Bruised Egos and Ribs

My basketball team is off to a tough start.  On the plus side, we've had a few subs for each game, so it hasn't been as exhausting. On the down side, I'm still considered one of our "outside threats".  The end result is that we're 1-4.

Yesterday we had what was a winnable game - we had four guys on the bench, our real outside threat playing, and were going against a mediocre team.  We played them tight for most of the game, but couldn't finish strong. The loss hurt, though not as much as what happened earlier on the game.

In the third quarter, I found myself on the wrong side of a two-on-one fast break.  I played the typical defense - jab at the ball handler to get him to pick up the dribble, then open across court and defend the pass.  Except my jab wasn't quite good enough to make him pick up the dribble.  When I opened, the ball handler kept going strong to the hole (a little out of control) and I ended up taking a knee to the back of my ribs.

Don't worry HIMOM, I'm fine!  But it did hurt like a son of a bitch when it happened.  It was still a bit sore last night so I looked into it.  The Mayo Clinic confirmed what I thought - that if your ribs were broken you wouldn't be able to breath without pain.  But I'm able to breath deeply, so my ribs are either bruised or cracked.  Given that they feel even better this morning, I'm betting they're just bruised.  And that there's no way to treat bruised or cracked ribs except time.