Two steps forward, one step back

I've been enjoying this whole "playing on a softball team" experience, as it's something I've never really done before. I did ballet as a child and never participated in any team sports (other than what I was required to do in PE). In high school, I was on a summer community swim team, but swimming is far more of an individual sport than a team sport. I've never been a part of team cameraderie, worn a team shirt, or had the opportunity to care how other people did in a physical activity. But the practices and the games we've had thus far (at least, the 2 I've been able to attend, having been sick last week) have been a lot of fun.

Someone told me recently that adult softball is the sport most likely to cause injury. Yesterday was one of those days where I felt like a newspaper headline come to life. First, a teammate caught a ball with his hand rather than his glove, and the stitching on the ball sliced open the skin between two fingers. He was one of our best players, so it was a real injury to the team. Then, I hit a grounder toward first, ended up avoiding the first baseman and got to first base safely, only to somehow end up doing a partial split and messing up my knee.

At first I was kind of in shock. I couldn't get up. My knee wouldn't move. And then it started hurting. I've never had any knee injuries before (hips, ankles, neck, shoulder, back, and calf, but no knee) so I wasn't sure what I was feeling or what I had done. I iced it until Dan came to pick me up using the bag of ice from the other team's cooler, sitting in a daze, trying to cheer on my team and razz the other team while trying not to think of exactly what a bad knee injury would mean. I'm still getting over a bad cold, have only been to the gym once in the last ten days, my clothes still aren't fitting right and I'm starting to feel depressed about it. And then I go and hurt my knee.

We went home and I put my leg up on the couch, took some aleve and iced my knee some more. It started taking a little more weight so I had hope that when I woke up this morning it would be fine. Unfortunately, that is not the case. It's not as painful as yesterday and not swollen, so those are good things. I have it wrapped under my pants and I can walk slowly and with a limp. It hurts the most when I straighten it and put weight on or when I bend it too far. It crunches a little. I'm going to take it easy today, put it up when I get home, and hope for the best. I gotta say, I'm a little tired of sustaining injuries to my limbs prior to trips. We're headed to California this weekend to attend a friend's birthday party and hang out with our friends and our internet nephew, Wombat. Keep your fingers crossed that I'll be feeling OK to walk on it normally by Saturday.