When I was in eighth grade, I tore the ligaments in my neck playing basketball of all things. The doctor said if I had gotten up and kept playing, I could have pinched my spinal cord and immediately stopped breathing. Long story short, I have two titanium screws in my vertebrae, 10% loss of neck mobility and a pretty wicked scar.
That was my first injury and I’ve been pretty fortunate since. Never a broken bone, never a sprained ankle, no torn muscles, nothing more than cuts and bruises. I have a scar on my knee from crashing my motorcycle. I asked the nurse if I needed stitches and she told me there wasn’t enough skin on my knee to stitch, but that healed without permanent damage. My whole fencing career: not a single injury. I did have a bruised rib once, but even that didn’t keep me from competing.
In 2017 when I was training for the Spartan Beast, I was in the best shape of my life. I ran the equivalent of almost 30 miles jumping over walls, running through rocky terrain, climbing 20 feet in the air, almost dropping a 100 pound concrete sphere on my toe. Never once, competing or training, did I get anything more than rope burn or a sliced finger from an exposed nail.
But somewhere deep in the tissues, something had to give. I figured by now I’d have a knee or ankle give out. I never thought a shoulder would be my downfall.
Warrior struggling / to remain consequential
I recently competed in a HEMA tournament. I went to the final elimination in Longsword, won Silver in an epic single sword event. Not a twinge of pain anywhere on my body except for a smashed thumb, but that wasn’t the first of its kind, nor did it distract me. Then I entered a dagger event, mostly designed for wrestling. First round up, first fight, I engaged my opponent and bang! shoulder flares up. It wasn’t even a dramatic engagement, no twist, pull, lock, or torque; just hit the right spot and doubled me over.
Bellow aloud / bold and proud / of where I’ve been /
But here I am
My instructor(s) and ref made me take a full minute. Then back into the fray. Through the course of a few more rounds and a few more opponents, my shoulder screamed a few times more. The pain shot up my neck, down to my fingers. Tears wanted to squeeze from the corners of my eyes. My last encounter of the weekend my instructor said: “We can’t make you stop, but at least fight with a different hand.” So I did, and I did what I could, but my fighting for the weekend was done and probably for the better.
As the adrenaline wore off and the weight of the weekend bore down, my shoulder stiffened. It had flared up before in practice, but I always quit as to not risk more injury. Never before did I push it like I did, to have it spike and stab and cause my thumb to curl. Those tears that wanted to bleed out weren’t just from physical pain, but the pain of realizing I had reached a threshold in my life. I had come to the edge, and that rocky downward slope of inevitability was my only path now.
Beating chest and drum / beating tired bones again
The hangovers keep getting worse. I can’t sleep on the floor or a bench like I used to. 11:00pm is late and recently I’ve found myself reading the news more than social media. The last time I got a haircut I noticed a bald spot on the back of my head. My wife told me she thought I knew about it, but how often do you see the back of your head? Come to think of it, I haven’t seen the scar on the back of my neck in a while either.
I guess I should be thankful. I’ve made it this long and been fortunate enough not to have anything destroyed. I’m doing better at HEMA than I ever did in fencing, even when I was at my best. I’m in relatively better shape than most people my age, some even younger. I’m still mobile if not as flexible as I’d like to be. But my shoulder and a lingering case of tennis elbow are making me realize my mortality. A few months ago, when my shoulder really started acting up, I had to go see a sports therapist who finally ground loose some tissue. At one point I was talking with my sister-in-law about it and she called it an injury. I never really thought of it as an injury, just more of a nuisance. I think of an injury as something you have to wear a cast or bandage for, but I guess a persistent pain, a limitation of mobility, and an ailment that keeps you from competing to your fullest, maybe that is an injury as well.
I’ve been told once you hit 40 your body falls apart. If that’s true I only have a few years left. I’ve had my sciatica flare up, every once in a while my right ankle yells “HEY!” and I’m like “What?” and it replies “Oh nothing.” So I wear an ankle brace for insurance. And now my shoulder is serious, and maybe my tennis elbow is too. I keep waiting for something to give, not knowing if it’ll be something common like a knee or ankle; or will it be a surprise? Will my spleen explode? Will I break a wrist? Will an eye pop out? It'll probably be my liver.
In the meantime I have to keep fighting on. Make the most of what I’ve got. I need to fill my trophy case while I still can, take advantage of my good fortune, stay the course and not push my luck. Maybe my neck injury held its own serendipity. It kept me from contact sports when I was young. Maybe karma decided to get a real bad injury out of the way early on so nothing will happen later. Fencing wasn’t as much of a strain as some other sports, and even then we drank more than we conditioned.
Tales told of battles won / of things we’ve done
Tripping though remember when / once invincible / now the armor’s wearing thin
And therein lies the crux: it probably won’t be an ankle or hip that does me in; it’ll probably be an organ. Some deep resting corrosion from some unnecessary pleasure. It’s almost been a year since my dad died. He led a sedentary life after he retired from the Army. He never had to worry about a concussion or torn ACL. It was a bundle of cells clogging up his innards that did him in.
And that’s what it boils down to: how long do you want to push your body before it breaks? Do you rag out your sports car until the head gasquet blows and say at least it was fun while it lasted? Or do you keep it on display in a garage until the rats eat all the electric wires and rust seizes the engine?
False hope, perhaps / But the truth never got in my way /
before now / feel the sting / feeling time bearing down
Not to sound cliche, but not only do we have a short time on this earth, we have to decide what we want to do with it and juggle the risks involved. For now I’ll fight through the pain, try to cover up my bald spot and ignore the fact I’m as old as some of my students’ parents… if not older.
Watch your ankles out there. There is no fountain of youth, there are only trophies. And although you can‘t take them with you when you die, at least you can enjoy them while you last.
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