It's an early Monday morning in seat 8B. The middle seat. The seat that signifies that my admin didn't put proper effort into making my reservation. At least it's in the front of the plane, easy on and off.
If only.
That was simply a hopeful vision of what could have been. Where I was supposed to be, what I was supposed to be doing, if only I could get off the couch. But I can't. 8B is empty right now. Waiting for its owner, being celebrated as an empty middle seat for other groggy eyed Chicago bound 8th row passengers. United just called wondering my whereabouts. Will you be making it, Miss? No, no, I say with tears in my eyes, I won't. And let me tell you why ...
This weekend, while playing in the semi-finals of the club championships, I pulled my calf. This match was my entrance into a rematch the whole club had been waiting for. I had spent a year training, seeking additional strength and accuracy in my forehand, a consistent first serve, an approach to net game that could carve out clean winners, and the mental fortitude to beat the fiercest competitor in club history. I was almost there. I had won the first set 6-3, I was up in the second 5-4. I just needed to finish. I ran left to grab a ball, then was running to the right side of the court when out of nowhere it felt like someone sniped me in the back of the leg.
I was down after a yelp heard round the club.
I looked up at one of the houses behind the courts, at the guy who had been hacking and coughing all afternoon, wondering if he had indeed shot me, a lifetime of frustration with PGC tennis finally getting the best of him. And then I looked at court 2. The ethereal reigning club champion was warming up. Could she have slammed a ball at me? A rehashed Harding / Kerrigan incident that would go down as country club sabotage? As I tried to piece together what had happened while scanning the court for my assailant, people started coming over, denying there was any wrongdoing. BS. What, I had done this to myself? No. Not possible. Scratch that, IMPOSSIBLE.
I looked around again for probable cause. Or was it possible? And if so, this couldn't be good. I tried to get up. Nope, this is really bad.
I called for a medical time out because that's what you do when you're playing tennis in the most competitive event of your adult life. Maybe it's just a cramp. Get me some ice, a stretch, I'm good. I had just finished reading Andre Agassi's memoir in prep for this weekend of matches. He worked through cramps, he played through back pain, I could too. I tried to move my leg again. Ouuuuuuuuuuch. Five minutes later, there was no sign of better, only worser, so I forfeited, crushing my spirit as hard as I had crushed my calf.
I was friend assisted off the court. And then most humiliating of all, men's tennis team carried to my car and driven home where Peter scooped me up and carried me into the house, to the couch, his 13-year bride, dirty with court sand and sweat, too shaken up to thank him for bearing my weight on his bad knee.
The texts started streaming in. The whole club offering advice, well wishes, referrals, one of my besties even dropping off her compression socks to suction my pain and strain. I debated the advice to seek medical care, but ultimately decided to go. Peter deposited me at the ER 30 minutes later.
There, I waited in a wheelchair with Pittsburgh's most infirmed. Someone who looked like he had sawed off his toes, a child who looked to be suffering from day 4 of really bad Covid, and a guy who probably stumbled in from the homeless camp downtown too high to understand where he was.
I was admitted and told my story at registration, then to Seth the nurse, then to Dr. So and So. No one cared about how close I was to the championship this year. That it was my chance to win it all. Quite frankly, they didn't even really care about my injury. I was there for an hour and half in total, in the trenches of Pittsburgh's hospital system. They took my blood pressure, laid me in a bed in the hallway, I watched medical people milling about talking about what snacks they brought today, I heard beeping that sounded like someone was about to die, I stared into a bed wheeling by that appeared to be hosting a war casualty, nurse Seth felt my calf, so did Dr. So and So. I peed in a cup because they wanted to know if I was pregnant only to make me hold said cup for a while, not test it, and discard it. Finally, after ruling out pregnancy and insanity, Dr. So and So told me it was a gastrocnemius strain, and said I could go. After reminding Nurse Seth that I couldn't walk, I got some crutches, a few remedial recommendations on stretching, and paperwork. I immediately leveraged connections to get an actual orthopedic appointment on Wednesday.
Sunday was a day of rest, compression, icing, boredom, and unnerved reflections on how crazy I might turn in this period of recovery. I sat in bed on Sunday evening, tears pooling in my PJs, wondering why this was so hard to process. Every existential exercise thought went running through my head. I was asking for this - this was God's way to make me demonstrate vulnerability and humility. I was never going to be able to run or play sports the way I wanted. I couldn't do my job to its fullest - how would I run through airports and onto the stage at my summit? I have no time to fit in a dentist appointment let alone the doctor's appointments I might need. My energy and enthusiasm for life would be left to fizzle and die. I would never be the same. I went back to what I told nurse Seth. 'This must be the most inconvenient thing that could have happened to me.'
And then I paused to think about his response, 'I don't know ... could be worse.'
At first, I brushed his remark aside. But after over processing the emotions that come from mixing motrin with a glass of wine, the comment settled. I pulled myself together. Composure. Maybe a little more compression.
Yesterday I finished the day less depressed, filled instead with a little more wonder. What will come of this forced expression of sedentary behavior? What will I find in myself, in others, in my routines that could and must shift? What will get better, not worse? Will I come back stronger in mind and in body? Or not caring that my body needs to do what it once did? I'm now in a mindset where I'm imagining alternate endings, and I like them.
As ridiculous as this all might seem, this injury is weighty for me. And I know my fellow athletes who still dream of physical triumph, of a life steeped in and strengthened by play, understand it. At this point though, I'm choosing to turn my mid-life calf crisis into a positive.
Lo.
