No Fishing

Who knew I even had something called a distal fibula? It turns out that I actually have two and today I've learned a lot about them. The most important thing I've learned about distal fibulae is that they hurt like a sonofabitch when you fracture them.

The odds finally caught up with me. After 25 years of playing competitive soccer without significant injury, I fractured my left ankle at a tournament in Charleston, SC. As I lay on the lowcountry pitch, my first thought was "I’m done for the season". My second, "This really screws up fishing."

And I had a great four weeks lined up; a trip to just west of here, probably Stone Mountain, for trout with Ken; a few days hard fishing the Haw while Mary is away; a potential New River exposition for smallmouth with Mike; a possible fishing side trip somewhere in West Virginia, breaking up my drive to Chicago to retrieve the absent Mary; a TFF group trip to the Holston and Watauga. There was lots of good angling just ahead.

Now it just looks like couch time. Heartbreaking. The ER doc x-rayed me, splinted me, and told me to stay completely off the ankle for a week to let the swelling go down. Then, he said, let an orthopod look at it for further analysis. I don't want further analysis. I want complete, freakin' miraculous recovery!!!

Now, to be fair, I must give credit to the Medical University of South Carolina at Charleston. Their ER staff was outstanding, friendly, and efficient. I was wheeled in, taken good care of, and crutched out in under two hours. If it wasn't for the dang fracture, it might have even been fun. My only complaint is that they gave me couple of oxycodones to take the edge off, and then told me I couldn't drink alcohol with it. I think I'd have preferred to decide my pain killer of choice. A couple of tumblers of Firefly would have done the trick.

We was also lucky enough to be staying with very dear friends while in the Charleston area rather than a dingy hotel. Pam and Steve, and let's not forget Gizmo, provided bright and cheerful hospitality, as they do every Memorial Day weekend, and were especially thoughtful in helping me through the first painful 48 hours. They are very, very special folks.

Bottom line, I guess I'm looking at 4-6 weeks before I even think about wading again and, really, there's never a good time for an interruption like that. But, it's just one of those speedbumps in life, right? Minor, really, in the grand scheme. The fish sure won't miss me.

So, it looks like there'll be no new fishing reports on the ol' blog here for a little while. But, fear not. I have a number of things I've been meaning to post, including some wildlife stuff that I haven't had the time to work in, some old items from last season (my pre-blog days) that might be fun to recycle, and who knows what else. Don't give up on me just yet.

And, with any luck, I'll be back on the water quicker than you know. I darn sure hope so. I was just beginning to keep it out of the trees.