I’ve been playing volleyball a few times a week lately. It’s been fun. It’s given me a chance to meet new people, and a bit of exercise as well. For whatever reason, I love to ‘set’. I set everything. I shouldn’t, but I do. I haven’t had a whole lot of luck cultivating my ‘bump’, so I just set.

However, this isn’t the idea way to handle an incoming serve. I’ve known this, but it was really hammered home to me last night. I was in the back left corner of the court when a serve came sailing in, and my hands were in the wrong place when the ball arrived. My left thumb got jammed in, bent back pretty good, and I heard something of a pop (which I hope was the ball) and I instantly knew that I was in a bit of pain.

It was one of those pains that you really feel. I leaned over for 30 seconds or so, and decided that I could keep playing. One more serve (not to me, thank goodness) and then I rotated to the left end of the front row. I made it through a serve and found that I was getting more and more nauseous. I said that I was taking a break, found the nearest section of fence to lean against and sat down on the sand. I’m guessing that I would have fainted had I stayed up a few more seconds. It was one of those kinds of pains. ;) So, I sat there for a while. My body started sweating like crazy for about 5 minutes and I was slowly trying to get my left hand moving again. My thumb didn’t really swell all that much, though. After this I got up, walked around a bit, and after 15 minutes or so decided that I was done playing volleyball for the night and brushed the sand off, put my shoes on, and ran home.

Upon arriving home I held a few ice cubes on the thumb for a while, took a shower, and then put some ice cubes in a bag and iced the hand for probably an hour and a half. There was a little bit of swelling. The thumb didn’t have hardly any motion, though. I could bend the thumb, but moving the entire thumb wasn’t easy. If I tried to move the thumb away from my hand, it quickly started hurting and I just couldn’t go very far.

Fast forward 12 hours through an evening of less-than-normal sleep and some internet searches, and I think I have a pretty good thumb sprain. Hopefully the thumb isn’t broken. It’s still swollen some, and certain motions (basically anything where I have to grip with my left hand, or anything that requires me to move the thumb in relation to the hand itself) simply isn’t easy, or even possible. From my searching, this is the type of thing that could take 4 days to recover from, or it could take 6 weeks. It sounds like it varies a lot. Right now it isn’t hurting much, and luckily I can type, since that doesn’t require me to move my thumb very far relative to my left hand. But, I just just don’t have any strength, and can’t do anything that requires my thumb to play an active role. Stay tuned, but I know I’m not going to be playing anymore volleyball in my current condition. :(

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