Saturday 27 April 2013

SISU mouthguard (formerly known as ProTech Dent)

After my disgusting story about how I got cavities from my year-old mouthguard, I decided it was probably a good time to get a new one. Probably.


I really liked my old mouthguard, it was one of those ultra-thin ProTech Dent mouthguards that you mold yourself at home. Apparently now ProTech Dent is called SISU for some reason, but it's more or less the same thing.

The SISU mouthguard is basically a really thin piece of plastic that you custom mold to the shape of your mouth. It has lots of litle holes for easy breathing and drinking water and whatever, and I think having the holes also helps with with absorbing shock (kind of like how shock absorbers on cars have spaces in between them for compression).

The molding process is relatively easy to do. You start with the mouthguard being this flat bit of plastic, which you drop itno a cup of hot water:

Cup O'Mouthguard. Mmmm.
Then when it's all soft and stuff, you just put it in your mouth and push the bits up against your teeth and gums, making sure it is a snug fit. Notice that a "snug fit" when the mouthguard material is soft and pliable is VERY different from a "snug fit" when the material hardens; at that point it's like a retainer and becomes actually kind of painful on the teeth. I'd suggest not taking their instructions about making a suction while the material is forming too seriously; the first time I did that it hurt like the dickens to take the mouthguard off or put it on (but once it was on my teeth it was okay).

I usually take about 2-3 goes to get my mouthguard right. I find that sometimes you might get bits at the top near your gums that are a bit scratchy, so you have to redo it when the edges of the plastic start cutting into your gums, or if it's too tight or something these are things you can fix the next time you mold it. All you need to do is pop it back in the hot water and let it unfold (which looks kind of cool) and then do the process again.

Attempt #2.
 And then when you come up with a fit that you like, you're done!

This time I am actually going to try to clean my mouthguard regularly so I don't end up with all disgusting cavities again and having weird stains on my mouthguard.

Don't worry new mouthguard, I'll take better care of you
than I did the old one.

Friday 26 April 2013

Post Tax Smackaroo

So Post Tax was this weekend. There were four womens' teams and three co-ed ones. I just did the women's bout; I think co-ed is something I'll need to work up to.

Psycho, Maluvicen, Caboose and Iron Man get cute little
MVP trophies and also calendars from the SPCA for
being awesome at the co-ed bout finals.
Overall it was fun; I saw some people again that I met at Beatings last year, and met some new skaters too. Anyway, it turned out that most of the people on my team were relatively new. In our first bout, it turned out that only one person said that they jammed regularly, although we had a few "I'll jam if I have to" people. I think I was one of those, but maybe more to the "I'm okay jamming" side. So, as a result of that, I was given the jammer panty for the first jam of the first bout. I was a bit like O_o.

O_o turns to :O very quickly when the jam whistle goes.
(Photo credit: Albert Hartley aka Mr. Whip)


But when the benchie gives you the panty, you take it and you put it on your helmet. So there I was, jamming in the starting lineup. I didn't get lead, and I think I got hit a bit and fell. But I made it through the pack. Yay! I jammed a few more times that bout, although I did get boxed twice. The first was for "taking a knee to avoid a hit" which seriously was a bit of a WTF (okay, so I get that I'm short and if I'm using my toe stop and in derby stance I'm low, but my knee didn't make contact with the ground).

Sweaty head bandana also doubles as a bandage.
The second was for a low block, where I fell over someone on the opposing team who was down, and someone fell on me, and I got boxed. Bleh. But that time when I came out of the box, my shin was really hurting. I thought I had crazy shin splints, and I barely even made it through the pack without getting the crap pummelled out of me. At this point, I also got can opened, and I've never been on the receiving end of a can opener, but my boobs hurt and it felt like an elephant kicked me in the sternum. (Almost a week later, it still hurts, and it feels all crackly.)

After the bout, I looked at my shins and it turned out in the low block sandwich fall I had landed on someone's trucks on my shins and they were doing purple. I had to ice my shins. Then Beth taped it for me so I could do my second bout.

I didn't jam as much in the second one because my shins and ankles were all crying, but I did manage some good hits I think. I like creeping up on opposing blockers and hitting them when they are not looking, hahaha. I also have to work on not throwing myself at the opposing jammer, and leaning more into them with my hips I think. My shoulders are bony, but I think most of the time if I just do that I bounce off them, whereas I might get more power and control in my hits if I am leaning them out. Anyway, we din't win that bout either, and as a result our team was eliminated from the finals. Sadface.

Beer in a bowl, hooray!
There were a total of 7 bouts I think throughout the day, so I had a bit of time to also just hang out and watch some good derby. I learned a bunch just from watching other teams, in terms of working out strategies and that sort of thing. I should have written it down though. :P

And then we had giant bowls of beer at Macados and more shennanigans were had, when our party of 6 people turned into an alternative to the after party when 5 other tables of loud, smelly derby people showed up.

We took up one whole section of the restaurant and probably scared off a bunch of people. Apparently part of the section we were sitting was reserved for a bunch of high school kids going to their prom dinner or whatever, but they ended up reseating them faaaaar away from us. :P Hahahaha. At least we tipped our poor server guy well; I think he was probably traumatized by the whole incident.

Friday 19 April 2013

Post Tax Smacks

Tomorrow I'm heading up to Roanoke to skate in their Post Tax Smacks, which is kind of like the scrimmagey all-day bout that Season's Beatings was. I'm excited, although one big difference is that the teams are of mixed skill levels. So I have people like Gritz on my team, and I will be beaten up tomorrow by people who are Gritz-like on other teams. Whee.

It's also tournament-style, so it'lll be a bit more competitive than Beatings. There are four women's teams (and three co-ed) and you basically will be playing elimination-style. I'm in the first bout, and then there's a while until my second bout, so hopefully I'll learn a bit of stuff tomorrow, even if my team gets eliminated (which of course I hope it doesn't).

I'm also trying a new layout with wheels (with my poisons--which are new and I will have to write a review for--and my 88A bullets). But yeah, again, I've packed enough food to feed a small village, as well as all my gear, and this time four different colored shirts (in case there are spare spots on other teams). Hopefully time there will be no bloody lip and no vomit, but we'll see. (What else is there, crying?)

Monday 15 April 2013

MRI Arthrogram, Part 1

Last week I had to get an MRI arthrogram done on my right shoulder. There is nothing to be worried about; I have had some shoulder pain since I dislocated it about two years ago when I started doing derby. I went to physiotherapist a bit then but it isn't really working so when I was at the doctor's office last week I asked about it and she said there was probably a torn piece of cartilage in my shoulder.

The MRI was basically just to see how much damage there is. I don't think it is very bad and I have almost full mobility in the joint but it would be good to know. It just hurts sometimes to sleep on that side, I can't extend my arm fully (which is bad since I teach and point at things a lot), my whips suck, and too many shoulder checks make it feel weird. Plus I figured knowing is better than not knowing, so there's also that.

The procedure is basically described in  this video. It's gross though. I guess my description of it is also gross, so whatever: 


The comments on that youtube video did NOT make me feel good going into the hosptial.

So basically I spent the afternoon getting prodded and poked by medical machinery. First I checked in and had to wear one of those giant tent gowns again, and then I was sent to radiology. I had to do a MRI first which was SO boring. I've never had a MRI done before but I've seen the tube in TV shows and stuff. What I didn't know was that you have to lie in the MRI tube thing and you aren't allowed to move at all. The technicians put a sandbag on my arm so it would be extended properly, so I couldn't move that and it was falling asleep.

And the machine is really loud. I had earplugs in but I could hear the machine banging and clicking and stuff. So I started humming songs from TV shows and whatever, and then the MRI man came on the microphone and told me to stop moving, hahahaha.

The first MRI was about 30 minutes or something. Then after that I did the Arthrogram, which was by far the worst thing I had to do at the hospital. First I did some static X Rays, so basically you just get X rays done by a technician per usual. The problem was that shoulders are hard to X ray from top down so that required getting into weird positions leaning over the X ray table or whatever. But that wasn't so bad.

Then the fluroscopy bit came next. I had to lie on an X ray table. My shoulder was "prepped" so they sterilized my skin with this blue alcohol stuff and dressed with one of those surgery cloths they have with the little hole in the middle for operating. That seemed a bit serious, but hey, this is a serious procedure.

The X ray table I was on was relaying realtime information about my bones. There was a monitor hooked up to it so while I was lying on the table, if I moved my arm I could see my arm bones on the monitor also moving. (The doctor had to wear a lead suit while doing the procedure in case you were wondering.)
X ray table. The black thing in the back is the monitor
that the doctor used for the fluroscopy. I took this photo while
we were waiting for the doctor, but I don't know about using
phones in high magnetic and radioactive environments.
 This is the gross bit, so you can skip this paragraph if you want. So I'm on the table with the X ray thingy going and my arm prepped and then I was given an anaesthetic. It was like the same feeling as when you go to the dentist and they do the anaesthteic needle for your fillings, so it felt a bit painful and fat at the same time. But once that had taken effect, the fun bit started. The doctor put a hollow needle into the shoulder joint, using the X ray screen thing for guidance. Then he put a thinner, longer needle into the cartilage in the joint via the hollow needle (which was taped down onto my shoulder). There was a tube attached to the second needle, and and he put radioactive/magnetic dye in it and injected that into my shoulder.

Needless to say, the whole time you can see it on the X ray. It was REALLY gross watching the needle go in and I almost threw up on the table. Also it hurt a bunch because it was a needle in between my bones! The medical staff were really good though; I told them I hated needles and they were really reassuring and made me feel better about the procedure when otherwise I probably would just have shit my pants.
I saw this on a car on my way out of
the hospital and thought it was appropriate.
(I didn't actually cry though, but you get the idea.)
And then after they put the dye in there were some normal X rays and then another MRI, which felt really weird because there is magnetic stuff in the dye and when I was in the MRI machine it felt like my arm was being pulled! The second MRI was shorter, maybe 25 minutes. It was still really boring. My arm was sore though, so getting it to lay still in the MRI sucked a bit.

Obviously I wasn't allowed to take pictures of the procedure while it was happening. But that's good; the mental pictures I have of seeing random shit going into my shoulder and my shoulder joints were fucking gross. Plus there was blood coming out of the needle site. I don't even know how I managed to keep swearing at a minimum.

Also, my shoulder got dyed bright blue as a result and it didn't wash off for three days. Plus I have a bruise where the needles went in. And my arm is sore.

On the upside I had cake to make myself feel better.

Friday 12 April 2013

Tour de campus!

Last weekend Psycho, Lindy Liu-Who and I went for a bit of a skate around campus. The weather was surprisingly good, what after that stupid random snowstorm that hit and everything.
Note leftover bits of snow. There were puddles we had to
skate around as well so we wouldn't get wet bearings.

I have to say that it took a while for me to get used to outdoor skating. I never did it all that much, and paths that you walk on normally suddenly are bumpier and steeper for some reason when there are wheels on your feet. So a lot of the paths we had planned out had been tested when we were walking around on campus, but skating was totally different and we did ask what we were thinking when we came across things that we had originally thought were nice surfaces to skate on, but turned out to be all seizure-inducing from bumpiness.


Architecture roof: bumpy as fuck.

For safety reasons, I get really nervous about lips or cracks in sidewalks where you can catch your wheels and stack. I did that once or twice; once I just bellyflopped onto the ground and it hurt. Ow. :P (I also have a fear of looking like a douche in public, and that involves also noticeably falling on my face in front of a bunch of people. Luckily that did not happen in the bellyflop case.)

But we skated a bunch around the drillfield, through some quads, and down a random ramp joining two buildings several stories above street level. It got better after we had skated a while.

The ramp was long.
We also saw this sign but you could only
read it if you were close enough (and
therefore already breaking the rules).
I wasn't prepared for the fact that there were so many people on campus on the weekend. Okay, normally I'm not bad with obstacle avoidance. We didn't hit anyone, but there were people with kids and people riding their bikes and people with dogs and it was like WTF.

Also there were some very rude guys on bikes who didn't even stop when we were coming (downhill) towards them; they just looked at us and kept riding their bikes up, while we were trying not to run into them and/or get out of their way. I almost had to bail on the grass, and Lindy had to grab a thorn bush (WTF) to stop from runinng into them. Grrr. I think Psycho had a few words for them after they passed us.

And then we saw these people doing parkour! There were a LOT of them; it was like there was a litle Parkour-land or something in this one quad on campus. And none of them were wearing helmets. I have to say that I get kind of (read: really) uncomfortable when I see people flinging themselves at buildings and not wearing any protective gear at all.

Okay, maybe THIS makes me more uncomfortable: PARKOUR ON SKATES:


When we were done we went and got burritos and jewelery. It was a good day.

Anyway, if the weather keeps up there'll be more outdoor skating, and then I can get over my stupid fear of hills and public stacking. Yay!



Monday 8 April 2013

The closest bout ever

So this happened earlier tonight:


I think a lot of us thought NRV was going to get thrashed because LC beat Charlottesville by a heap, and Charlottesville beat NRV. But transitivity fail: we beat LC by a hair!

NRV did great; the first period they came out really strong and with a smaller bench than Little City. But at the beginning of the second period Little City was fighting back and they closed a pretty good gap quickly. There were lots of amazing walls and some pretty hard hits.

I think the lead changed in the last five minutes about five times. And in that time both jammers went to the box. Plus the last few points were calculated after the final whistle, so it was a surprise I wasn't having a hernia by that point.

Also, I was NSO-ing, doing THREE jobs: penalty tracking for both teams, and inside whiteboard. I didn't screw up and I didn't have a meltdown (although sometimes it was close). So, everyone wins!

Friday 5 April 2013

What gives, Virginia?

So a few of us were talking about doing a Tour de Campus outdoor skate this weekend. We've actually been planning it for about a month or so but the weather was never warm or agreeable enough. It's still been kind of chilly but at least not pissing down rain or snow or something.I haven't outdoor skated since I was in San Francisco with Boudi, and that was a LONG time ago.

So I was all excited for outdoor skate. And then yesterday it started snowing again. Like, big fat ole snow that covered everything. We got something like 5.5 inches in 4 hours, which is nuts. Note that Spring Break was THREE weeks ago. It is April and after Easter. This is bullshit.

This is what the campus looked like when it started snowing:

Yay, fat wet snow.

This is what it looked like 2.5 hours later when I was walking home after the emergency broadcast system on campus cancelled all the classes:

Believe it or not there are actual paths under all that snow.
If the weather is crap we can't outdoor skate because it wrecks your bearings and whatever. I'm also skating in my antiks, and I'm sure the salt water from the melted snow isn't going to be great for the leather either. Plus, the idea of trying to roller skate over bits of ice is ridiculous. So we have to play it by ear this weekend.

But the snow is melting, so it looked like it was just a crazy dump yesterday. Today was sunny though and a lot of snow melted. This is what it looked like this afternoon:

HELLO BLUE SKY
Hopefully it all dries up before tomorrow!

It's actually quite sunny today, so hilariously I am de-stinkifying my pads by hanging them outside. Amidst the piles of snow and all, I'm sure this is effective.

Monday 1 April 2013

My right side is borked

No, that is not a transformers mask.
I went to a sports doctor/orthapedic surgeon today. Last week, I went to my regular doctor and in passing asked her what was up with my crooked fingers (which I injured in October last year and got X rays on and it never healed) and she ordered more X rays which came out negative (so no fractures) but then referred me to an orthapedic surgeon to see what was up with that.

So I spent two hours at the orthapedic surgeon's office today. The good news is that the hand is munted officially but my fingers are not broken; they just healed funny when they were splinted (on the suspicion of being broken) last year. All the soft tissue knitted up weirdly so that is why my mobility is limited. But it's not bad enough to require anything serious; just some physical therapy should fix that over time. Phew. It's annoying though, since I'm right handed and holding pens is a bit wonky, and not being able to straighten/bend them properly means by typing has gotten really bad so I type like a drunken monkey smashing its head on a keyboard.

Knee bondage rubber fetish time.
But then I also got the doctor to look at two other things: my right knee (which has been crap since I played hockey 10 years ago) and my shoulder. My knee just gets sore a bit, and basically the ligaments holding the kneecap in place are a bit loose so it means there's less support, which means my knee bones actually end up rubbing on each other. It gets really irritated when I do knee falls in derby though, what with the extra force of the ground smashing on it and everything. Even though I am wearing kneepads there's still some kneecap jiggling going on there I guess.

I got some X rays done on that too, and nothing was broken (which was expected, otherwise I don't know how I would have been walking). But since there's a lack of support in the knee, short of building up extra quad strength instantly (leg lifts with weights, leg presses etc--but not squats, because that makes my knee super crunchy) I'd need some extra support on it. It's not like my quads are weak to start with, but it just needs more support. Jumping, changing direction quickly etc. are all pretty brutal on one's joints.

So now I have a super fancy rubberized knee brace thing to wear. It feels really awkward but it does hold my kneecap in a bit which helps I guess. I'll see how well it goes with the kneepads (if at all; it feels kinda bulky) but we can try that out. Otherwise it's back to taping my knee for me. Ugh.

Finally, in passing I was just like "oh hey, my right shoulder is a little bit crunchy and it's been like that since I dislocated it two years ago" (which I talked about here: sadly I didn't seem to follow the moral that I left for myself at the end of the entry). That actually turned out to be the worst of the lot. It doesn't bother me a lot; I usually don't sleep on that side though, when I work I can't use my right arm to point at things, it gets stiff when it's cold and my whips suck as a result.

My hospital appointment form.
Details have been removed to protect the munty.
The diagnosis: a slap tear. That's what happens when you munt the cartilage in your shoulder joint. Basically you've got your scapula, and there's a ring of cartilage on that so that when your arm bone goes into the socket there it isn't grinding on bone. In my case, I've torn some of the cartilage, so when I rotate my arm the arm bone is catching on the flappy piece of cartilage, hence the crunchiness.

For a proper diagnosis, I've got to go to the hospital and get something called a MRI Arthrogram. From what I understand, you do an MRI, but they inject dye into your shoulder and if it leaks into your cartilage then that's how they can tell if there is a tear. The doctor was pretty sure that there was one, but this should confirm it.

And then there's only one way to fix it and that is with surgery. I REALLY do not like the idea of surgery. Ze Boyfriend is saying that ignoring the problem won't help, and that's true. And I guess there's a sense in which the injury limits my ability to do the things that I actually want to be able to do, like point at things and sleep on my right side and give non-wimpy whips. So I should get it fixed. But the idea of surgery (or rather, the subsequent being out of commission for up to SIX MONTHS) sounds really, really horrible.

The upside (relatively speaking) is that the surgery is elective: I only need it if the shoulder REALLY bothers me. That sounds pretty subjective. But I think I should get it done at some point. There's not a super urgency on it or something and being out of commission for 5-6 months is suboptimal; obviously that is a lot of derby time away but also in terms of having my work done, if I can't point at things (the board, students, etc.) that will also suck.

So I am a little bit sadface right now. I am going to make cupcakes, which will help, but yeah, I guess after the MRI I have to decide if I want surgery, and when. Booooooo.