General: The walking wounded -- Tales of sports injuries past and present

In October 2002, I started a new job with a health insurance company.

I won't mention which one, because I really don't feel much like a death threat right now, I'm still young, but it's one of the biggest and well known in New York and North America.

So in November, I started with new insurance. It's pretty good insurance too. As long as I stick with participating doctors and facilities, I'm covered pretty much everywhere across the board as long as it's medically necessary.

November -- that's when the trouble started.

Around the middle of the month, I invited one of my new co-workers to play a game of basketball at my local church. We played on the same team for about a game and a half, winning the first game, then getting slapped around like a tied-up goat in the second game.

While on a breakaway, my friend lobbed up a pass to me and I went for the basket. I jumped and came down really hard on my right ankle.

Lucky my friend was there; he drove me down to Albany for my first emergency room visit since I was a kid.

It was a heck of a ride down as it was an okay wait. I only waited 20 minutes before I got seen.

I called my dad and told him of my situation. I'm surprised I didn't tell him before I left for the E/R. He probably would've told me to walk it off. Such a manly man, my dad is.

Then I called my sister-in-law and let her know where I was. Wow, she bugged out -- such a mom, my sister-in-law is.

To make a long story short, I wound up with an avulsion fracture and a severely sprained ankle. I wound up going to physical therapy for a few weeks.

One of the therapists said I was lucky I didn't tear my ACL. One more thing: I had a final exam the next morning at work. Hobbling into work, I tied for the highest score on the final.

A few months later, ankle healed up, I went to a men's retreat at my church. One of the activities was snow football and it was right after pond hockey.

While tossing the football around, I decided to just have some fun and try to tackle one of my friends. The ball wound up jamming my left ring finger. It hurt like crap for a while and I'd try to keep it flexing every so often.

A little later on, I taped the finger to my middle finger and created a makeshift splint, putting my limited first aid skills to work. (I still have a few months left before renewing it, by the way.)

After coming back from my trip, I made my way to the urgent care center near my church. I waited a good hour or so before being treated -- must have been a bad weekend for a lot of people.

Anyway, the residing doctor took X-rays and I suffered a hairline fracture. For six weeks, I had to wear tape and a splint before it was back to full normalcy.

Funny thing happened: I went back to the same urgent care center the next day as I was diagnosed with an upper respiratory infection. The one thing about a URI: kicking medicine -- codeine rules.

I remained relatively injury free for a few months even after starting my softball league. Whoops, I spoke too soon.

This past Thursday, I was at my second at bat in a game of church league softball. (Have you noticed a trend with the events I've done the worst damage at are church-sponsored activities?)

Anyway, I got a hit and while attempting to stretch a single into a double, the base wasn't secured to the ground. So the base went one way, and I went the other way really, really fast. While attempting to save a nasty face plant, I stuck my left wrist out and my hand went back.

With a frozen Gatorade attached to my left forearm, once again I was off to the urgent care center. I'm surprised they don't know me on a first name basis.

Again, I had X-rays taken and I lucked out this time: only a minor sprain. However, it meant the end of my season because our team only had a week left.

The good thing about it was I got out of lifting heavy stuff in my move on Saturday and I worked only a half day at work that Friday.

Needless to say, it's been an eventful eight months. But, there are a lot of people to thank in my medical endeavors: the doctors and nurses at Albany Memorial Hospital that made my emergency room visit a good experience; the fine ladies at Integrative Physical Therapy (Kim, Pat, and Barb); Dr. Suheil Khuri and the staff at Northeast Orthopedics; and Dr. Axel Hermannsdorfer at Seton Health Urgent Care.

You have all made my health adventures truly eventful.

Just a word of warning to everyone: I could be back at anytime. The one plus -- being aware that I have good insurance.