Building A #Soccer Goal - Friday #Fitness 9

Maybe we shouldn't be doing this, considering this year our older son broke his leg playing soccer, and then six months later, our younger son broke his thumb playing soccer.  Both breaks were bad enough to require surgery--our insurance is all but ready to drop us.  But my kids love soccer, and I'm a big believer in fitness.  And finding fitness you enjoy makes all the difference.  In addition to writing paranormal romance, I teach classes every morning; both jobs combine my passions with a small paycheck, which is fantastic.  My husband competes in triathlons, which is a special form of torture I'm still trying to understand.  But it works for him, and our rescue dog Otis loves the running part of training.

So, inspired by our neighbors, who had built one on their own for their kids, we (and by we, I mostly mean my husband and sons...my role was essentially looking stuff up on Pinterest) took on the challenge.  Sure, we could buy one, but they cost a lot of money.  Plus, where's the fun in that?  My husband and youngest son got to use the Pythagorean theorem as they calculated the measurements!  Who says we never use math anymore?

Lots of math & measurements

It was a cloudy Saturday anyway, so a great time for a big project.  There was PVC pipe, yardsticks, a hack saw, scribbled measurements, PVC primer and glue.  Once they got the base formed, they had to pull out stepladders to hold the final pieces together as the glue dried.  By the end of the day, the PVC frame was complete.







I got to watch my hubby flex
while holding the pieces to dry...
Also note my son's cast...he helped
anyway!

The final piece was locating a net that would fit the rather large frame correctly.  After an internet search, my husband chose one from Net World Sports   Thankfully, it fit just fine, both length and depth-wise as well, and we didn't have to go through returns and more searches.

The total cost after all this came to  than $150.  It would have been less if we used a more narrow PVC pipe, but we wanted it to be as sturdy as possible.

The finished product is a big hit!  Even Otis approves:

We're not a particularly handy group, so
the success of this project was very satisfying!



#BacktoSchool with a Broken Thumb - Another Soccer Injury

I really can't believe the year my kids have had.  Thankfully, they made it to 12 and 15 years old with almost no injuries.  And that's saying a lot, since they both play sports.  Then there's the every day kid stuff that takes its toll, but I guess we were lucky.  Then last February, my older son broke his leg.  Very badly.  There is probably no good way to break a leg, but this injury was so severe we were transported 2 hours to a Children's Hospital where they performed emergency surgery to pin the fracture, after working to straighten the immensely swollen knee before compartmentalization became an issue.  His leg was immobilized from groin to ankle in a Bledsoe brace for the next 6 weeks; the constant pain required strong medications.  He missed school, sports, and social events.  Six months later, he is just starting to return to full capacity.

The before xray -
the break is near the bottom,
at the growth plate

So, at least we have a new perspective in the household about what constitutes a catastrophic injury.  This made my younger son's recent broken thumb slightly less alarming.  Still, a broken thumb is no fun, and this is another bad break.  One that required surgery and pins.  His fingers and wrist are now encased in a cast, which makes writing impossible (of course it's his right hand).  He's already nervous about school, as this is his first year in Middle School.  Now he'll have additional challenges.  Plus he'll miss fall soccer, which he's been waiting for all summer.

The after xray -
Pins through the skin and bones

Speaking of soccer, both injuries occurred during soccer practices.  Both were just a slip with a bad fall; something that could have happened simply playing tag.  I managed to break both my collar bone and my ankle when I was little, and I didn't really play any organized sports.  So despite all the jokes about "maybe it's time for your family to give up soccer", I'll continue to support their endeavors, and I look forward to watching my older son finally get back into the game he loves after missing all spring and summer.  Sports injuries happen, and fitness is important.  But I'm keeping my fingers crossed that we've endured our share of broken bones for a while...

In the meantime, we're working on how to handle school.  We begin the Tuesday after Labor Day, so we'll have to scramble to get some accommodations in place.  At the moment, we're finishing his summer work via a collaboration style of his dictating to me what to write.  Unfortunately this requires a great deal of patience on both our parts--something we are short on at the end of summer.  I've also purchased this "Writing Bird", which may hopefully allow him to write a little with his immobile hand.

I really hope this works

So...2015, where are you?

Blizzards, Blackouts, and Broken Legs...Good Riddance, February

I've had so much stress jammed into the shortest month of the year that it feels almost strange to take the time to blog.  But writing is my therapy, and thankfully, all of the bad stuff has or will eventually fade into memories.  In the meantime, I'm trying to stay positive, especially in the face of the unknown challenges ahead.

For the first half of the month, I was trying to get everything done for our trip to Disney.  Exciting, yes...but almost every school in New England has the same February break, and the Orlando parks reach alarming levels of crowds.  Since I'm a planner, I spent a great deal of time online, figuring out how to best avoid lines--and my efforts were successful, thankfully (see Disney Tips for more info).  But of course in addition to planning, there's laundry, packing, taking off work, getting the animals taken care of, finding our summer clothes in the middle of winter, etc., etc.

I'm a nervous flyer, so I was already feeling apprehensive by Saturday night before our trip.  Then the blizzard started.  We've had so many this year, I don't know if this one had a name.  All night long the winds howled and the house shook and my husband and I tossed and turned, unsure if our trip would be cancelled (and all my carefully made--and paid for in advance, of course--plans would be messed up).

My husband finally got out of bed at 4:30 a.m. and began shoveling us out.  We have a snow blower, but he thought the neighbors might not want that kind of wake up call before sunrise on a Sunday morning. 

Our cable was out, but a check on my phone told me our flight was still on.  We were dubious, but determined to try.  As we were getting ready, though, the power went out.  Super.  We had no idea what was on and what was off, and we were leaving for a week.  We had to unhook the garage door to get it down and turn off the water in the event the heat didn't come back on for a while.  More stress.  (The power did come back, 10 minutes before we had to leave...we ran around shutting things off at that point).

The flight took off as planned, and we had a great time.  Monday morning was back to school and work.  My oldest son, 15, had his first spring soccer practice that night.

A half hour into practice, I get a call that he's injured and I need to come get him.  By the time I arrived, his knee had swollen to the size of a large melon and he could not walk at all.  His friends carried him to my car and I went directly to the ER.

The x-ray films showed a very scary break of the proximal tibia and growth plate at the knee.  The orthopedist couldn't believe a healthy bone could break that way from just a slip and fall, but it did.  He said a surgical repair was needed, and a Children's Hospital was the best place for him.  By 11:00 p.m., my son and I were in an ambulance for an hour and a half as we were transported to Children's.

My husband met us, after dropping our younger son off, and we all waited in the Children's ER the rest of the night as doctors came and went and decisions were made.  At 5:45 a.m. we were moved to a room, at 6:45, my son was in surgery.  He had several screws placed in his leg and a giant brace put on to hold the bones in place.

Thankfully, the surgery was a success...but he'll miss at least a week of school.  He'll miss all of soccer.  He will be in a brace for 4-6 weeks and require PT after that.  All this is temporary, and I'm profoundly grateful for that.  But to see my son in pain, and struggling to move, is so difficult.

Recovery will be a long road, but he will recover.  In the meantime, I'd like to put this month behind us...except for maybe the 5 days we spent in Disney, with 80 degree temperatures and lots of family laughs (believe me, we have had some hilariously disastrous vacations--see Skiing Disaster and Shutting Down the Zip Line Course--so a great one was appreciated).  This new ordeal will be a memory soon too, and the big scar will be an interesting story one day.