My Time and "Other Things"

Games Games Games…
So I have now played in three games. Each game I feel pretty good through about the first quarter and a half and then progressively my foot starts getting more and more sore and I start gimping down the floor. I have watched my game tape and I can tell that I am limping, but at least on video I don’t look as bad as I feel- like I’m running down the floor with a peg leg…I have felt less lost in each game as far as where to be on the court, but I still have a long way to go and I am longing for the day when I can play without having to think about where I’m supposed to be on offense, when to shoot, what we’re doing on defense, and ultimately how my foot is feeling- how much pain is okay?

The good thing is I have still had fun and am really enjoying my teammates. They are working hard and we are taking on the identity of the scrappy team of the league that’s going to out work everyone else. Now that’s a team I want to be on! After our last game I came out of the locker room to lay down with my feet up against the wall while I waited for a free shower. The opponents’ coaches were out there talking about the game and I could hear one of the coaches exclaiming in exasperation “we just got out-hustled! They out hustled us all night” I chuckled to myself and thoroughly enjoyed that.

We play again tomorrow night, I should be okay to play (doc says it's okay after the shot Wed as long as my soreness hasn't increased) and I’m looking forward to another evening of scraptasticness (in the words of Phil Dumphey, "TM!").

Oh and I may have received one of the greatest complements of my basketball career:
Ben told me that one of his teammates came up to him and said “your girlfriend* plays like a thug!”

Not sure exactly how he meant that, but I’ll take it. I also suddenly feel inspired to run down to the nearest tattoo parlor and start working on my image…Although it's going to be rough with the weird uniforms we wear here...I just look awkward...more awkward than is normal for me in a bball uni...

*yes I am getting to that

My Time and “Other Things”…

So the facebook pictures are out, how I’ve been spending my time has been revealed ;)…So one of my first blogs I had written about people I met here…Uh recall Ben the farmer who took me to my OT appointments??? Well surprise surprise (okay, apparently I was the only one surprised) things pretty much clicked for us from the start and we started dating and are enjoying one another’s company…Yes, it’s ironic to come all the way to Australia to meet a man from Iowa, but God works in mysterious ways! Of course we have yet to see what will come of this but in the meantime I am blessed to spend time with a man who loves Jesus passionately, who really cares about people and is constantly looking for ways to invest in others- especially the younger guys on his team and who he coaches, and who affirms me repeatedly…he is a constant reminder to me of the purpose of my own life- to love Christ and others- to be purposeful with them, and to just be an encouragement to those around me. Of course there are plenty of laughs and goofiness abounds! Ben asks me sometimes after we’ve just had a ridiculous conversation where we’re being goofy and going on about nothing really, “are we dumb?!” A question I always scoff at and exclaim “NO!” I think it takes real brilliance to keep up a conversation about nothing…




The pics on facebook (Ben's, I haven't put mine up yet) are from this past weekend when Ben’s host parents took us and Ben’s mom who is here to visit down to a town called Margaret River (of course I thought we were going to an actual river and had no clue what was coming...at team dinner the other night I announced that I would be going to "The Margaret River" and was immediately laughed at and made fun of)…The town is about 3 hours south of here and is comprised of vineyard after vineyard and wineries…lots of great little restaurants and cafes and galleriess...It is country area and beautiful. Jane (host mom) had rented a “homestead”- giant house on a vineyard. We had it all to ourselves!



Upon pulling up the first day 3 or 4 kangaroos went bounding across the front lawn- a sight we got used to seeing every time we pulled into the house over the next couple of days. There were about 6 I think that seemed to live right around there- 1 a joey (baby kanga!) and they would come out in the evening and eat. We could go out and watch them, they didn’t let us get too close, but I loved just seeing them. I love when they’d stand there and watch us watching them, and I love when they bound away, seeing their graceful and strong movements.


Can you see them running away?






Also over the weekend we went to one of the bays along the coast where giant stingrays come right up near the shoreline and you can literally touch them. I wish that I had touched them, but I was nervous with my foot and going too much into the water. Ben and Glen (host dad) got in and touched them though! It was so beautiful to see!






Also, on the way down to Margaret River we stopped in another town (Mandurah) where Jane has family. We had brunch with them at their home which is along one of the canals which connect to the ocean. Everyone living there has a boat and as Ben and I stood on the back balcony which overlooks the water, we saw a man drive his boat by followed by a dolphin!

The entire trip was just filled with so much beauty and of course wonderful people. Jane and Glen are some of the most generous and kind people I have ever met- the sort of people who really delight in giving others something to enjoy. They also helped teach me to play Settlers of Catan which showed me both their patience and their fun/competitive side. :)At one point somehow I was winning and Glen pretty much blacklisted anyone from trading with me…Joke was on him bc as he got everyone so focused on me, Ben came out of nowhere and won the game… Ha ha!

Over Easter weekend Ben and I went to help at an Easter camp for students ages 16-25 from the Baptist churches in this area.Kaija Leo, one of my teammates, was helping to lead the camp and asked us if we could come out for a few days. It was so fun!

This is us at dinner one of the nights...Must have been while others were up getting dessert bc usually Ben's table was completely crammed with guys wanting to be around him...

It was actually at camp that I saw a kangaroo for the first time, and I was so excited about it that I nearly cried. I think a couple of campers were making fun of me for being so excited about it, but something about seeing a creature you've never seen before, and seeing how creative God is, I don't know, it just moved me!




Okay these pictures aren't actually great of the kangaroos, but at least you can see my exuberence...

It was a joy to be with the campers, particularly during small group times. I was so eager to hear what was on the hearts of those girls and see if there was any encouragement I could offer for them at this period in their lives (I was with the under 17 girls)...I really felt like we enjoyed each other and I was sad to leave!

It was also a joy to see how Ben was pretty much automatically every guy's best bud. I think the combination of towering over everyone, being an athlete, and then being as goofy as heck (he played a game with them in which they pretended to be kangaroos and one person was the "hunter" and threw a boomarang at them and everyone had to hop away to avoid being hit...yeah...) were definitely contributing factors to his appeal :) It was so cool to then hear later on about the impact he was able to have in his small groups as well.

I just want to get it myself- really loving Christ and living WITH Him as well as for Him. I want to help spread that to others. I want those students to get it. I want the people at Lakeside to get it. I want my teammates to get it. It was such a good time to be at camp and be around people who do get it.

Another big highlight at camp was just to be around Kaija more. She is such a cool girl and I think I have a lot to learn from her, about relating to Christ, and just in life. One major thing she is teaching me is the best hot spots for our favorite foods. Ha ha ha, I know that sounded like I was about to say something serious...so I did. Food is serious people. :) But we have a shared affinity for food, especially burgers, kebabs, and CHOCOLATE. We have however, made a mutual agreement (also got another girl on the team in on this) to nix all chocolate candy till June and choc desserts only on the weekend. I know that doesn't sound like much of a challenge, but if you knew what we were consuming before...

I also met three other awesome women at camp and I was really moved and challenged by them. I felt God's Spirit among us one night as four of us just spent some time praying together. It was incredible.

Anyway, time here continues to speed past and I continue to love it here. We are heading into winter and I am a little sad to see the summer go, but I am excited for every phase of learning about this place and these wonderful wonderful people! (seriously, after getting back from Margaret River Mon afternoon, we were invited to dinner at another host family’s home, then last night we were invited to dinner at another church family’s home…and Andy Stewart's wife Glenys has invited me to go with her and the kids to a wildlife park where I will get to hold a koala...the people here are SO welcoming!)…

My Foot! My Foot!

My Foot My Foot!

Okay the only person who would really get that blog title is Grace. We had a teammate in college that would always say that in a funny voice, I don’t even remember now why…moving on….

Well it sure has been a roller coaster with this whole foot thing. Since I first injured it I have seen a doctor in Germany, a doctor in the states, a physical therapist in the States, 4 different Occupational Therapists here, another podiatrist here (doc in the states was a podiatrist), a massuese and now a sports doc here…I have had my foot x rayed in Germany, MRI’d in the States, and now had 2 more x rays and another MRI here…I have been told again and again that my injury was significant but that I will be good to play by _____ that date kept moving back and back, and yes, I am now playing on it, but man it has not been easy…

(Also that beaut of a pic up there is of the burn I got on my foot from the tape I was using to tape my arch. That was just like a little extra fun since the falling arch/bone bruises/locked up ankle wasn't enough...It's better now but it really didn't feel so good for about a week...)

So the first MRI that I had in the states did not show any damage to my ligaments which really baffled some of the docs, and myself as well. I knew there was no way that all the ligaments had been fine considering what I had done. The MRI just showed TONS of intense bone bruises…Every x ray came up clean, but I had just continuously been in pain.

The OT’s here mostly have dealt with my foot by trying to manipulate the joint and get it to loosen up. The podiatrist would pretty much work on every single little joint in my foot and try to get everything moving, he also gave me acupuncture, which I have never had before, to help loosen up the ligaments running inside my foot and up my calf which were pulling on my arch and causing it to fall. I do think that helped. Then I saw a masseuse who tried to rub out all the knots that had accumulated on the ligaments on the inside and outside of my leg…This was intensely painful. Pretty much all of it has been painful in varying degrees, but this one left its marks:




So after all of this going on and no real relief, it was suggested by multiple OT’s and the podiatrist that maybe I ought to just get a cortisone shot. I went into the sports doc the first time about 3 weeks ago, expecting to get a shot right then. He told me that he did not want to give me the shot without me first getting an MRI because he was concerned that some of my pain could be coming from cartilage damage and not just fluid (which is what the cortisone could help me with)…
So…I went and got another MRI. I was eager to see what it said- would the bone bruising look any better? Would any other ligament stuff show up? Would there be cartilage problems? I couldn’t get back to the doc until this Monday. He saw my MRI and said “I would love to give you a shot today but…” My heart fell. This time he said he was still worried about one more area that the MRI didn’t pick up. In looking at the current MRI it does look like the bone bruises are starting to heal, he also did not see any cartilage damage. However, he said that the first MRI had not picked up (how???) that I had torn ligaments on both sides of my ankle. He said they were all healing and will be fine so long as I don’t roll my ankle again (definitely taping – or “strapping” in Aussie terms- AND wearing my brace)…but with all the damage that was done he said it was a very severe injury and so it made him wonder if there wasn’t damage to the ligaments that hold the two leg bones together just atop the ankle joint… So now he was sending me for an xray to make sure that those ligaments were okay, and THEN he would give me the shot if they were alright…

Got my third X Ray Tues, got back into the doc yesterday and within a minute of sitting down he’d looked it over, declared me fine and said “alright! Let’s do the shot!” It’s weird when such a phrase gives you a sense of excitement…Then I got really nervous right after. I wasn’t sure how this was going to feel. The shots I got in my knees in college (not cortisone shots, but that’s still what was coming to mind) were with these really fat needles and it did not feel great…Multiple people I’d mentioned getting the cortisone shot to had made faces or comments suggesting this was going to be painful…I was so nervous that when the doc told me to get up on the table on my back I climbed up and laid down on my stomach. He was quick to tell me to lay on my “other back” and I laughed and told him I was so nervous…Ben was with me (more on that in a moment) for moral support and courage. The doc marked my foot where he wanted to do the shot, rubbed it and cleaned it off, then stuck the needle in- it was one of the easiest shots I’d ever had. I immediately went from big nerves to feeling REAL stupid. I laid on my stomach over that??!! Ha ha…

So now it’s a waiting game. Doc says it can take about 5 days for the shot to take effect. I have to try to keep my foot immobilized till our game Fri-tomorrow night. I keep telling myself in a few more days I should be able to work out again like a normal person and all this waiting, and now all this laying down, will be worth it! Here’s hoping!!! I can’t wait to get into better shape, to really work on my game, and just play up to my potential!!