Having fun is a pain

I played basketball yesterday. It was my first set of games since moving to Putnam County. When I got back from lunch today, at about 3 p.m., I was able to move.

I'm still cringing as I try to "walk," but my joints have loosened to the point that I can successfully fall forward violently step without a high risk off losing my balance and crashing to the ground.

Stairs are a challenge on a good day. My arthritic ankles don't really have the range of motion normally required to move horizontally and vertically at the same time. I have to walk up kind of sideways and spring, with the help of the handrails. After I play, there mineaswell not be a joint at all. This is acceptable.

The day after playing basketball my knees become a much more pertinent issue. Attempting to bend them, support weight, then lift or lower simultaneously is simply impossible. I suppose there is some pain involved but the real problem is that my knees simply don't work.

Those are all things I expect are going to happen when I play three hours of pick-up games. I'll be back to walking normal by tomorrow.

What I don't expect is to jar my neck running trying to bull through a screen (although I probably should), get beaned square in the face by a (clever) bullet pass from a teammate* or hurt my shoulder trying to jump for a pass in traffic**.

So now I can't walk, I have a horrible headache, my lips are cut and I have blood on my shirt.

Other than that it was fun. I look forward to the next time there's a game to be had on a day that I don't have a meeting. Ideally by then I'll have a girlfriend that I can use to rub my back share my feelings with.

(*)My nose didn't bleed too much. Until today. Delayed reaction!
(**)This is mostly because I don't expect to jump.