Return of the Derby Girl

I cannot believe that it's been over a year since I last wrote and sadly my last blog post before this I was pretty much saying the same thing. I have not been very good at this blogging thing as much as I enjoy doing it. It should be a priority of mine to do the things I love but as we all know other priorities have a way of taking over. I want to make a commitment to myself and my followers to bring this blog back to life, to bring the blog back to what I expected it to be when I first started writing it. To accomplish this goal I'm turning my focus to talk about my return to roller derby.

I stopped playing roller derby almost a year ago, my last bout was on October 24, 2009 at the Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium. My team the Boardwalk Bombshells played against Sac City and we had a very successful game where we really came together. Underneath that win, for me, was a body that was badly hurting, every day. I was dealing with foot pain, due to what has now been diagnosed as plantar fasciitis, making it very painful to be in my skates but this wasn't the worst of my "injuries", I was suffering from extreme neck pain due to a fall I took during the September 12, 2009 bout against Tucson Roller Derby's Iron Curtain. I was hit from behind, which normally would not be an issue but with the speed we were moving, the position my body was in and the place at which I was hit caused my skates to come up, I fell on my back and came down and hit my head. I'm usually the person who pops up regardless of the fall but I was down for a few seconds longer than normal. When I came up to start skating again, I was holding the back of my head. I stumbled forward a few steps and fell on my face. The refs blew the jam dead as I lay face down on the floor. I was quickly attended to by an off-duty firefighter because the medics and Dr. Roitz were busy treating Eden Yourheartout who was suffering from a bloody nose in the locker room. I left the game to be evaluated and sit out my required jams but nothing was going to keep me from finishing the game. In hindsight, I should have not gone back into that game or the subsequent games I played that season. I was most definitely concussed and suffering from whiplash.

I played the rest of the season with the neck pain, until October, and during that time it just progressively got worse. So bad in fact, I was waking up every morning in excruciating pain that would last all day. When I would go to practice, every hit or bump felt like someone taking a hammer to my neck, I started cringing every time I got hit or had to hit someone. Once the season came to an end with our final bout, I stopped playing completely, I needed to heal. I attempted after a couple of weeks of rest to practice again and with one hit, I was back to the pain. I decided it was time to really rest and that's what I did. I continued to skate but stopped all contact.

Come early December, my husband and I got wonderful news that we were expecting another baby, we were thrilled. We both wanted to have another child, we just did not think it would happen as fast as it did. It worked out perfectly though, the timing couldn't be better considering I was already out from derby because of my neck. I had already decided I was going to take some time off, rest my injuries, have a baby and apply to coach the Bombshells for the 2010 season and that's just what I did.

I coached from January to the end of June, it was hard to transition from player to coach, having played with almost all of the players the last two seasons. I did the best that I could and learned a lot about myself, my leaguemates and about the game of derby, all things that I will utilize next season to be a better player then I was when I left. I can only hope that I made a difference for some players and that they were able to learn from my time there. For myself, I feel good about what I accomplished and that I was able to give enough time for the new Bombshells Coach Payne Gretsky to learn the game, form relationships with the players and take over my position in the league. I took my formal leave from the league on July 1st to focus on my family and prepare for the birth of my baby.

On August 10, 2010 at 4:22am, my daughter Liliana Michelle was born at Dominican Hospital. I had my wonderful husband, awesome mom, and dear friend Roxy Scarmichael, who was absolutely amazing, by my side, I couldn't have done it without them. My dad was on Auggie duty that morning an equally important task (who was so excited he could not go back to sleep). It was a fast birth all together. My first contraction was about 1:30am and by 4:20am I was ready to push. With one big push Liliana was welcomed to the world; I think the doctor was a bit shocked at how fast she came out. Overall, it was an intense experience and the pregnancy itself was quite interesting, which ended miraculously as we found out that Lily's umbilical cord had gotten knotted some time during the pregnancy. Research says that "Umbilical cord knots occur in about one in every hundred pregnancies, but only one in 2,000 deliveries will have a true tight knot that could present problems for the baby." The doctor felt that we were very lucky to have her be born healthy, we felt truly blessed that morning to have her in our lives. And I have to say that

So, after almost an entire year of not playing derby, I'm about ready to pick up where I left off. My heart truly lies with playing derby and I cannot wait to be out on the track again.

I hereby declare that the rebrith of my blog marks my return to derby.