinach?). Then we headed over to CRDL's HQ on the other side of town.

As I am clearly the goddamn Jesus of Team Munt, I had welts on my feet going into the Cannery. Last night, in a fit of mega-organization, I packed my derby bag, as well as a bag with extra clothes and a blanket (it was supposed to be mega cold today) and still had time to spare so I decided to preemptively tape up my ankles and my knee before tomorrow. I wanted to tape them a bit tightly and then have the tape loosen up overnight to accomodate for movement and stuff. Clever, huh? Well, then in the middle of the night I woke up because my feet had swollen up around the tape and I couldn't get it off and when I did I left big red welts on the sides of my feet (like on the outside of your foot where the bottom of your foot creeps around the side) and then today I had to tape over those. Ugh.

I'm glad I wore my PJ pants. They were warm and looked good.

Anyway, that aside, we got to the Cannery in the morning and filled out our paperwork and whatnot, and had a while to warm up and whatnot. It was pretty chilly in the morning (it dropped down to 0 overnight) so we were all pretty rugged up. I had brought my pyjama pants because I also don't own full-length sweatpants and the only full-length leg things I own are jeans, which I actually wore to breakfast because I thought it'd be weird to turn up at breakfast in pyjamas. But it was cold enough that I could wear my pj pants OVER my jeans, which in turn were worn over my skate pants (which were knee length but then I also wore my gaskets to make them 3/4 length, haha), and those were over my crash pads. By that stage I couldn't actually really move my legs to walk, but I was warm, so meh.

Gear check before Game 1. (photo from Slanders)

And then we started! Well, we did warmups, then a couple of pack drills, and then we were gear checking and sitting on benches and having our lineup done on a whiteboard. I wasn't in the first jam, but I was up as a blocker in Jam 2. When the first jam was going I was on the "next lineup" bench, I remember sitting on the bench next to Roller, and she was like "are you alright?" and I was just like "OH GOD WHAT AM I DOING HERE" kind of thing. Best timing to have an existential crisis or whatever. But yeah, once we were called on, then everything went. Kind of because it had to go, but meh. Either way, it was okay.

I think we had a pretty shaky start. We were nervous and it showed. I guess it didn't help that Slanders got me to jam, and I couldn't get through the fucking pack. I really wanted to jam, and I was excited that he gave me to the opportunity to try for my debut. But wow, that stuff is hard. Actually, this is arguably the most terrifying moment of the entire day:

OH GOD I AM ABOUT TO JAM AND POSSIBLY DIE

I was jamming against Pink Mist, who is on the CRDL VCRs. I think I got off the jammer line faster than her and then just got plowed into by their pack. I fell down a lot there. I don't know how many points they racked up that jam, but I think it was over 20. I really want to be able to jam, but I need to work on getting through the pack. I found prancing around on my toe stops worked, but I can't do that for the entire 2 minutes. At least I got props for being the "energizer bunny" and constantly popping back up after I took a hit. But yeah, that was a hard two minutes! I was pretty bummed I couldn't even score a single point. Gah. :(

I can't remember what was happening when I took this photo.

About halfway through, we picked up our game a little. We communicated more. People listened to their pivots and to the coach more. People worked together better, there was more touching and talking it up on the track. I also got to pivot, but I don't think I was loud enough and then I didn't pivot again after that. :P I think our final score was 130-something (to the Belters) and like 40-something to us, but I could be wrong. I wasn't really keeping track.

Then we had a bit of a break and got to watch the Red Bellied Black Hearts take on Sydney RDL, which was pretty awesome. It was a close game, and I saw some neat things to try out. One thing the teams would do is knock the jammer out of play with their power blocker, and then have another blocker drop back so that the jammer have to get past a wall of two people, one of whom could keep knocking them down while the other one pos blocked them.

After that was a potluck game, with a mix of players from various leagues. Rav and Smack also played with them, but that was right before lunch and I was hungry and got hot dogs instead.

Yay, so we had a bit of a team meeting at lunch, and talked about what worked and what didn't. Then Uzi and Slanders tried a new strategy and split us into two groups and did lineups within those groups. (Of course, if the previous lineup's jammer/blockers were in the bin and got released in your jam, then you still got to play with them.) So we did that in our second game, which was against the Black Hearts.

Unidentified butt

I found the RBBH game more fun than the Belters one. We were friends with some of the skaters, and I think the Rollers as a team were much more cohesive and worked together better. Melee pivoted a lot on my lineup and would literally throw me into the path of the jammer and I would take them out. Ha ha ha. I think my designated role in the team is the Human Cannonball: I did a lot of getting pushed into blocking people, and once I was in position I could pos block them okay until someone hit them. I also managed to do a few hits of my own and also knock a few people out of bounds, which was much more than what I had planned to do. But yeah, you hit the jammer out of bounds, and then back the fuck up, so they have to enter the pack behind you. I tried this a few times but I need to go back much faster. Rav did an awesome one when she made Bebe (on the RBBH) go through the ENTIRE pack. Hahaha. But yeah, I felt much, much better when everything was done. Our final score for this one was 71-38. This is the BEST differential we've ever had as the Rollers, and we were so psyched about it. Our plays were working, and we were actually working as a team, rather than a bunch of individuals with coordinated action. (Um, if that last sentence was just like a WTF, it's probably because I've been spending too much time working on my dissertation and talking about different kinds of collective action. Basically, the idea is, "yay, stuff was working"!)


No injuries either, hooray. But at one point in the first game Jillie hit Dirty Torque, and then she backblocked into me, and I fell and she fell on me and then Jillie went flying over both of us. Also, after the first game when you do your "high five line" thing past the other skaters, Wrecks gave me a big hug and lifted me up. But she was on skates and so was I, so she fell backwards on her skates and I crashed on top of her and we both went sprawling on the track. Ha ha ha. I'm surprised I didn't get hurt. But that's a good thing. I have bruises on my back but that's minor and wasn't on my list, right? :P

It was a great day. I felt really awesome when we were done, and there were hugs and smiles all around. Then I went home and had a shower and nearly passed out in bed even though it was only like 4:30pm.

AND I FORGOT MY SKATES. YES. I LEFT THEM AT THE CANNERY BECAUSE I AM A MORON. Melee very kindly is looking after them for me until training tomorrow night but seriously, who the fuck does that!?! And they're Antiks!! And it was my first bout!! Seriously. Haha, so now I am no longer a bout virgin and I don't have my skates.

These are my peeps.

Also, I somehow managed to eat three hot dogs at lunchtime and then skate without throwing up. Yay me.

Hardly! I got 1 minor in each game. Heh.

Homecoming

Yesterday was my first training back with VDL after my American adventures. It was good to be back. There were cupcakes and a big sack of chocolate and hugs all around, and lots of new faces. Yay. I missed being in my own league while I was overseas; it's like, you know that visiting another league is just that--a visit--and then soon you'll be gone. So it was good to come back to familiar faces and not having to be the new kid for a while.

Apparently when someone leaves the league or comes back there's a stacks on tradition. So, after getting bowled over bya crap load of (mildly stinky) people, it was back to doing drills! Then there was scrimmy scrim scram! I hadn't scrimmaged for several months, and I think it showed. There were a lot of big hits, and I fell down a lot. Whee! Oh, of course, there's the other tradition that I have, mostly related to scrimmage: when I scrim, I get injured roughly 80% of the time, where "injury" here is when I find something that hurts or doesn't feel right. So a slight bruise doesn't count as an injury, but a concussion, or twisted ankle, or ass bruise that doesn't let you sit down does.

Anyway, the other thing is I have to find new and different parts of my body to munt. Last night it was my left hand. I fell on it funny when my fingers went one way and the rest of me went another. I iced it and it seemed okay; it's not like you need fingers for derby (unless you are reffing), right? So today I had a look and my fingers weren't straightening or bending or whatever. It didn't look so bad from the top, but I have bruises underneath my knuckles, like on the inside of my fingers.

Some minor bruising on my fourth finger, and my third finger is fat

My third and fourth fingers are kind of stuck in a fat purpley sausage position.

It's purpler than the picture makes it. Also, my Antiks are hilariously tiny when I skate; it looks like my front and back wheels are touching each other. But they felt good on my feet tonight (except I can't remember how to skate on wood floors! Argh!) and I didn't get any blisters. Actually, I preemptively put a blister bandage on over the blister scar that I have on my foot, and the bandage fell off and stuck to my sock:

It kind of looks like a sad slug.

Ew. But yay, I'm back.

Injury roundup, post US

(Some of the pictures in this are pretty gross. You have been warned.)

I've had a couple of injuries since I've been in the US. Interestingly enough, not all of those were derby-induced. Here I think is the roundup of total injuries I got in the last 3-4 months (although some were caused by other things, as indicated in italics):

1. Concussion (snowboarding)

Picard doesn't understand why I am onTeam Munted so much.

2. Whiplash with messed up neck and shoulders (snowboarding)

3. Arm bruise from crashing into a cast iron bench, as seen here.

4. Shin bruises from some unknown but derby-related cause, as seen here.

5. Munty wrists from falling on them without wristguards (snowboarding). I have to stop putting my hands out to stop myself faceplanting in the snow. It might just be safer to faceplant in the snow. Ugh.

6. Mystery claw foot. I've narrowed it down to being under my little toe on my right foot, and under the ball of my foot on my left. So, it's not really to do with my arches getting sore, I don't think. I've been getting a can of beer out of the fridge and rolling my foot on the side of the (cold) can, and that seems to help. I put the beer in a glass before I drink it. :P

7. Nose infection (Some unspecified underby thing) I managed to also give the inside of my right nostril an infection. I know this sounds stupid and gross, but basically I lost my nose ring so I was trying to use the straight metal bit of a safety pin as a temporary spacer until I could get a proper nose ring put in. I had wire cutters and cut the pin to the right length and voila, spacer. Except that the wire cutters cut the end of the pin to a flat thing that looked like the blade on a flat head screwdriver, and the inside of a safety pin is not stainless steel or whatever. In a few days, I was wondering why everything smelled like rust. Then the piercing started closing so I poked the pin through it, tearing the inside of my nose skin, which, because the pin was rusty, got infected. Ew. It hurt, but it wasn't mega unsightly, and I managed to fix it. Phew.

This is actually not bad, given my record. Here are my most recent ones:

8. Munty shoulder
Remember how I dislocated my shoulder ages ago at VDL? Well, snowboarding made it worse because I fell on it again, and now it is deliciously crunchy. Audibly so, when I rotate it. It seems to have all its mobility though, so I'm not sure what I need to do (if anything) about it.


9. The biceps bruise
I got this bruise flipping tires two weeks ago at SCRD! I think it's because my arms are too short and the tire comes up to my bicep and probably caught on my skin and tore it. It's actually darker than in this picture, and it has little abrasions in it from random grit in the tire. Yes, I cleaned it out and it's now healed:

Also, I have tiny biceps muscles. Yay.

10. The MEGA GROSS BLISTER
Okay. I'm not kidding about this being gross. Seriously. And there are pictures.

On the first day I wore my Antiks, I got a blister on my right foot at BAD training, just under my ankle (on the inside of my foot). I thought it felt weird and then when I took off my socks at the end of training a piece of skin about the size of a quarter fell out of my sock. WTF. It fucking hurt like the dickens to shower it, and it was stinging more than anything I think I've ever experienced. There was a lot of swearing. Anyway, the next day it looked like this:

Because I am a really, REALLY smart cookie, I decided to bandage it up with toilet paper and strapping tape and then go to SCRD training that night. Yes, I know. Facepalm already. When I was done, I took my sock off at training and the bandage was covered in yellow leaky stuff. Ew, gross.

On the way home ze boyfriend got me some of those blister bandaid things. I put one on after I cleaned the area:

The blister bandage was pretty nice. They're waterproof, and really helped with the stinging on the raw skin. They're pretty clingy though, so when I tried to stand with my foot flat on the ground it would pull on the skin near the blister, and that hurt. I've been trying to not use my right foot, or when I do I am using the outside of it. I bet it is pronating my foot. Bah.

Oh and then two days after I put it on, the bandage got all fat and puffy and started leaking clear yellow stuff. So after I had a shower I peeled off the blister bandage (which also hurt a bit because it didn't cover the entire blister), and my foot looked like this. Hold onto your lunches:

Seriously, WTF. I look like someone has shot me in the foot. There's actually one angle if I am sitting with my foot kind of on the ground where you can see a hole and the skin flap around it with the watery shit coming out. Actually, because I am mega gross, here is a picture of that blister again, but closer up so you can see the watery meaty goodness shit that is inside:

It also smells a bit weird, but nothing mega terrible. I tried cleaning it but it obviously stings a fuckload and is more swollen than before. I think some of the soggy white floppy skin is it healing, but it's pretty fucking infected. That yellow shit around the outside is like congealed watery yellow pus stuff that has been leaking out of my foot for the last three days. Ew.

Anyway, I made myself a little moleskine out of toilet paper and strapping tape, to air it out today (I think the blister bandages seal the blister and all the bacteria-y watery shit stays in the raw meaty area. Yum). Then I strapped it with this cute athletic tape that ze boyfriend got me (it's like porous and attaches to itself, how handy):

It also matches my nail polish, yay.

Yes yes, I am going to go seek medical attention and whatever. Actually, I called the health provider people and was like "I'm wondering if I need an appointment" and then I told them about my foot, and they were like "YES YOU DO NEED TO COME IN" and stuff. Ugh. Then I was describing my injury to the nurse on the phone and she cut me off because it was so gross. Hahahaha. I think I'll probably need antibiotics for this fucker at this rate.

Update: I went to the hospital and the doctor cut off all the dead skin (that spongy, pasty white floppy stuff around the hole). He had like fancy medical tweezers and really pointy scissors and I was a little worried that he was going to stab my "foot meat"--yes, now it is a medical term. The doctor actually called it that. Apparently I took off like pretty much all my epidermis which is why the stuff underneath is also shiny and red. Anyway. So he cut it, and all this leaky stuff was stuck in the layers of dead skin and poured out. EW. The blister was like twice the size with all the skin off. But yeah, the reason he needed to cut all the dead skin off was so he could clean the wound. WITH SALINE. WTF. Like, can you say THIS FUCKING STINGS or what?

I stopped taking photos when he actually started doing it because I thought it might be rude to photograph someone hacking at my foot.

But he was nice about it, and then after he cleaned it he put some ointment on it and gave me these giant clown bandaids the size of my hand to stick over the whole blister. The bandaids are breatheable which is probably going to help drain stuff from my foot.

AND THEN I HAD TO HAVE A TETANUS SHOT. SERIOUSLY. NOW MY (GOOD) ARM HURTS TOO. FML.

I also got this SUPER FASHIONABLE foam shoe thing to wear! It apparently stops my toes from bending so it keeps my foot skin nice and flat, so I won't tear it while it heals. It's also a little bit more elevated than my chucks, so I have a bit of gump foot. It was also raining last night and wearing a foam sandal and socks in the rain was a little bit crappy. But hey, I'm not a Canadian.

Update #2: I have to clean it twice a day and replace the gigantic blisters. The next day, I undid the bandaid and it looked like this:

It's much less angry now, although it's twice the size with all the dead skin cut off. But it looks like it's on the mend. Hooray. I'm not allowed to skate for 1-2 weeks while it heals, and after that I can actually put my foot back in my skate boots to mold them. And actually skate.

Actually, most of this post was just to get to this point where I could post pictures of my disgusting blister. I've had a couple of derby injuries, but this one takes the cake in terms of ridiculous self-inflicted pain and grossness. Huzzah.