This weekend I’m participating in an Alumni Basketball…tournament? I’m not too sure of the format but it’s a bunch of guys that used to play basketball at my high school who are getting together to play more basketball. I haven’t played an actual game of basketball since 2008, but I think I’m going to be fine.
In preparation for my comeback to the hardwood here is a story from my senior year basketball season.
When I played basketball I was the scrappy guy. I had been awarded the scrap-iron/floor burn award two years in a row. I earned this honor by basically running around like an idiot, going after loose balls and taking charges. Taking charges is where I excelled the most though. But because I went for a lot of charges I also fouled out of a lot of games. I actually fouled out with 6 fouls in a game, which was more because of a scoring error because after I did get my fifth foul no one told the refs. They tried to get their attention but they put the ball in play and I immediately fouled a guy again. It was a pretty big controversy, but I’m probably the only person that actually remembers it.
During one game I tried to cut a guy off on the baseline and he plowed right into me. Because the game was going on and adrenaline I didn’t really notice anything. Even if I would have felt being injured I would have played through it.
The next day at school I was walking up the stairs and I started to feel the pain of the play. And to be blunt it was in my balls. Seeing that this happened quite a bit of time after the fact I really was more concerned that when I felt a pain in my balls that it was cancer. It’s not a hard thing to believe. All through high school and even to this day I have heard that if you have a pain in your balls when you walk that can be an early warning sign of testicular cancer.
That night when I got home I was relieved that my grapes actually looked like grapes. I figured this is something that should probably get checked out.
I went to the doctor a couple of days later, and he had me get an ultra sound on my testicle/scrotum to make sure there wasn’t any damage inside. I didn’t realize that ultra sound machines were used for things other than looking at babies in the womb. But they are and it’s the same deal they put some of that gel on your stuff and they take a wand to it. The only difference is that when you are looking at babies in the womb it’s probably not as gross. There’s probably a lot less hair. I know too much info, but hey you chose to read this.
They got done checking out my scrotum with the wand and they simply threw me a rag and told myself to clean up as they left the room. Now I know how the other half lives.
The prognosis was good. Nothing bad, but I had to ice and elevate the area so the swelling would go down. Not easy to do when they are known for hanging. Also, ice and that area don’t always go well together either.
I had a game the next night and I told my coach that I had some swelling and some bruising in my nether regions. He said he didn’t know how to tape that, which wasn’t what I was concerned with. I knew it wasn’t going to be taped up, I just wanted to let him know that if l was being a bit ginger that’s why.
So as this basketball alumni day approaches I’m guessing I won’t have an injury that weird. But there is also a very strong chance that once I get on the court I will go into that mode where my legs go faster than my brain and seeing that I haven’t done any cardio in months will be winded after just 2 minutes. But I’m sure I’ll be fine. I’m wearing And 1s.