That’s How I Roll

Almost two months ago, I had the most basketballest weekend that I ever basketballed! MarchMadness started – four straight days of college hoops. Some NBA games sprinkled here and there. And finally three nights of actual ball playing on the Saturday (we got waxed), Sunday (didn’t play so bad) and Monday (was doing great…).

Unfortunately, disaster struck Monday night. I jumped up to challenge a shot and landed on my teammates’ foot. >c-c-rack<

Down like a sack of rocks (or like Hatton Hangover) I knew it was a bad sprain instantly – and it wound up being the worse sprain I’ve had in a few years.

Since then, life’s been shitty. “Friends” not calling me to ball simply because I could barely walk (selfish!), the kids who I help coach are beating me down the court during practice, or even having to use the elevator at work to go up or down one floor. Really, have I been reduced to this??

I know I needed to get this take care of asap, so at the suggestion of my coworker, I went to go see someone a couple weeks back. He makes an appointment for me to go see a "doctor" (which i mistakenly confused with "physician") at Central Parkway Mall. I head over there looking for a doctors office, but wound up in one of those Chinese holistic joints... yeah...

Doubtful? Yup, I sure was. But since I was there, why not? The practitioner started to aggressively massage my tendons and it hurt like the hell! Then he asks me “have you ever had acupuncture?” Wow, I didn’t know it was going to go down like that! I’ve never had that done before, but if it means fixing up my bum wheel, I’m all for it.

Result: coming out of it, my ankle was super tender and sensitive. But I got some free topical medicine written completely in Chinese!


The Sequel: went back yesterday to get some more treatment since it kind of helped out the last time.

Same routine but the kicker was the guy asked if I wanted my injury to hurt less. “Sure!” I said. “Okay, we’ll do a big needle to get the blood out”

Me thinking “OOOOOOoooooooooooohhhhhkay” Definitely didn’t see that one coming. "Will it hurt?"

On his face, he had that half grimace half smile (but not really a smile) sort of to say "i'm glad i'm not getting done to myself" "Yeah?" i ask. He confirms "yeah..."

He leaves and comes back with a thick ass needle, a barbecue lighter and a pair of forceps gripping onto a wad of dirty cloth. :S

I’m not even going to lie, I was more than concerned. Scared even.

But all was fine. Turned out, he just used the needle to poke a hole big enough for blood to come out, the lighter to light the wad on fire and the fire to heat up an unnoticed a glass bowl thing so that when he places it over the wound, it just SUCKS blood out, which was kinda gross actually. When done, the bowl had a fair amount of my blood and what looked like some slimy faux blood clot-ish stuff…

So does my hurt less? Not right now, but hopefully soon... uhm... yeah...