The Injury Report

Lately I've been getting out for dawn patrol at least 3-4 times during the work week. It's an awesome way to start the day for sure. Hubby gets a little concerned from time to time, he's one that's a bit afraid of the water to start with. I do my very best to stay safe though. I never surf alone and I always tell him where I'm going. In addition, I'm not totally nuts and get out of the water if I'm completely worn out or if it's too rough for me.

When I get back to the car the first thing I do is call hubby so he knows that everything is okay. I jokingly give him the "injury report" of the day. Most of the time there are no injuries but I do get bruised from time to time. I guess I just try to make light of it all so he doesn't worry.

Last week I had a couple of doozies. After one particularly un-graceful trip over the falls I somehow jammed the middle finger on my right hand. The knuckle immediately swelled up and turned a really nasty shade of green/blue. Ouch. I kept moving it to assure myself that if wasn't broken. The pain was pretty strong so I got out of the water. The following day the swelling had completely diminished and the area was red. Then it was fine. Pretty amazing. I'm not sure just exactly what happened.

The worst of the week came afterward when my board hit me. I wiped out, was under for a moment, and then came up. I felt the leash on my board tug toward the shore and had my hand up so it wouldn't hit me. However, as soon as I got to the surface and put my arm down the board somehow swung back around in the backwash and proceeded to hit me right in the face. The nose rammed just above my lip and really rang my bell. OUCH! The first thing I was worried about was if I knocked out a tooth. I didn't. Since I ended up right where the breaks were happening I proceeded to get back on and paddle out to calmer water so I could collect myself. I kept feeling the area and everything seemed okay so I resumed my session. As it turned out all that was visible was a thin red mark about 1.5 inches across. Whew!

Yeah, so you can get bruised up when you surf. It really doesn't happen all the time though. I'd say I do just fine more times than not.