Blue Belt

The road to recovery felt unending, like some foggy path running through a dark forest.  The ER doctors predicted I’d be off the mats for a year or more.  My surgeon, Dr. Haraszti, estimated a few months.  My stubborn head estimated a few weeks.  Time, then, became fluid in regards to my recovery.  I was here and somewhere, at the end of some indeterminate time, I’d be recovered and likely still mending scars (literally and figuratively).

I knew, no matter what, I’d push myself earlier than expected, that I’d be back at the gym to keep myself off the couch and charging forwarding with my rehab to bounce back into jiu-jitsu as soon as I could.  Competition, though, still felt eons from now.  To complicate matters, my blue belt still felt fresh, the paint still drying on my once dingy white belt.  Returning from a major injury with the rawness of a new belt combined into dark, billowing storm clouds on the horizon.  For now, though, I concentrated on healing.

##

I’m curious about bodily functions.  Not so much shit, piss, and babies…but more along the lines of surgeries and healing and scars.  I travel rabbit holes of surgery videos and pictures, spiraling down into the morbid aspects of medical and biological healing.  My own maladies are not immune to these curiosities as I saved a picture of how bones heal, including week-by-week breakdowns. 

In week 1 a hematoma forms around the site.  The metal plate and screws help the bones remain in place while the fractured ends stay in contact with each other.  Inevitable swelling builds and spreads as my body reacts to the trauma of both the surgery and the healing.  Discoloration oozes down my arm like a polluted river, collecting in my fingers, and making my hand appear cartoonish.  As my upper arm atrophies with the splint covering my forearm, the differences between my hand and bicep gives me the appearance of some Frankenstein monster made of bits and pieces of different people – one skinny and one extremely plump.

We stayed abreast with Ibuprofen to ease the pain, but icing my arm proved difficult without constantly unwrapping my splint.  I held an icepack on it in for a few minutes in the morning, during my 30-minute lunch break at work, and off-and-on in the evenings, but realistically that was never enough.  The swelling continued.  My splint filled with my distended flesh and bruising until pressing on my surgery site and causing an uncomfortable ache despite the Ibuprofen doses.  To alleviate the swelling, I slept with my arm propped and my fingers pointing towards the ceiling.  This led to tingly fingers by midnight, but did help migrate the swelling and bruising back towards my body to ease the burden on my hand.

At work, I primarily used my left hand while my right arm rested in my lap.  Typing and using a mouse and a touch screen, all with one arm, necessitated the need for shaking out the fatigue setting into my left shoulder.  It didn’t help that I drove about 30 minutes to and from work each day, easing my way into the right-most lane and holding steady at 60 mph on the highway.  My left arm gripped the wheel with a death hold while my right arm uselessly rested on my lap.  Cars zoomed around me, easily surpassing 70 mph in the outer left lanes (this was Atlanta, so probably hovering near triple digits).  I muttered a constant chant, begging the gods of BJJ injuries that I wouldn’t need to switch on the windshield wipers and/or turn signal while under duress or simply need to maneuver with any speed.

I didn’t go to the academy during this week.  Instead, I chose to sit at home and watch TV or simply go to bed early as I chased depression sleep.  I grew lonely because I missed my jiu-jitsu family.  I missed rolling and training.  I missed sleeping beside my wife.  Hell, I missed being able to shower without Rachelle helping me in and out of the tub and assisting in scrubbing me down before the hot water ran out and I’d be stuck dancing in cold water and trying not to yell at Rachelle as I grew frustrated.

This first week moved both fast and slow.  Moments of discomfort dripped in slowness, second-by-second of building aggravation or pain or loneliness.  Other times, the days added up as the bruising and swelling peaked and started subsiding.  Percocet fevers disappeared.  Adjustments to being temporarily handicapped became semi-routine.

##

By weeks 2 and 3 a soft callus forms around the fracture site.  The swelling peaks and starts subsiding.  Movement returned to my fingers.  I could grip, although lightly as any amount of squeeze pressure pulled on my healing ligaments and bone, sending an eerie feeling up my arm as if the callus would pop and send my bones flying away from each other in a shower of calcified shrapnel.  We ceased the steady dose of Ibuprofen and only took them sparingly.  Sleep still came in patchy moments throughout the night as I could never find a comfortable pose or position for my arm.  I slept due to fatigue more than anything, stealing naps when I could.  At lunch, I set my phone’s timer for 30 minutes before resting my head on my splint and closing my eyes.

In the mornings, I started going to the gym, but sat on the spinning bike or walked on the treadmill before growing bored.  I designed a few workouts where I relied on weighted machines that worked my legs, core or upper body in ways that didn’t require the use of my right forearm as a lever.  Really, though, these workouts were a shadow of my usual routine and I ended up at work by 0600.  At least this allowed me to leave a bit earlier and get home at 1500 to take a nap.  Because of this lack of exercise, I feared growing soft and flabby.  Yet, my appetite suffered as well and I came home without eating a few of my allotted daily snacks.

Driving incrementally became easier as I was able to touch the bottom of the steering wheel with the fingertips of my right hand.  This allowed a few seconds for my left to flicker a turn signal or flip the windshield wipers on.  I still kept to the right-most lane and hoped I didn’t have to change lanes or deal with sporadic downpours of rain.  I still avoided any music, in case I was tempted to click to the next station or fast forward a song.  Instead, the steady hum of tires on concrete accompanied my drives.  I continued to mutter words of self-encouragement (“I can do it, I can do it…”) throughout my commutes, urging me on like some train engine.

I still required Rachelle’s help to shower, but only after getting most of my body clean and needing just a few spots to be lathered and rinsed with assistance.  We fell into a nice rhythm for dressing that, day-by-day, I adapted to using one hand and the fingers of the other.  It became a personal triumph to slide underwear or socks or pants or even a t-shirt on without Rachelle’s help.  (TMI warning.)  Since the injury, I sat to go to the bathroom, no matter my needs.  I learned to wipe left handed and all the uncoordinated shenanigans that entailed.  By now, we rewrapped and cleaned my right arm a few times to keep the site clean.  I never looked at it, as it still made me queasy and the room to spin when we started unwrapping it, but Rachelle proved gentler as she learned how to handle my wounded arm without forcing shooting pain across my arm and body.

I don’t know if we fought much during these weeks or if I snapped at her from pain, aggravation, fatigue or fear.  I probably did, but mostly I remember little triumphs and being tired, worn-out from lack of sleep and the mental drain of a major injury.  I remember more time together, the two of us, which BJJ had limited.  I admit to enjoying this time, as it reminded me of days in Alaska or Seattle.  We don’t value leisure time if it’s always there, but we value it when it becomes a luxury in our busier lives.

I attended BJJ classes on Tuesday and Thursday nights.  I sat on plastic folding chairs that lined the mats.  I stayed for the techniques in both the intro and regular classes.  Sometimes I texted Rachelle notes on the moves, little details I picked up or simply to log what we did that day.  I tried sticking around for rolling, but it proved both boring and aggravating at the same time.  I wanted to be out there and there was only so much rolling you could watch when you can’t participate (I feel the same about watching competitions that I’m not invested in).

##

By week 4, a hard callus forms.  For the next 12 weeks or so, this callus hardens and recedes.  This is when the bone is coming together and restructuring.  I knew this from past experiences with hairline fractures and a long-ago education in bones.  Of course, this is exactly when people start to “feel better” and push themselves too early and too far.  The fracture, still soft and forming, could still break again quite easily.  In fact, this “hard callus” is fairly soft for a bit; not the hardened and calcified bone we normally expect.  Even with the metal plate and screws, I’d be gambling by even doing curls or push-ups or anything that used my forearm as a lever or load bearing.

Years ago, even before knowing Rachelle (there was a time), I broke my hand.  This was right after college and I had suspect (if any) insurance.  My mom helped me pay for the medical costs, but I tried cutting corners at all costs.  After five weeks of being in a hard cast, instead of going back to the doctor, I searched around my step-dad’s garage for a metal file.  I hacked away at the plaster until I could wiggle my arm free.  I searched the internet for hand, wrist, and finger rehabilitation exercises and did them religiously as I returned to a fairly normal life.  Life did return to the ordinary and never had any issues with taking my health into my own hands.  Rachelle knew this story and knew I was growing impatient in my splint.

This time, at around 5-6 weeks after surgery, I was due for a check-in with my doctor.  I didn’t expect much except to be x-rayed, re-splinted, and sent on my way.  When I returned for my check-up, my previous x-rays hung on the wall of the examination room.  The nurse unwrapped my arm, placing the gauze and wrapping and splint aside on a chair.  She wiped off my pale and shriveled forearm, leaving it resting on my lap.  Black stitches crisscrossed my arm for about 9.”  This was the first time I saw my surgery site.  Hair and dried blood and flakes of iodine still clung to the stitching.

The nurse led me to the x-ray room.  I held my arm like some fragile pottery, never letting it hang or move on its own.  We placed it under the x-ray arm, resting it on a pile of curved padding.  They took pictures at various angles, trying to get a 360 view of my bone.  I overheard the x-ray technicians chattering.  It was looking good, very good.  Before walking back to the room, I glanced at the screen and saw my bone.  I didn’t get a chance to squint at the fracture site, but at least it started looking whole and not the jagged, floating pieces it once was.

Back in the examination room, my fingers walked across my arm.  I felt the plate and a few screws poking out the far side of my bone.  I’m petite, after all, and didn’t have much substance to hide my hardware.  Dr. Haraszti entered with a medical student.  Introductions spread across the room as they looked at my newest x-rays, comparing them to the old ones.  They both nodded a lot and pointed to the fracture site.  Dr. Haraszti sat, grabbed my arm, and asked if any of his firm probing hurt.  He especially concentrated on my wrist, where it was once dislocated.  I answered in the negative until he probed the fracture site.  It felt weird, like a deep bruise that shot up my arm. 

“That’s to be expected.  It’s still softer in there, but feels stable.”

With colder hands, the medical student did the same with similar results. 

Next, they asked me to squeeze their forearms.  This proved difficult as my fingers had stiffened from immobility.  Dr. Haraszti nodded. 

“You’ll need some PT to get that going again, but shouldn’t be a big deal.”  Then speaking more toward the medical student than me, Haraszti continued, “We’ll have him put the splint back on for another couple of weeks and then reassess.” 

They left the room and I sat, staring at my empty splint and arm.  I felt a little deflated.  I’d be back in the splint for at least two more weeks and then who knows.  I’d held out hope that this was it, free of the burden of a shoulder strap and a bulky protective layer between my arm and the world.  I hoped to start being able to rehab my arm and start easing back towards training.  I also wanted to be conservative, not push myself too far and too fast.

The nurse came back in.  She held a box, gloves, a pair of scissors, and some alcohol wipes.  I figured she’d be measuring my bandages and creating a new splint for me.  Instead she sat next to me, took my arm in her lap, scrubbed the site again, put on gloves, and then started cutting away my stitches.  My eyebrows scrunched together in confusion, but I said nothing.  Tiny, black threads collected on her lap or fell to the floor. My surgery site started looking like an arm. 

After she finished, she returned to the countertop and pulled out a black soft cast.  Laces ran up and down one side like a woman’s corset.  On the far side it resembled a 80s biking glove where my fingers were exposed, but my forearm and hand were covered.  She loosened the laces until we could slide it over my arm.  She pulled the laces tight and then sealed the Velcro closure along the top strap. 

“Doc says you should wear this for at least two weeks.  Then you can start taking it off periodically.”

She handed me a sheet of paper with a long list of physical therapists running along the front and back. “Let us know which place you plan to go to.  We recommend somewhere close to where you live or work.  They’ll start loosening up your hand and wrist.  Your insurance will cover it.”

All of this was happening fast.  She grabbed my old splint and bandages and tossed them in the trash.

“Do I need a follow-up appointment?”

“Not unless you think you need one.  We recommend keeping the hardware in for a least a year, but otherwise it’s up to you.  You should be able to drive now.”

I said nothing, wondering what she’d say if I told her I’d been driving 20+ miles a day.  It never occurred to me not to go to work or try to live my life as much as possible.  I guess that’s what people do when they’re horribly injured, but it simply never occurred to me.  Instead, I kept living as much as possible.

In my car, I sent pictures of my arm and soft cast to my wife.  We’d made it through the hardest part.

##

Little wins added up each morning.  I slept in the soft cast, tucking my arm against my body to protect it.  Sometimes I rested it on a secondary pillow as if it were a sleeping bird.  After a couple of nights, we deflated the blow-up mattress and I returned to sleeping in the same bed as my wife.  My loneliness and isolation started disappearing, fading with each night’s dreams.

In the shower, each day became easier to wash myself.  I could passively hold the soap in my right hand while my left hand pushed my right arm around (as needed).  I sat down on the toilet to assist in getting my pants or a hoodie on, but otherwise I dressed myself.  Granted, I still couldn’t grip very well, so toweling off left streaks of moisture across my back and left side.  Still, though, this was progress.

With time, I dressed normally, learning the basic mechanics of pulling up my pants or fastening a button or tying a shoe.  The intricate movements of fingers fascinated me when I lost those abilities or at least it hurt to try.  We learn so much as humans, taking them for granted later in life until we lose those abilities.  Simply brushing my teeth or washing my hands or inserting contact lenses became a new learning experience, small triumphs in my return to the ordinary.

I started rehabbing my hand and wrist on my own.  I stretched my fingers and cycled through PT exercises I found online.  Each day, each rep, each cycle led to a larger range of motion.  10% quickly became 50%.  50% moved to 70%, albeit it plateaued here for a bit.  I pushed myself, really sinking into the stretching portions of the routine.  I imagined scar tissue flaking off like rust or atrophy creaking through the ligaments like an old hinge being lubricated.  I kept at it until 70% moved to 90% and a few extreme movements lingered beyond my abilities.  I found myself at work or driving or watching TV, cycling through my exercises.  A dozen times a day, I worked my hand, my fingers, and my joints.  I bought stress balls of varying resistance.  I worked through them – light, medium, hard – and created a mini-workout for my hands and fingers.  That’s when the 90% started creeping upwards.

At the gym (where weights and cardio machines live), I implemented routines that resembled my pre-injury circuits.  As my wrist loosened up, I could jump rope or work the rowing machine.  I could hold most bars or kettlebells or dumbbells, although with reduced loads as my wrists, forearms, and biceps screamed at me when I pushed them beyond the last few weeks’ atrophy.  I’m sure I looked pathetic, struggling through 5-10 push-ups before collapsing to the ground, taking a few breaths and going for another set.  It didn’t matter, I was on the mend.  Each day, each workout, each PT session was a step back to a normal life.

I drove with the soft brace on for a few days.  When I took it off to drive, my wrist hurt and my healing bone ached if I gripped the wheel, torqueing left and right, for too long.  As my rehab progressed, though, I took it off to drive and worked my way up to more and more responsibilities for my right arm.  First it was to guide the wheel, holding it steady while my left hand signaled a turn or activated the wipers.  One particular day with a torrent of rain hitting the Mini Cooper, I remember activating the wipers with my right arm.  I didn’t think about, it just happened.  The babying portion of my rehab starting to fade as instincts returned to having two functioning arms and hands.

I did return to activity in the academy.  With the soft brace still on, I participated in the conditioning class.  Sam modified some of the exercises for me, allowing me to perform plyometric exercises and the like without relying on my upper body.  I warmed up on the stationary bike, hitting Tabata intervals for a round.  Then I transitioned to lunges, jumps, hops, and short sprints.  Just like before, I made it to the academy every day for these sessions.  Then I stuck around for the classes and watched the techniques. 

After a week or so, I put on a Gi again.  I only drilled the technique, still wearing my soft cast, and then sat out the rolling portions.  Time ticked away and I kept rehabbing, pushing myself towards the end goal of setting aside the soft brace and working out and rolling in the same way I did before the injury.

##

I remember the first time I broke anything enough that I wore a cast.  I remember the itchiness as my bones healed, wrapping the limb in a bag with a rubber band on one end in order to shower, bumping glasses and plates and silverware as I forgot about the extra width of my arm, and one time trying to pull a pizza out of the oven and realizing how quickly the plaster heats up.  After a few weeks though, you adapt your life, your habits, and your approach to the mundane.  You overcome in the temporary inconvenience.

This time, I adapted three times.  The first was the temporary splint prior to the surgery, my bones still fractured and floating in the meaty space of my arm.  Pain and potential danger lingered in the forefront of my actions and adaptations to my injury.  The second time, I learned to deal with a different splint, as my arm swelled and started healing around the surgery site.  It was bulky and uncomfortable and frustrating.  My patience wore thin as I never found an efficient way to sleep or bathe or hit some of the basics of the hierarchy of needs. 

The final phase was the soft cast.  After about a week, it felt more like training wheels than anything.  As my wrist and hand and fingers loosened up, as my life teetered towards normalcy, I wore the brace less and less.  After 2-3 weeks, I didn’t even really want to wear it except for when I wasn’t sure I could control my arm’s movement (usually sleeping).  Other than that, it stayed on my nightstand or forgotten in my backpack or simply cast aside (pun intended) entirely.

I wore it to the academy as I started drilling the moves of the day.  It served as a reminder for myself and my partners.  It kept me in check, tapping the brakes on my desire to jump back into training and the routine I pursued prior to the injury.  I wasn’t sure when the right time would be to start rolling, but I imagined another month or two, to allow myself to ease back into the swing of things.  At least long enough before Rachelle wouldn’t frown at me before I left for jiu-jitsu class and remind me to be careful and smart.

One day when drilling with a smaller white belt (about my size), he asked to roll with me and promised to take it easy.  Despite him being maybe two stripes, I knew he wouldn’t spazz out or take this chance to tap a blue belt.  In short, I trusted him. 

So I pulled off my soft brace and set it by my shoes.  I grabbed my belt with my right hand and then we bumped fists.  He hesitated, as he was a white belt.  I hesitated as I was figuring out how to grip or play any semblance of a guard with one arm.  I don’t remember any particulars beyond that initial bit, but I remember using my feet to pummel in, framing with my left or finding a collar or sleeve to control and flipping in a DLR hook with my left leg.  No one tapped anyone in that roll and I don’t think there was much in the way of pretty jiu-jitsu, but I survived.  I kept moving and kept working with what I had available.

Then I went with a veteran blue belt known to flow rather than death roll.  Then I went with my BJJBFF.  All the while I started trusting my right arm a little more.  Maybe I grabbed a collar or sleeve with my right.  Maybe I created an elbow-centric frame.  Maybe I used it to shrimp or post off the ground to spin back to a guard.  I’m sure it all resembled some sort of jiu-jitsu and definitely with an early blue belt rawness, but at least I survived my first night of rolling after the injury.

When I returned home, Rachelle was asleep (per usual).  She woke up when I slipped into bed. 

“How was it,” she asked.

“I rolled a bit.  Safely of course.  With Corey and Stuart and Matt.”

“Oh good.  I was wondering when you’d get back into it.”

That was it, I was ready to get back to training again.

##

During this period, I remember little moments in time.  Not necessarily part of the healing process, the mental journey of recovery, or the endless reminders of how much Rachelle loves me.  More about tiny moments of awareness of the injury in relation to life, my jiu-jitsu journey, and the sense of community or belonging stemming from the academy.

I remember talking with one of our black belts, Derek.  We sat on the academy couches.  A pile of Jiu-Jitsu magazines lay on the coffee table between us.  He just finished teaching the kids class and his son and daughter ran around gathering their belongings.  I sat on the other couch, my legs curled under me as I stretched my hand and arm and wrist.  I waited for the fitness class to start so I could at least sweat a little before watching the technique classes. 

I talked about the checklist of quitting.  Decent competition success.  Newly promoted blue belt.  Major injury.  Other things – a career, a wife, other hobbies (whatever those are) – in my life to fill that void.  Except for a major life change – marriage, a baby, a major promotion or career change, a move – all the factors were there, laid out like the magazines on the coffee table, for me to legitimize quitting.  Millions of others have done it before (or probably closer to thousands).  It’s okay.  It’s not the end of the world.  Life moves on.

Yet here I was, sitting on the couch, warming up my arm so I can try to work the battle ropes and maybe some push-ups.  Here I was at the academy, keeping a semblance of the routine I started and maintained through my white belt days.  Here I was hoping to come back, sooner rather than later.  Here I was.

##

I remember early in the process, maybe a couple of weeks after surgery, our mats were full.  Condensation lined the windows and walls.  Steam lingered along the mats.  Coming in as an outsider, I never saw this angle of training.  As part of it, I typically eased into the depths of the sweat and smell and smog of hard training.  Coming in later, part of a surprise celebration, I walked into the thick layers and knew this was my spot.  It didn’t disgust me, as it should have.  Instead, I missed it.

A handful of promotions occurred that night.  I can’t remember all of them, as there were at least a handful.  I remember a couple of my training partners, heroes, and favorite teammates were promoted.  Mandie received her purple belt.  She taught me to never concede an inch and to continuously fight for position; that it’s okay to be small-framed, but fierce.  You can be tough, without being a douchebag or mean.  You can rely on technique to conquer all.

Hannah received her blue belt.  She started about a month after I did.  We received all our stripes within lockstep of each other.  Here we were, though, again tied at blue belt (zero stripes).  I considered and still consider her my BJJ twin sister. 

Sitting on a chair, watching their smiles and the congratulatory hugs and handshakes, it reminded me of the community I was part of.  The sense of family and celebrating each other’s achievements as if they were our own.  This is what I would’ve been giving up, if I gave into the temptation I described to Derek.  That moment, filled with the joy for others, reminded me that I always had a place at Buckhead Jiu-Jitsu.

##

Somewhere in there, not sure when and definitely after my surgery, my teammates Kenneth (a brown belt at the time) and his wife, Keiko (a white belt at the time) invited us over for a Japanese brunch.  I felt useless as I sat on a chair and tried to eat with one arm.  They understood and made offerings that required a spoon or fork.  We ate roasted meats, eggs, soups, and veggies.  All flavored differently than I expected, but all amazing.

What struck me, though, was sitting around a table and chatting about life.  Yes, we talked about the injury and how it was going.  We talked about training (inevitably).  We shared funny stories about bathing myself and sadder stories like the first weekend where Percocet hit me harder than intended.  We talked about work, travels, and our lives in the past and in the future.  In short, we just hung out, the ways friends do.  We ate.  We drank.  We had fun.  I’d never have found these people without jiu-jitsu, without Buckhead Jiu-Jitsu, without the sport bringing out who I want to be and always was.

Although I sat there, broken and healing, it’s at this moment that I realized I was part of something…a family, a community.  Two things I’ve always lacked in my life, thinking I didn’t need them, but here they were filling a void that I never knew I had.  This is Jiu-Jitsu.

News travels fast.  While holed up with Rachelle in a Seattle AirBNB, word of my broken arm spread across my academy.  From there, it filtered out to our friends and cousin academies (academies not necessarily affiliated or under the same lineage, but close enough through friendship that we train there and they train with us; a cross-pollination of techniques and philosophies).  On Monday morning, while learning to scoop up oatmeal with my off-hand and resting my broken and splinted arm on my leg, my phone started buzzing.  Various texts chimed on the screen.  At some point, I turned off the notifications.  I sat, overwhelmed, a few thousand miles from Atlanta while staring at my wife.  Most messages read the same – asking how I was, what happened, and the usual “You’ll be back soon” sentiments.  A few stood out.

Alex Jutis, a (then) brown belt at Creighton MMA, sent me a name of an orthopedic surgeon in Atlanta.  I called right away.  I booked a consultation for Wednesday morning.  That was still two days away.  Right now, though, we needed to figure out how to get me on a plane.  At least I had Percocet and Rachelle.  Really the only two things I needed to drag myself back home.

I slept a lot on the plane.  I slept a lot for the next week or so.  I slept because I didn’t know what else to do.  I recognized this response – a combination of boredom, but more so depression.  It’s something I struggled with all my life, seeking sleep over confronting demons or negative emotions.  It’s also something of a red flag, when I see myself sleeping or seeking my bed too often.  Either I’m sick or I’m depressed.  Sometimes I’m simply tired, but I have coffee for that.

I slept my way to Atlanta, periodically waking up to Rachelle sharing a snack with me and pushing ice water or more Percocet my way, before shutting my eyes again.  I slept because I couldn’t formulate a plan. Yet.  I preferred a plan, something to latch onto, a set of steps to guide my actions into the future.  Instead, I simply didn’t know what the next day would bring, the next week, the next month.  I didn’t know and that’s why I slept.

I asked Rachelle a million questions about surgeries.  When could they see me?  When would I be healed?  When could I train again?  What would the PT be like?  All of these she didn’t know, or couldn’t precisely answer because of various factors we still didn’t know.  I clung to her rough estimates.  Maybe they’d cut me by the end of the week. Then we could count out 4-6 weeks before the cast came off and then maybe a few weeks of PT.  Then who knows.  It depended on the doctor.  It depended on my swelling.  It depended on factors outside our knowledge.  Simply, we didn’t know.  So I slept.

##

Dr. Chris Haraszti talked and moved with precision.  His wide body sauntered through the hallways, sometimes with his head down like a linebacker zooming towards a QB.  Around him, I felt small, broken like some sort of exotic bird.  In the examination room, his cold left hand enveloped mine when we shook.  Muscles bulged along his forearms.  The sleeves of his medical scrubs strained at his biceps.  When he unwrapped my right arm, his fingers moved quickly, but gently.  He asked me to grip his hand.  I couldn’t.  He manipulated my wrist and probed quickly, but not so gently.  I inhaled and exhaled in response.  He worried about a dislocation.  That complicated things.  The break, not so much.  He’d seen worse.

We walked me to the x-ray area.  He asked me how I knew Alex.  I explained.

“So you train?”

“Yes, that’s how I broke it?”

“A fall?”

“No.  From half guard.  My arm got trapped underneath.”

He nodded.  “Makes a bit of sense.”

After the x-rays, I sat alone in the examination room.  My broken arm rested on my lap like some wounded, resting animal.  Bruising – purple and yellow and red – spread across my forearm.  My hand hung at an awkward angle.  I fingered the spot he did, trying to figure out what he felt.  I imagined a million scenarios, pins, complicated surgeries, lengthy PT, and a hundred years away from the mats.

Dr. Haraszti returned.  He slapped the x-rays on a light projector hanging from the wall.  “You have a bit of biology background?”

“Yes,” I said.

He walked me through my arm.  The break looked clean.  I lucked out.  No fractures or tears in the wrist, but it was dislocated.  He’d have to push it back in place, which meant a larger incision.  He felt confident he wouldn’t have to pin it.  Elbow looked solid.  It was either/or, the elbow or wrist being dislocated.

He looked at me. “You need surgery.”

“I know,” I said.

He almost smiled.  “Sometimes people need to hear that.”

I thought about the doctors in Washington, at the ER, telling me it would take a year or more before I could train again.  I asked the question bouncing around my head, “How long before I can train?”

His palms scratched against gray stubble on his cheeks.  He looked over his shoulder.  The door was shut.  “How much do you train now, before the injury?”

“Five or six days a week.  Sometimes two-a-day.  Sundays off.”

“How much do you compete?”

“I’ve competed four times since I started.  Not quite a year ago.”

“You do pretty well?”

“Usually gold, but got my blue belt a couple of weeks ago.”

He paused.  He pulled out his phone and muttered to himself as if making calculations.

“I can get you in this Friday, around noon.  That would put you about 4-6 weeks out.  In that time, if you are healing well, we can go to a brace.  Then you can do some drills or maybe just the techniques.  No sparring.  No competitions.  Don’t be stupid.”

He never said a timeframe, but I understood.  It was a lot less than a year or more.  I felt relieved.

“See the front desk to book for Friday.  My nurse will get you a fresh splint.”

A plan was forming.

##

Rachelle took that Friday off.  She’d worked as an OR nurse for over a decade.  It was a blessing to have someone versed in the language of operations – what to expect, what not to do, how strict they meant “no food or drink” (very strict).  It was a blessing to have her in my life.  If anything, this ordeal taught me that.

We woke around midnight, just to eat and chug some water.  Then we went back to bed, even though sleep barely came.  I propped my arm this way and that, hoping to find some comfortable spot.  I hadn’t found one since the week before, but I continued to experiment like a scientist until fatigue overcame me.  We kept up with Percocet, using a timer or phone reminders to keep the pain at bay.  I didn’t work out much, maybe sat on the bike for 30 minutes before growing bored and going to work earlier than normal.  Too many thoughts tossed and turned through my head and Friday couldn’t come soon enough.

That morning resembled a competition day when I hadn’t managed my weight.  I didn’t eat.  I didn’t drink. When I grew thirsty, I rinsed my mouth with water before spitting it out.  Mental discipline drove through the physical desire for a burger or oatmeal or even some ice water.  We started planning my post-surgery meal.  This was exactly how I crawled my way through a competition day fast – thinking ahead to all the food I’d eat.  Did I want a pizza?  A burger and fries?  What about sweets?  Nachos?  We decided on a local (to the hospital) Cajun bistro.  Being new to Atlanta, still not a year there, we didn’t know much about the food scene.  Proximity drove much of our decisions at that time.

We arrived to the hospital early.  The orderlies and staff brought me back to a waiting room where I’d change to a thin gown before they stuck an IV in my arm.  I asked if Rachelle could stay with me, explaining her occupation.  They seemed amendable.  We brought my Kindle, my iPad, my phone to the room.  I couldn’t concentrate enough on one option or another.  I wanted to jump in, get cut, and get to the other side.  Again, the correlations to competitions struck me.  There comes a certain point when I’m tired of waiting and want it over with, to bump fists and go, no matter the outcome.  The wait becomes painful and tedious in equal doses.  Yet we continued to wait.

The surgeon was running behind.  He was removing hardware from a patient’s arm; a metal plate and screws much like he’d insert in my arm.  I asked if that was common.  Rachelle explained it wasn’t.  Probably the patient had complications with the plate.  When the orderly returned, I asked about that.  They explained it was another doctor’s efforts and Dr. Haraszti was cleaning up shoddy work.  That reminded me of the Washington option, leaving me in the same boat as the current patient.  This thought reinforced this course of action; to enjoy our time in Seattle and wait for surgery.

While we waited, fatigue grew hold of me.  I curled up in a ball, underneath a scratchy, wool blanket.  I’m not a large man, in fact fairly small in both height and weight.  I felt smaller then, weak and broken.  I didn’t want Rachelle to see me like this, but I also needed someone near me.  I didn’t want anybody else, so I kept her close.  She rubbed my back and asked if I needed anything.  I didn’t, except to be operated on.  I was ready.

At some point they wheeled me back.  I heard my heart rate rise on the monitors.  I took deep breaths and let them out slowly.  This was like when I weighed in, going through Gi check, waiting for the mat coordinator to call my name, knowing it would be soon, but not sure how soon that meant.  It wasn’t long, being away from Rachelle in the back room.  It felt like eternity, though, being away from her and not having anybody to ask questions.  They cleaned and marked my arm with various codes and lines.  They took my vitals and assured me it wouldn’t be long now.

They wheeled me to the operating room.  This was like the mat coordinator leading me and my opponent through the other mats before lining us up beside the scorer’s table.  They shuffled me onto the operating table – a thinly padded, flat platform.  They arranged pillows under my head and arm.  They asked my name and date of birth and what arm we’d be operating on.  The anesthesiologist pushed drugs through my IV.  It wouldn’t be long now before darkness came.  I couldn’t wait.  I closed my eyes and took a breath.  Here.  We.  Go.

##

I woke in the intermediate room, where I waited before the surgery area.  I heard heartbeats on a monitor, my heartbeats.  I opened my eyes.  A nurse smiled at me.  I asked for Rachelle, the first thing from my mouth.  “My wife,” I asked.

The nurse left to get her.

I waited there, rubbing my face and eyes with my left hand.  My right arm still felt numb, heavy, wrapped in a splint.  A wheelchair sat beside the bed.  I assumed this was for me.  I eased myself down and waited for the nurse and Rachelle to return.  I remembered getting my wisdom teeth out, how my memory slipped in and out on the ride back to my dad’s house to sleep on a futon mattress.  It took a few hours before my head cleared and I could remember events such as waking in a puddle of blood and drool, changing the gauze in my mouth, starting a load of laundry, showering, and finally eating some pudding.

This felt much the same.  At some point, Rachelle helped me get dressed.  I don’t remember where that happened, maybe while I sat in the wheelchair and wriggled around enough to get pants and a hoodie on.  We left the hospital, presumably after checking out.  We left behind the wheelchair, but I don’t remember when or where.  She loaded me in the CRV, but I don’t remember when or how.  I leaned against the cool passenger side window.  I hugged myself, tucking my splinted arm against my stomach.

A grocery bag full of takeout sat in the back seat.  Rachelle asked if wanted some.  I did, but I don’t remember how much I ate.  I remember gnawing on some cornbread, but losing momentum as we kept driving towards home.

At home, I curled up on the couch and tried eating gumbo and more cornbread and maybe some dessert that I can’t recall.  I don’t remember how much I ate or if I even liked it.  I wanted to sleep.  That much I knew.

We set up an inflatable bed in the guest room.  This is where I’d sleep for the next few weeks.  It gave me access to my own bathroom and bed so as to toss and turn and start healing.  I didn’t want the complications of two dogs and Rachelle, adding to my frustrations with sleep and pain.  I changed to shorts and a t-shirt.  Rachelle tucked me in and set an alarm for herself. To visit me in a few hours to load me up with Percocet. To keep ahead of the pain.

The world turned to darkness again and at least I was on the other side of surgery.

##

Sometime around midnight the meds wore off.  My arm ached. A dull throbbing pain that pulsed with each beat of my heart.  I adjusted my arm, propping it on a pillow or leaning it against the wall.  I closed my eyes.  The ache continued.  I turned over and readjusted everything.  It didn’t work.  I called for Rachelle.  She didn’t wake up.  I sat up in bed, holding my arm in my lap.  Bits of orange iodine disinfectant still flaked along my exposed fingers.  I smelled like the hospital.  The ache deepened to pain, as if someone cranked nine screws into my bone.  In fact, that’s exactly what happened a few short hours ago.

I sat on the toilet to pee, my new form of relieving myself.  I returned to bed.  I didn’t want to wake her, but I knew I had to.  I didn’t know how much Percocet to take or even where it was or if I should take any at all.  But I hurt and it was getting worse.  I deliberated for maybe fifteen more minutes – wide-eyed and curled into a tight ball – before giving in.  I needed drugs.

I walked to our bedroom and touched her arm.  She woke, pushed the sleep mask off her face, and asked, “You’re hurting?”

It was more of a statement, but one she needed an answer.  I nodded.  She sat up, stood, and led me to the kitchen.  She pulled down a glass and filled it with water.  She slid this to me before rifling through her purse.  She came up with a muted orange pill bottle.  She squinted at the label.  “He upped your dosage.  So we’ll start with one.”

I swallowed it before slinking off to the blowup bed.  She followed me.  I didn’t ask her to, but she did anyway.  She sat on the edge of the bed as I folded myself under the blankets.  I wanted her to lie next to me, to sleep like we grew accustomed to, these last 10 years or so.  I knew she wanted that too, but we also knew it wasn’t the best for me at the moment.  I needed rest and to heal.

“Can I get anything else for you?  Are you hungry yet?”

I shook my head before touching her hand.  I still hurt.  The Percocet or maybe fatigue raced like two horses to put me under first.  What I really wanted though, was for our lives to be normal again.  “I’m sorry,” I said.

She folded herself next to me.  She propped my wounded arm on a pillow before rubbing my back.  “You don’t need to be.”

I fell asleep with her beside me.  I woke a few hours later by myself.  Not even the sun was up then, so I waited until the hurt got me out of bed.

I prepared myself for this to be par for the next few nights.

##

I wanted to shower. Our dogs sniffed my arm, my hand, my splint.  I probably smelled of blood and iodine and hurt.  One licked me while the other kept his distance.  Either way, I empathized.  I didn’t want to smell like surgery and a hospital and whatever my wound looked like under my splint.

We tried wrapping a plastic bag around my arm.  We couldn’t find a large enough Ziploc, so we settled for a white trash bag that circumnavigated my arm multiple times.  Water pooled in the folds and crevices, slowly making its way across the bathroom floor or closer and closer to my splint.  We gave up and pulled me from the shower.  I sat on the toilet, naked and dripping, as we started unwrapping my arm.

I imagined a scene in Frankenstein when the monster sees himself in the mirror for the first time, shocked and horrified by his own reflection.  Or that scene in Batman (1989) when the Joker takes off his bandages. As we set aside the splint, then unwrapped my arm, bits of iodine flaked off my skin, falling to the floor in an orange-red snowfall.  A long cut, sutured together, ran down my arm.  My body hair squished against my shriveled, pale skin.  It reminded me of Frankenstein’s monster, the stitched wounds crisscrossing his face.

I sat on the end of the bathtub as we ran the shower.  We took it in stages, hoping the hot water would hold up.  We washed my lower body.  Easy enough.  Then we started on my hair and face.  We used a washcloth for my arms and torso.  I helped as much as I could, mostly holding my useless arm above my head.

Drying off was easy.  So was getting underwear, socks, and pants on.  A t-shirt proved a little more difficult as we folded it above my head, inching it down over my arms before adjusting the cloth over my torso.  I combed my hair, shaved my face, applied moisturizers, and what not.  That stalled the inevitable long enough.  It was time to re-splint my arm.

We started in the bathroom.  That didn’t work.  There was nowhere to sit, to brace myself, to find a good angle.  We relocated to the couch where the dogs leaped up, sniffled at my arm and hoped to help me heal with their tongues and cold noses.  We pushed them away before starting to wrap my arm.  I relaxed, letting Rachelle spread the ACE bandage back and forth across my forearm, keeping my incision site clean and protected, providing my arm some padding from the splint.  Then we slid the splint over my arm, elbow first, until my forearm rested in the semi-circular cast.  The ACE-bandage caused friction, balling up and exposing my arm.  That wouldn’t do.  We backed out and rewrapped the arm.  We pulled on the stiff ends of the brace, hoping to pop my arm in.  It worked until the last bit, when Rachelle decided to shove at my hand and wrist to pop it the last few inches.

This hurt.  A lot.

I swore at her and jerked my arm away.  I wanted to cry in frustration, feeling betrayed by her thoughtlessness.  Manhandling me like some awkward bit of furniture we struggled to slide through our small apartment door, bumping against the frames and scratching the upholstery.  I needed a break, to take a breath.  I probably lost it a bit.  We needed to think this through, not add more muscle and sweat and stubbornness.

We slipped my arm back in, as far as we could without balling up the bandaging.  I braced my elbow against my leg, grabbed my wrist with my left hand, and pushed with my right knee.  This did the trick with minimal pain.  By then, I was sweating, Rachelle was crying, and the dogs were hunkered in a corner of the main bedroom.

This is what it would be like, trying to figure out how to function, but also not damage me further.

I’d be hurting.  She’d be hurting, in a different way.  Neither of us knowing what we were supposed to be doing, making it up as we went along and hoping the days turned into weeks and the healing process would make it all easier.

##

Before the surgery, Percocet was my friend.  The little pills bridged the days between injury and surgery.  They helped me sleep.  They calmed me down.  Frankly they were too good to me.  After the surgery, Percocet became my enemy.

It started that first night, when the meds wore off.  Rachelle dosed me up and I fell asleep.  I woke up feeling okay, but by the time I showered and ate, I felt the pain wearing away on me like the slow drip of a leaky faucet cutting through a porcelain sink.  I sat with my head on my folded arms, waiting for the pills to take effect.

They did.  I felt better.  We could watch TV or simply chat.  I felt giddy, though, like I couldn’t sit still.  That I wanted to walk around or do something, anything, besides just sit around the house all day.  I thought it was because I’d gone a week without strenuous exercise, the gym, jiu-jitsu.

So we bundled me up in a baggy hoodie and drove to Ponce City Market.  We walked around, looked at shops, chatted.  We went to the park across the street.  We kept walking.  My giddiness subsided and I started shivering despite the hoodie and hat, and the warm latte cradled in my hands.

We returned to the car where I curled into the passenger seat.  My teeth chattered together as goosebumps spread across my skin.  We blasted the seat warmers and heat.  It wasn’t enough.  I didn’t want to touch my coffee, thinking it gave me jitters or mixed badly with the Percocet.

We returned home where I slept on the couch.  I woke up in pain and fighting flu-like symptoms – a headache, both sweating and shivering through a pile of blankets, dehydration.  I couldn’t concentrate.  Instead, I just wanted to be held by Rachelle.  To have the dogs lay on me, feeling their warm bodies against my own.  Anything to distract me.

We loaded me with another dose of Percocet.

By now, the morning faded to early afternoon.  I didn’t want to eat.  I only wanted to lay down, to sleep, to keep healing.  I wondered what was wrong with me, why I kept shivering and sweating and couldn’t sit still and felt sick.  Maybe we’d infected my wound by taking a shower.  Maybe the surgery simply wore me out.  Maybe I just needed sleep.

I didn’t know what I wanted.  At any given moment I needed to pace around our 2-bedroom apartment and rub my hands across my shoulder or neck.  Then I’d sit down, shivering and piled under blankets.  I’d start curling into myself, asking for Rachelle to reassure me that everything would be okay.  I wanted to cry, but the tears and the emotional plummet simply wasn’t there.  Instead, I apologized to Rachelle for the botched trip and this day.  Then I’d realize she was always there for me, as happy as she could be, and then I’d love her more and want to hug her with one arm.  Then I felt I wasn’t good enough for her.  That I was a horrible, shortsighted person who always thought of their own needs first.  Around and around I traveled this emotional carousel.  It was wearing me out.

Then the doorbell rang.

##

Jiu-Jitsu is a funny sport, especially as you get older.  When you’re younger, you take it for granted when you attend soccer or football or volleyball teammates’ birthdays.  As you get older, these attachments fray and thin to a tentative hold in the high school years.  In college or as an adult, teammates are an oblique way to describe another weekend warrior who will suit up in hopes a bad bounce doesn’t lead to a sprained ankle or a torn meniscus.  Maybe you end up as friends with one or two, going out to a few post-game beers or attending a ballgame together when the Mariners are in town.  Other than that, though, adult sports feels different than when you’re a kid.

With jiu-jitsu, that changes.  If anything, we bond tighter than any single team.  We choose to put ourselves in harms way – chokes, joint locks, and random injuries – while a deep shade of empathy runs through our time on the mats.

So when a teammates goes down, broken and ailing, we feel it ourselves.  I didn’t learn this until I broke my arm.  It didn’t sink in until they knocked on my door.

Sam (my coach) brought two of my teammates to my tiny apartment – Matt Shand and Hannah Narcross.  They carried in BBQ from a local restaurant I’d always meant to try, but was always dieting.  We sat around my dining room table and for a few hours I felt like I wasn’t broken.  That it would be okay. That I could heal and would be training with them soon.

We talked about Star Wars and board games and how I broke my arm.  We chatted about life, graduate school for Hannah and politics for Matt.  I couldn’t sit very long, as I still felt jittery, but the conversations prevented me from curling up in bed and staring at the wall.  At times, I had to excuse myself to the bathroom to splash cold water on my face and keep from feeling ill all over again.  Time passed much too fast before they had to leave.

By then, I was crashing and maybe looked it.  The Percocet started wearing off and our guests had to get home.

After they left, I sat on the couch as Rachelle called the doctor’s office.  She explained my symptoms.  They doubted I would be infected, a possibility for my ailments.  I searched the Internet for opioid information.  This made more sense. I was reacting badly to opiods and crashing hard, leading me to chase the dragon all day.

We had a choice, keep chasing that dragon, hoping it never slapped me with its tail, or use Sunday to get clean.  Sitting under a pile of blankets, I held out my hand and made a choice.

Rachelle dropped three tablets of Ibuprofen in my hand.  We’ll travel this route.  It wouldn’t dull the pain as much, but it would dull my struggles.

The choice was made.  I could do this.  I could recover, even if fighting pain, and I would be back on the mats with my team.  I had Rachelle.  I had my team.  I had my stupid, stubborn self.  That was enough.

We drove south on Highway 5, heading towards Tacoma.  I blanked out at some point, staring out at the void between Seattle and Tacoma.  The familiar feel of West Seattle disappear in the rearview mirror.  Billboards for outlet malls and casinos took its place.  This is the exact point I wished I had voiced the thoughts in my head.  “Please, Rachelle, let’s turn around.  This isn’t a big deal.  There will be other tournaments.  Let’s just enjoy our trip for the reasons we intended to come.  I was stupid.  I don’t need to do another NAGA.  Let’s just turn around.”

There’s this sliding doors thought experiment.  There are moments in your life when various choices change the outcome of your life drastically.  Do you go through Door #1 or do you pick Door #2?  Either way your life will change.  For me, this was one of them.  I still dwell on the “what if” for that day.  What if I had chosen Door #2?  What if…I had just spoken up?

In retrospect maybe it would have led to other problems.  Maybe I’d start running from blue belt competitions, instead of diving in two weeks after being promoted.  Maybe…

I do know what happened when I stepped through Door #1.

##

Initially I planned to compete back in Atlanta.  Last time, in December, a handful of us competed at New Breed and we walked away with the third place team banner.  This time, in February, we gathered as many competitors as we could.  There were the usual suspects – Matt, Ruth, Marc, Hannah – mixed in with first timers and people dusting off their competition Gis.  I wanted to be part of this, to be part of a push towards a first place banner.  Years later, I could look up at the rafters of Buckhead Jiu-Jitsu and feel part of something special, which is the first time we took home the team trophy from a tournament.

Looking at the dates of the tournament, a slow dawning sank into my head and heart.  I’d be in Seattle with my wife.  We’d bought airline tickets and made lodging, rental car, and event arrangements long ago.  This was supposed to be a weekend where we visited our beloved Pacific Northwest, reliving (even if for a short time) the life we left behind when we moved to Atlanta.  Yet I couldn’t shake the feeling of abandoning my team.  I even went so far as to try to figure out how to compete in Atlanta and still make it for the weekend with Rachelle, somehow being in two places at once.  This was silly, I know.  Sillier in retrospect.  Instead I researched tournaments in the area.  It was the least I could do to feel part of my team back in Atlanta.  This was impetus #1.

At white belt, NAGA served as my first initiation to grappling/BJJ competitions.  I came home with double gold medals.  This gave me confidence and momentum to continue to compete at white belt, finding a tournament about every other month.  Starting my blue and white belt competition journeys at NAGA felt connected in some cosmic way.  This was impetus #2.

I’d lost my last tournament to a dubious DQ.  This broke my heart.  It set off so many dominoes that I’m still feeling the aftershocks today (years and years later).  I wanted to jump back on the horse of competition, to rinse the taste of that tournament from my mouth.  This was impetus #3.

I had ample reasons to sign up for NAGA.  At least when you look at it from a purely BJJ point of view.  In retrospect, there’s another side to all of this, without even going into what happened at the tournament.  BJJ should be part of life and not the other way around.  In other words, and the part that strangely sticks with me longer than anything else that happened, is that I ruined a trip with my wife.  We only get so many opportunities for anything and my single-minded, selfishness towards my BJJ journey led me to drift away from something that is as at least as important to me and should be more important…which is sharing my life with Rachelle and building as many fond memories as we can, while we can.  This is probably the largest regret I have about this weekend and the part that still hurts.

##

We sat on wobbly folding chairs, arranged under rattling space heaters inside a large warehouse.  In the summer and maybe the fall, this space would be used for buying/selling farm stock or housing harvest machinery.  A faint scent of hay and dusty animal hides lingered in the air.  Today, at least, mats and plastic barriers filled the bulk of the space.

A few white belts, wide-eyed and jogging in space, lined up near one side of the mats.  I stared at them, sizing them up.  They were about my weight.  They would’ve been in my division if this were a couple of weeks ago.  Some of them looked younger, still struggling through early adulthood.  Others, with stubble and maybe a gray hair or two, looked above 30 years old.  These would be my folks, smaller and older.  I watched them struggle against each other, finding some rhythm of white belt competition.

I stared at my paper tournament cards.  There were two – one for Gi and one for No Gi.  Because of my blue belt, I’d been bumped up to Intermediate No Gi.  I didn’t expect this.  I’d hoped my <1 year experience would still allow me to compete in the Beginner/Novice division; affording me a warm-up bracket to find my feet and build my confidence for my first blue belt Gi division.  It wasn’t in the cards.

There was a second time – sitting there next to Rachelle and passively watching the ongoing white belt divisions – which doubt crept through my body.   This time, I voiced my concerns.  “Let’s just go.”

It wasn’t Rachelle’s fault.  She only piped back what I talked about earlier.  “You don’t want to do that.  This is you facing your fears.  If you run now, you might keep running.  It’s just nerves talking.”

She was right to do this.  This is what I’d asked her before, tournament after tournament, to keep facing my fears and nerves, to keep pushing myself.  It’s just on this day, I didn’t articulate it correctly.

I should’ve said, “I don’t want to do this.  I want to be with you, doing us stuff.  Let’s go wine tasting and shopping and wandering and a million other things we won’t have an opportunity to do in Atlanta.  This is my fault, to ask you to give up part of our vacation for this…a nothing tournament being held in a warehouse that smells like cows.  There will be another tournament, in a week or a month or two months.  I’ll be okay.”

On scratchy overhead speakers, they called my division.  “Intermediate No-Gi competitors, start warming up.”

So my day started.

##

I sat on the warm-up mats and stretched out.  I didn’t have a defined warm-up routine yet.  Instead I watched other competitors and emulated what they did.  I pretended to shoot a single (something I never do in competition).  I inverted and hung out upside down, my feet stretching to touch the mat behind me.  Again this wasn’t something I had in my game (yet).  I did some jumping jacks and maybe a few squats.  I kept my hips and legs loose while watching earlier matches on the mat nearby.

My division started.  I had a bye in a 3-man bracket.  That meant I would face the loser of the first match.  I don’t remember a lot of their match.  I remember one guy ripped off his t-shirt right before walking on the mat.  The other guy wore a blue rashguard.  They scrambled to the ground, neither person receiving points for anything.  The guy with the rashguard pulled closed guard.  The shirtless guy did a can opener to open the guard.  It didn’t work.  I started stretching my neck out.

I shot Rachelle a look, like, “Why am I even here.  I don’t want this.”

She gave me a similar look.  She didn’t want this for me.  Was it too late to walk away?

My match would be soon, maybe 10 more minutes depending on the results of this one.  The shirtless guy dove for the other guy’s legs.  It didn’t work.  This was the first time I saw someone actively going for leg attacks in a tournament.  Nerves sparked across my body.  I knew I’d lose to the shirtless guy if I faced him.  It was just a matter of time.

The guy with the rashguard attempted a sweep.  It wasn’t pretty and the shirtless guy scrambled on top and passed.  That was all it took as he stalled out the match the rest of the way.  At least I’d face the guy wearing a rashguard first.

Another match started.  They both inverted, attacking each other’s legs.  I couldn’t believe this was “just” Intermediate.  They both wore blue accented rashguards.  This was blue belt?  This is what I would end up facing now and in the future?  I was merely a white belt in a blue belt’s clothing.  I was a fraud, an imposter.  What was I doing here?

My match was next.  I stepped out with very little nerves (relatively).  I’d resigned myself to losing.  It wouldn’t matter and at least I could go home or maybe convince Rachelle that one loss and one match was enough.  We’d go wine tasting and do all the fun things we’d initially planned before I complicated matters with this tournament.

We shook hands.  We bumped fists.  The ref started the match.  I faked a singled before grabbing his wrist and sitting down.  At least I started confidently.  He stepped forward before sitting on my feet.  I grabbed an elbow and shot to butterfly.  I toppled him.  His butt hit the mat.  I got excited and didn’t finish coming on top or stay tight throughout the sweep.  He pulled his hips back and came back on top.  I pulled him in closed guard.

I didn’t know what to do now.  My closed guard was limited, especially in No Gi.  I went for an arm wrap.  I dominated his posture by cupping his neck and pulling him close to me like two bros hugging it out.  I half-heartedly went for an arm bar.  Finally, I shot a triangle attempt.  He shoved my legs away.  There was a scramble.  I framed, got my hips back under me and slid into half guard.  I had a left under hook and was on my right shoulder.  I felt safe.  I could play from here.  I had an advantage.  The pressure was on him to score now.

He tried to cross face me.  I blocked it.  I dove underneath, trying to under hook his free leg.  From here, I could bridge or drive forward.  From here, I could dominate the match.  From here, I knew what to do.  He grabbed my free wrist.  He yanked his leg back and away.  It wasn’t a big deal.  I felt safe.  He did it again.  This wasn’t a submission, just him reacting to my control points, trying to wiggle free as I off balanced him.

Something popped.  He pulled back, sitting down.  I pulled away.  We both heard it and looked at each other.  The ref stepped forward.  I knew something was wrong.  I just didn’t know how much.  It was my right arm, the one hooking his leg.  The one he was pulling on the wrist.  The ref called over the medic.  She probed my right hand, my right wrist, my right elbow, my right arm.  “I think you sprained it, at the most.”

We heard a pop.  That wasn’t a sprain.  This was something more.  I wore a long-sleeved rash guard.  There was a bump underneath.  I looked to the audience, to Rachelle, to a nurse.  Not someone with basic First-Aid/CPR.

The ref leaned down and asked me to grip his hand.  I tried.  I couldn’t.  He looked at me, “You might have broken it.”  I hoped he wasn’t right.

“I’m going to go,” I said.

The ref nodded.

Rachelle bundled me up, grabbed my bag, handed me my shoes.  We got to the rental car.  A hospital wasn’t far away, maybe three miles, but felt like 30.  We hit maybe one red light.  I wasn’t in pain, but I knew something was wrong.  I cradled my right arm in my lap like a fragile newborn baby.  I wanted to cry.  I wanted to scream.  I wanted to just disappear with Rachelle and forget this whole thing happened; to pick the other sliding door.

We arrived at the hospital.  Rachelle helped me sign into the ER.  They admitted me right away.  This was at around 1 in the afternoon.  They took my vitals before leading me to an empty room.  I sat on thin, paper sheets.  Rachelle found me a blanket, something to cover my sweaty legs.  We waited for the doctors.

##

The brain plays funny games.  In dire circumstances, we imagine reasons why the situation couldn’t be that bad, definitely not the worst case scenario.  We start reimagining the narrative, grasping for reasons we should expect a better outcome.  As more data accumulates, with the worst case scenario becoming more and more likely, hope slips away like an abandoned helium balloon.

I knew it was broken.  Rachelle knew it was broken.  Without definitive proof, though, we hoped for a dislocation, a sprain, or even a hairline fracture.  A pop could mean my elbow simply released some pressure.  I couldn’t make a fist because I sprained my wrist and just needed a readjustment and some RICE therapy.  The lump in my arm was inflammation, stemming from something minor.  It couldn’t be broken.

They took x-rays.  They probed around my arm.  They took their time because it was the weekend and I was from out of town and this was the ER in some small town in Washington.  Time ticked away as Rachelle and I started discussing how to salvage the weekend.  It wasn’t too late to hit dinner and still make the food and wine event we’d planned to attend the next day (Sunday).  It wasn’t too late to have the weekend we initially intended before I interjected my own, selfish plans.  We could make it work.

Attached to the wall behind me, a screen sat on a swivel.  I couldn’t see the screen.  The doctor and PA and Rachelle could.  They pulled up the x-rays.  Rachelle’s face turned two shades whiter.  Her lips pursed together.  Her shoulders sagged.  When she felt my eyes on her, she touched my leg and my uninjured arm.  This, more than anything, relayed the news.

I asked to see it.  The PA turned the screen towards me.

Years ago, I broke my wrist along the base of my pinkie.  They wanted to cast me for 6 weeks.  I asked to see the x-ray.  It was a hairline fracture, not even fully running through a tiny condyle of the bone.  I walked out of the clinic with no cast, no pins, and no surgery.  We wrapped my arm at night and I took it easy for 2-3 weeks.  I hoped for that type of situation.

This time, it was broken.  There were no doubts about that.  It wasn’t a hairline fracture.  The bones barely touched each other.  The lump in my arm?  One, jagged bone pushed against my skin, as if trying to come up for air like a submerged whale.  There was no walking out without a cast, a sling, or something.

They tried hooking me up to some sort of medical Chinese finger trap.  My arm draped down with a few smaller weights hanging from my elbow and bicep.  They hoped gravity would pop the bone fragments back together.  I never believed that would work.  Rachelle never believed that would work.  I doubt anybody believed that would work.  We waited for the surgery consult, some local guy coming in for a different ER surgery, but could maybe fit me in.

That’s when the pain hit.   Maybe it was partially psychological – the magnitude of the injury finally piercing through my denial.  Or maybe adrenaline wore off, petering out to a calm realization that I was truly injured.  A dull ache changed to a throbbing.  We asked for something, anything to ward off the inevitable discomfort.  They hooked me up to a drip of some kind.  I didn’t ask.  It eased the growing ache and calmed me down.

The surgery consult arrived, glanced at my x-rays before describing my options.  My brain slogged through the static of the meds, the whirling insanity of the day, and started digesting the surgeon’s words.  He could fit me in tonight, probably close to 10 or 11 at night.  It would be an hour or so of surgery and then a day of observations.  We could probably (probably) make our flight on Monday morning.  I’d spend Sunday in the hospital, but my arm would have a plate and start the healing process.

I asked the surgeon to leave for a second.  I needed to sort the pros/cons.  This is my brain.  This is my brain on meds and pain and dealing with bad news.  This is me swiping aside my feelings and looking at the facts and strategy and options.  This is me being the partner I should’ve been to start the whole weekend.

Option 1:  Get surgery that night.  Hope this random surgeon was at least adequate.  All follow-up appointments would be with some clinic in Atlanta.  Sunday would be ruined.  Our trip would be ruined.  I’d have a huge hospital bill as a take home prize.  At least I could start healing a week earlier.  At least I’d be put back together.  At least the surgery would be done.

Option 2:  Wait a week or so to get surgery.  With inevitable swelling, I couldn’t get surgery on Monday or Tuesday or probably even Wednesday.  It would be about a week before any surgeon could operate on me.  It would be back in Atlanta, although I knew no one there to do it.  I didn’t know if anybody could fit me in.  I’d be broken during that time, opening a chance of further injury and discomfort.  It would be at least a week longer for recovery.  At least, though, we could salvage tonight.  At least, though, we could salvage Sunday.  It was rolling the dice with my health.

Although I discussed this all with Rachelle, I knew what I wanted to do.  I could roll the dice with my health.  Our weekend wouldn’t be the same as it could’ve been, through those sliding doors, but at least it could be something resembling our initial plans.

With a bottle full of Percocet and an open brace/sling around my fracture, we left the hospital before driving back towards Seattle.

Did we salvage that weekend?  That evening, we ate large slices of pizza paired with glasses of local red wine.  Rachelle helped me get to bed where I started learning how to prop my arm and sleep fitfully throughout the night.  The meds helped.  At least a little.

The next morning, a friend from BJJ called (Matt De Leon).  Like some radar of friendship, he knew something was wrong.  Talking to him, it made the emotions build in my chest like a burgeoning storm.  I did my best to hide it, but this would be the first of my tears.  When I hung up, I let them come.  I sobbed in the car before meeting Rachelle inside for brunch.  We ate at our favorite spot, sitting in our favorite stools, being served by our favorite server.  He commented on my arm.  “That looks new.”  He’d broken his arm skiing, years before.  He said the time passes quickly.

We wandered through local shops, searching for a medium-sized something to cover my arm and body.  We found a blue hoodie, on sale.  It worked well, slipping it over my brace and using the hood to pad the sling from rubbing a red, raw line across my shoulder and lats.

We did make it to the food and wine event, being mindful of my arm while zigzagging through endless tables of wine.  We ate tiny donuts and random food samplers.  We made it to the end, the international section, without blacking out or puking or otherwise going down the drain of being over-served.  This was always our goal, this relative finish line.  It was still early in the day.  We made it back to the AirBNB where we ordered tiny pizzas and drank water.  We sobered up while packing our clothes for the next day.

We salvaged the weekend a tiny bit.  It wasn’t perfect, but nothing was.  Tomorrow, Monday, we’d head back to Atlanta.  We’d start learning what we could about my arm.  We hoped to find a surgeon that could see me that week.  I knew there would be a few sick days in my future and I didn’t have a lot of leave time to dispose of.

That night, word started spreading around my injury.  I stopped following the texts as I couldn’t handle it.  Not yet.  There was tomorrow, but for now, I just wanted to be alone with Rachelle.  That was always the point of the weekend, the part I forgot about.  The part I still wish I could’ve fixed.