On the Injured Reserve List

One day, about a week ago, I really hurt myself playing my new favorite hobby, pickleball. We've been playing about 4 weeks and we were progressing quite well. We love it and play every morning.

I'd played pickleball the day before in some pain, very minor pain, but still, I knew my upper left leg was not as it should have been after a couple hours. But I played through it, thinking it would get better, not worse. Well the second day of playing with minor pain turned into a royal pain in the butt! Literally! A true P.I.T.A. Now, before you start laughing, this is serious stuff! Stop smiling!

After playing about 3 hours I had to quit in the middle of a game and asked Rick to take me to a doctor! I could hardly walk to the golf cart and once home I just wanted someone to take the pain away. I couldn't put weight on my left leg. I'd never ever been to a chiropractor in my life (never), but I sure wanted one now! I found one within a mile of our place, covered by our insurance, and called to see if they could see me. The receptionist said "What time would you like tomorrow?" and I said "Now." The doctor saw me immediately and after an exam, let me know I'd torn my gluteus maximus, yep, really a pain in the butt. Stabbing pain, but only when I walk. Ha! After the treatment and the relief of knowing what was wrong, I was feeling sort of better. The doctor did a minor alignment, heat treatment, and a massage. Great massage, but somewhat painful in the area of the sore muscle. All that felt better - especially when she stopped. She also grounded me from pickleball for 3 days. Bummer! So I went up to the courts with Rick in the morning and visited with the players waiting to rotate into a game. I went back to the doctor 3 days for the treatments and started to feel better. Thought I was on the road to wellness.

Also part of my treatment is for me to apply ice to the affected muscle. I've seen my sister use a bag of frozen peas wrapped in a towel as an ice pack for boo-boos, so I looked in my freezer for frozen veggies and right there on top were the frozen chicken patties I'd made for grilling. Hmmm... We were planning to eat them for dinner. And I did need to defrost them. So I took the frozen ground chicken patties and wrapped them in a dishtowel and placed them where it hurt. They were the perfect size and shape for my ice treatment. And I'd have them defrosted in time for dinner. Multi-tasking is a knack of mine.

I even took Sunday off from playing and made it 4 days without pickleball. And then on Monday I just dinked the ball over the net and didn't do any running. Only did that for a few minutes. My butt still hurt, but the doc had said just 3 days of no play, so I'd probably feel better Tuesday. Makes sense, right? Wrong.

On Tuesday I warmed up with Rick and it really hurt so I sat for 30 minutes and watched a game. Then I wanted to practice my serves and I did that for another 15 minutes, and it still hurt. It was getting worse and I knew I couldn't play through the pain to make it go away. So I decided being off 4 days and going to the doctor 3 times wasn't going to fix my gluteus maximus muscle. I limped into the doctor's office for another heat treatment and massage and told her "I'm really serious about getting over this and what do I need to do to play pickleball again?" And now she's grounded me from pickleball for 2 weeks! I can't do anything that causes my muscles to hurt or strain.

I need to take it easy, rest the muscle, do light stretching, and NO pickleball! I'm on the Injured Reserve List. I've been benched. Thank goodness I have the photo books to work on. I have one completed and I'm half way done with a second one.