Working Up From A Painful Morning

Set 268:

Stuart v. J. at Pharr. Winner: Stuart 6-1.

My Mojo: Strong.

This was finishing up the match that I started on Wednesday with J. at Caswell. We had split sets and had run out of time, so we were supposed to meet up this morning at Caswell to play. I went out to run some errands in the morning, and just a few minutes before we were supposed to play, I was ominous gray clouds moving in. Uh-oh. Sure enough, it started pouring about ten minutes before our scheduled match. I rained steadily up until the time we were supposed to play, and right around the time we were supposed to start, I drove by Caswell to see what the conditions were. Of course, the whole area was soaked. It looked like there was no way it would dry out for at least a couple of hours even if it stopped raining.

So I headed back home. But as I got closer and closer to my house, I noticed that it was raining less and less. And when I got about a mile from my house, I saw that it was completely dry. The rain had soaked the ground just a couple of miles away, but had not touched the area where I lived!

So I called Pharr Tennis center to see if they had anything available. They had one court left, and I grabbed it. My opponent was also glad that we hadn't gotten completely rained out, and was happy to play. We started only a half an hour after our originally planned start time.

I felt like I was playing really well even though my back was killing me. I had thrown out my back on Friday morning bending over to tie my shoes, but not too badly. I was still able to play four sets on Friday evening with no problem. But this morning, I woke up, and the way I slept had aggravated the injury to the point that I could barely get out of bed. I was in incredible pain, and it took me about ten minutes to get out of bed. As I took the first couple of tentative, jarring steps, I thought for sure that I would have to forfeit today. Every movement was sending waves of agony through my back.

I spent about two hours doing back exercises to try to get to the point that I would be able to play, and also took some naproxen. Little by little, my back improved enough so I could at least walk. I went out and bought a back brace, and after I put that on, it filled in the missing piece of the puzzle, and I was pretty sure I could play. Woo-hoo! I didn't have to forfeit after all. It was hell getting there, but I made it.

During this third set, I had the back brace on under my shirt. I was worried that it would chafe me, but I didn't really have any chafing problems. Also, I was playing pretty well. I think I tend to do better when I'm sick or injured than a lot of people. I was getting to most of his shots, and returning them with strength and placement. He won one game, but I won all the rest, and managed to take this third set 6-1 for a final score of 3-6, 6-1, 6-1.