Ouch.. yesterday I was playing b-ball with my friends Alex, Bryan, and my brother Vic.. and I pulled a Vince and landed on my left ankle weirdly -- I sprained it pretty badly. Immediately (say an hour later) it started to swell. This morning it got even worse so I took the day off and went to see the family doc. After waiting an hour (my doc is a busy guy, I find) he took one look -- by this time the ankle is twice the size of the other one -- and said the x-word: "Dude you need to get some x-rays done". DOH. He prescribed some pain killers for me to take, told me to get some tensor bandage, and gave me marching orders to the x-ray place. Luckily I found that I left my hiking pole in my trunk so I used it to help me get up the stairs. Four x-rays exposures later I get to go home. Well that was fast. Anyways now the ankle is swollen, painful as hell if I twist it or pull on the heel, and purple! I never knew that one gets massive internal bleeding after a sprain.. well.. either it's really bad (ruptured arteries, oh my!) or that's just standard for a bad sprain. oh well.

Come to think of it this is the second time I had injured myself badly enough to warrant an x-ray session in front of the big GE machine. Last time it was when I was in second year in university.. I had a "terrible" bike accident.. Then I think I had injured a rib (bruised the muscles around it) and couldn't breathe without pain for a week, and had subluxed both shoulders.. then again that time I had 15 x-rays pictures taken, this time only four.. I am getting better at this. (reader: er.. what kind of twisted logic is that?)

On second thought, my left shoulder hadn't been right ever since. I reinjured it around Feb 2002 when I "overstreached" my left arm warming up for a swim.. it went pop and it hurts like hell. I tried swimming a few lanes and then had to quit. Ever since there is a certain range of motion that I cannot do because of the pain. I am sure it had to do with reduced shoulder stability. I laid off swimming ever since.

Interestingly enough, while looking at links for subluxed shoulders I found a page describing rehab exercises.. I should try them out seriously. I've already heard of the first set of exercises detailed on that page -- an instructor at my gym taught them to me when I first joined. Apparently the guy studied sports medicine or kinesiology.. it actually worked well to reduce the pain when I was doing those.. then I stopped when the pain seemed to have gone away. Maybe I should restart them.