Tonight was our last scrimmage before the first bout of the season. I was a nervous wreck today. I have a hematoma the size of a baseball on my left upper thigh/butt (alright, thass) and I was petrified of playing tonight for fear of falling on it and having it, you know, explode or something (though I don’t think that’s what they do, but whatever). I bought some protective shorts things but the padding was really just for hip and tail bones. I don’t fall on my hips, I fall on my bum, so I ripped the hip padding out and put it where it belongs. Voila! Thass protection! (I left the tailbone protection in place, ’cause you know, that bit made sense.)

These aren’t the shorts I’ll have for the bout, those are even more serious. But these were just fine for an indoor scrimmage. Soft to moderate hits and leans were just fine. Stronger hits made me wince, but the pain didn’t linger. I fell on it once (though only falling in general three times total) and had to ice it every couple of jams, but I think the pads I have for Friday are going to work just fine.

I saw the doc Friday and he said that it’s just a humongous hematoma and there’s nothing they can really do for it. Just ice and massage, and eventually the body will eat up all the dead blood (yuck) that’s hanging out under there. (The massage is to prevent the blob from developing a calcified shell, which would make the thing harden up like a golf ball, whee!) He also said to not get freaked out if my entire left side of my leg gets black and blue, because gravity is going to eventually work to pull it down as the body’s digesting it (yum!). The doc said that I don’t have any vascular or orthopedic problems from it, so it’s cool to skate and what not. I just have to wear the padded shorts for a while. So that’s what I’ve got to look forward to: months of alien butt.

I’ve decided to give it a name. I think we’ve come up with “Tomie.” Or “The Tomester.” Or “El Tomerino,” if you’re not into the whole brevity thing.

Right, so the scrimmage: I managed to stay vertical most of the time I was out there. I fell three times total: once when I was fouled, once when I fell to avoid squishing my own jammer, and once because I tripped on my own feet (yeah, that one was awesome). All in all not too bad, I think. I managed to get in the other jammer’s way a couple of times, and I think I did better at staying aware of what was going on. It’s just so chaotic that you can easily lose focus. At one point I stood up too tall (you have to stay squatted the whole time) to get a better look behind me, and an opposing blocker took the opportunity to knock me out of the way. Rookie mistake. I’m 5 foot 10. I shouldn’t make it any easier for them to knock me down. I learned though. I wasn’t giving it my all during a couple of jams, because I was nervous about landing on my bum again. But for the most part I pushed myself as much as I could.

It’s just a matter of my brain knowing what to do, and then my body getting to the right place in the pack to be effective. I also think I did a decent job at not letting the other team get in my head too much. It’s going to be worse on Friday, but I think tonight was a good warm up to that event.

Thanks to everyone who has bought tickets so far. Those of you who still want tickets but have not yet received them from me can either arrange for a Boston area pick up (JeT has offered to pull off this rendezvous) or we can try to figure out a day-of thing. I think it’s a bit too late to try and post them now, but we’ll work something out. (I’m not sure if we have a “will call” kind of thing or what. I’ll find out.)

Anyway, I hope to see you Friday!!! (I’ll be helping with set up and tear down, but I want to see you all and thank you in person for coming to my skaterly debut!)