life comes at you fast…

…And sometimes footballs do, too.

I play football with a group of girls once or twice a week. I’m not great, but its a fun way to get some exercise and meet new people in town.

After a scored goal last night, the goalie kicked the ball toward the middle. It came short, right to me, so I reached down to catch it and throw it toward the middle. Somehow very unfortunately, my left ring finger jammed in between the ball and the ground. It hurt, but I started walking back with the ball and just glanced down at my finger.

As I got into my position, I tried to wiggle my finger, and it didn’t budge. I swapped out with another player, and a doctor that plays with us came to check it out. It seemed like a sprain, so I pushed myself to bend it through the pain. She suggested I ice it and keep it moving.

I’m glad I switched my wedding ring over to my right hand quickly, because it was swollen by the time I got home, and I slept with it raised. I woke up this morning to find it even bigger and blue all the way down into my palm. My finger looked like it was about to burst. We thought we should head to the clinic and get an X-ray, so for just $10 we could know it wasn’t broken.

Oh, but it was.

I now have a plaster cast wrapped with gauze on my hand and arm for two weeks.

In addition to proving that I’m so horrible at football I managed to break a finger, it’s proving to make life a little difficult. This post is taking me twice as long to peck out the letters, and cooking with one hand is a challenge. I haven’t sorted out if I can drive the motorbike yet, but we’re pretty sure I can’t do dishes or laundry without getting the cast wet. Stephen’s to-do list got quite a bit longer in just a few minutes.

The neighbors keep asking if I had a motorbike accident. I might be getting a bad reputation for this, and I’m not really sure why they are still willing to ride with me.

I’m am pretty sure a cast in a hot, sweaty country is going to smell bad really, really fast…

Oh, well. Life keeps coming!