Of hot pink scooters & teal blue hair

So here's a fun fact. I've been to England three times in my life. In that time, I managed to visit the Accident and Emergency department before Saint Paul's Cathedral. That has to be some kind of record. Albeit, not one I deserve any sort of kudos for.

So I moved to London three weeks ago. No big surprise there. Back in Australia, I used to injure myself a lot. Maybe a small part of me had hoped that this was something about air pressure, my relative position in correlation to the sea level or my distance from the equator. Or maybe just the amount of football I played. Apparently it's not. It's just me.

Week one of my new life in London found me with a double barrel shotgun in my hands for the very first time. This would give people who knew me cause to seek cover or flatten themselves in an attempt to preserve life and limb. But you see, I'm not uncoordinated, just unfortunate. Only I came off injured from my first ever attempt at clay pigeon shooting. That means the target is not only small, but moving through the air at a very fast rate. I shot 11 of my 12 targets before retiring with recoil injury. The trainers were stunned into shock and awe, I'm not exaggerating. My military trained brother only shot five from 12 so, you know, I think I can say I am a natural with a shotgun - as long as I don't have to shoot it any more than eight times or I am in severe pain for days.

Week two started on a positive note! I got a job at a lovely pub! I was so full of energy I went home and washed the dishes from last night's dinner - and promptly sliced my pinkie finger open across the knuckle on broken glass. My brother was very ill and I like to think he would have taken me to get stitches if he wasn't a mere shadow of a corpse. Instead, he cleaned the wound and patched me up while I put on my brave face (read: cried & curled up on the couch in the foetal position).

I did not let a minor flesh wound dampen my spirits however and sought a mode of transport. I took this task very seriously. After all, I am 27 years old. I am a published author. I have new employment in a prestigious pub on top of the second highest hill in London. So how did I choose to get to work?

On this.

Don't worry, it's made for adults. Or kids that weigh up to 100kg. Whatever, I fit on it, ok?!

And this was fine for my first few shifts. It was better than fine, it was fun. It was a conversation starter with my new coworkers and the patrons at the pub. Oh, and the feeling of flying down the second highest hill in London, daring myself to hold off on the brakes, feeling the wind in my (now blonde, purple and blue) hair was simply breath-taking.

Going home on Friday night / Saturday morning at around 2am and realising as I neared terminal velocity that I had no brakes thanks to a light dampness on the ground was breath-taking in a completely different way. In a split second, maybe even less, I had to decide whether to chance it with actually reaching terminal velocity before careering out on to the busy road this hill intersects with and hoping I could control the corner at full speed (if I made it over the speed bump alive, that is) and that no cars, trucks or buses would be wearing their usual path down that main road - or abandon all faith in a safe passage and simply abort the mission there and then.

Well I made my decision and I stand by it.

Ok, so I didn't stand for long.

My feet couldn't keep up as I tried to run at the speed my body mass was travelling at. Basic physics. Or gravity. Whatever, I stumbled and hit the bitumen. Hard. I ripped open my new shoes, tore three holes in my woollen tights (and the skin underneath on my knee and my ass cheek), grazed the heels of my palms and the pièce de résistance, smashed my entire shoulder into the ground as the lower half of my body collapsed. My skin was saved by my work shirt and Edgar Allan Poe hoodie.

Aptly, my iPod played "Goodbye yellow brick road" and Sarah Blasko mourned her own sad story about a painful road through my headphones. I sat in the gutter and cried. My hot pink scooter lay abandoned and skewif in the middle of the road. My hair, once free and windswept, started to matt to my face in a mixture of tears, sweat and light misty rain. Finally, with all the dignity I could muster, I picked myself and my scooter up and limped back to work.

My coworkers haven't known me long but even without my expressive face, it's not hard to tell when a girl hobbles in, mascara streaked down her face, hair a mess, holes in the uniform that minutes ago was pristine and dinosaur backpack hanging askew, something went wrong. As Wayne, the head chef put it to my boss, "Evel Knievel here didn't make her jump."

No Wayne, she did not.

I haven't been back on the scooter yet, but I will. It's too much fun. I will however, be purchasing a helmet. My mind boggles at the lack of laws here that allowed me to ride legally without a helmet. I also marvel at my own stupidity that I thought I was too cool or too invincible to wear one.

For the last four days I've been throwing up and at times, fighting in and out of consciousness. I've been in a lot of pain. I had to go A&E to get X-Rays. Thankfully and miraculously, nothing is broken. I have done severe muscle damage to my shoulder, will still be in a sling at the end of the week and have only today (Wednesday) managed the admirable feat of typing with two hands. Obviously, I haven't been able to work, thus haven't been able to get paid. I've relied on the generosity of my brother and future sister-in-law to keep me fed and looked after - including fetching my spew bucket and washing my dinosaur PJs for me when the fevers have rendered them unwearable.

In conclusion:

Expectation!

Reality.

And I'm going to Saint Paul's Cathedral before I kill myself!

Miss SAMawdsley xx

Questions:

• What's the worst accident you've been in?
• Do you remember the slow and painful process in a blow by blow, second by second account?
• Have you ever been sick or injured in a foreign country?

Would you really want to know?

I smashed my knee in a hard tackle over two weeks ago. I was on crutches for over a week and couldn't drive for nearly two weeks. For me, the main thing is I won the tackle and consequently, my team won the game.

A fracture has been ruled out but with continuing pain, I went to see my physio. He has been a physio for the Australian Olympic and Commonwealth Games teams so I trust him implicitly. He also mistook me for my mum a few months ago. Last time he saw my mum, she was around my age so that's how long he's been tending to the muscles and joints of my family.

Well I saw my physio today and I explained my injury. He asked some questions, as they do and I mentioned that while my knee is sore and has been slow to improve, my foot on the same limb has been really cold. I told him it actually turned purple on the first night after the injury occurred. He seemed a bit taken aback by that and reached down to touch my feet. I was telling him about this as I was taking my Converse sneakers off - that's what reminded me to mention my foot. He pulled back. I assumed they didn't feel any different as both feet had literally just come out of shoes. He told me my right foot was definitely much more cold than the other foot. But he offered no explanation.

As I was lying on the table and my physio was massaging my leg, I asked if he had any theories as to why my foot would be so damn cold. I asked because at the time, my right foot was so cold that it was hurting. He seemed reluctant to answer and started talking about  my sympathetic nervous system. None of this made much sense to me.

Suddenly I thought I was cottoning on to what he was saying and my heart sank like a stone. "Are you telling me this is all in my head?" He insisted he wasn't and upon deciding he hadn't convinced me he told me he thinks it is "Complex regional pain syndrome". He provided a brief explanation about nerves and laughed when he told me it is very rare and he said as soon as he thought of it and how rare it was, he thought if someone was going to have this syndrome, it would be me. Thanks(!).

But then my physio did something I didn't expect. He explicitly stated that I was not to google it. He repeated his direction many times, insisting reading about CRPS would scare me. He told me I could tell my medical profession based friend about it because she wasn't aware of any possible cause but I absolutely was not to google it myself. But his explanation did not offer my any real reason why my foot is cold. And he told me that if I read about it I would become worried. Worried about what?

So what would you do?

...

Have a think about it.

...

Put yourself in my position.

...

Decided what you would do yet?

...

I think I did what most everyone would do. I burned the words into my mind and googled the heck out of the condition the second I sat in the car.

Chronic regional pain syndrome

It's not good. Nothing about what I've read is good. The article opened with "...is a chronic progressive disease characterized by severe pain, swelling and changes in the skin." and didn't get much better from there. I'd be lying if I said I didn't cry and then drive home like a zombie. Obviously I haven't been formally diagnosed and even if I do have the disease, there is a small chance the syndrome can cease it's progression and go into remission. But since as I type this, my right foot is again so cold it's hurting, I'm still afraid.

But what would you do? Would you really want to know?

Miss SAMawdsley xx

Questions

• What would you do in my position?
• How and how long would it take for you to make your decision?
• Have you ever been in the position to decide if you wanted to know something bad?
• What did you do?

What would you sacrifice to do something you love?

I am accident prone. This is no secret. I have blogged about this in my post, "And try not to hurt yourself".

Since then, my relationship broke up and my football season started up again. The football part is great news for me because I love my football - both playing and watching. It's terrible news for my boss because since the season started, I've limped into work almost every Monday morning. He's told me that if I was in the army, I would have been sanctioned for self-inflicting these wounds.

Now, to clarify, my boss is also my uncle. So he's kidding. Same as when he tells me I'm not the accident waiting to happen, I'm the accident that keeps on happening. He loves me dearly, I know that. And he only wants what is best for me - both personally and professionally. As my uncle he has, on numerous occasions, urged me to give up football. My aunty has insisted I do girl things. She wrote it on my whiteboard at work. "Sammy is a girl and must only do girlie things!" And upon hearing last week that both my knees were injured (strained ACL on my left and a bruise on my right) Mum's exact words were "You have to give up the football, kiddo." Where are these sentiments coming from?

Well today I didn't limp into the office. No, no. My dad drove me to work & carried my laptop in while I hobbled in on crutches. My team was 1-0 with only a few minutes to go in our game on Saturday. Desperate to not concede a goal, I went in for a challenge and while I did dispossess the attacker, I came off second best. I have an appointment with the doctor tomorrow and I imagine I will be sent for an X-Ray &/or an MRI.

For months my uncle has insisted I will regret my decision to continue playing football. Now you can't be a Mawdsley without being passionate about football, so you must understand he has had a long involvement with the game - he and my dad were even foundation members of a local club, Rochedale Rovers. He played with my dad for many, many years. He was goalkeeper and he hurt his knee and back on numerous occasions. He continued to play. He regrets it now. He believes I will too.

My uncle has a lot of constant and very severe back and knee pain. It robs him of sleep, physical mobility, the ability to do much of the work he is capable of doing around his house and being able to play all rough and tumble with his granddaughter - the light of his life.

On the other hand, there is my dad. Now granted, he is a couple of years younger than my uncle, but only a couple. He plays football on Monday nights with a big group of men (& I play with him). On Wednesday nights he plays in a huge 35+ comp. I'm not old enough to play there. On Thursdays, he trains my team. Now when I say train, I don't mean stands around and yells instructions, I means gets in there and does everything we do. He plays in the game at the end of training and has been brought down in tackles on numerous occasions. He has had surgery on both knees, two shattered wrists, a broken ankle, a shattered cheek, numerous broken toes, memory loss and more strains, sprains and muscle tears than he could possibly count. But he still plays, he still loves it and he regrets absolutely nothing. He loves football - the light of his life.

So what do I do? I love football. I am still on a high from our 1-0 win on Saturday. In a way, I wear my knee bandage as a badge of honour. The only reason I got hurt is because I went in for a hard tackle to stop a goal. The only reason I cared so much about the result is because I love my football team. And the only reason I love my football team so much is because I have never met a group of 16 girls who are as accepting, fun-loving and supportive as my team.

Samantha, football star.

I played football when I was about six but I hated getting up early (see 'Ambition > Talent') so I gave it up for gymnastics which was on a weekday afternoon. I started up again when I was 12 and played on the boys team with three other girls. Those girls were all friends and were horrible to me. Absolutely horrible. At the end of the season, QSF told me I couldn't play with the boys anymore and would have to join a women's team. With those three bitches. So I quit again. In high school I wouldn't join the football teams because none of my friends would. I finally sucked it up and joined by myself in grade 11 and 12. I enjoyed it but the girls weren't that nice to me. Dad came to every single game when no other parent showed up to even a single one. That's just what football means to my family. At this time, I also played on a men's commercial league team with my dad. Each Friday night I would lace up my boots and march out there to play - the only girl - small for my age & inevitably with blonde pigtails. My team sent me out as captain. The general consensus was you had to be 17 and a male to play. I was 15 and a girl. But when someone finally challenged this, no definitive rule could be found & I was allowed to continue playing. I've played on men's six-a-side comps, men's indoor football comps and in other tournaments.

Last year, my cousin mentioned she was signing up for another season with her football team. She asked me why I didn't play with her. I told her I categorically refused to play with girls after my recent experiences. I was hesitant but she insisted they were absolutely lovely. Finally, I caved. Dad - ever the football fan - came to my first training session. By the end of the hour he'd been asked to be assistant coach. My cousin was right. The group of girls was amazing. Breathtaking. Lovely. Funny. Warm. There aren't enough adjectives. I love those girls - every one of them. As someone who has been judged, treated poorly and deemed 'weird' her whole life, I feel accepted. I've made friends. And I get to play football every week with my friends. And my dad. He's now our coach.

I think I just answered my own question, didn't I? I love my football team too much to quit. I love the time I spend each Monday night with my dad. I don't see me ever giving up the sport I love so much. Even if it means I won't be able to walk in 25 years time.

I have a football team.

I have friends.

Miss SAMawdsley xx

Questions:

• What do you love most in the world?
• What would you sacrifice to do that thing?

"And try not to hurt yourself..."

It's my boyfriend's birthday on Thursday. He has planned his whole weekend out from Thursday to Sunday night. Yesterday he told me all the things he wants us to do - dinner, movie, golf, etc - and he's really excited about the whole thing. At the end of the conversation he asked me to do something for him. He asked me not to hurt myself before the weekend.

I wanted to be offended but honestly, looking at my recent history, he's right. I just asked my dad and he said I was never a clumsy child. I was once able to stand on my dad's hand in the air. There's a photo of him holding me at head height and I'm there, in a little pink jumpsuit, standing on his hand. I was nine months old.

I had childhood accidents like all other kids. I fell on top of eight glass milk bottles once - three stitches in my knee. I fell onto a chair in preschool - two stitches in my lip. I sliced my finger on a cat food tin once. I cut my pinky knuckle slicing cheese too. But in years of trampolining I never once fell off. I also never fell off my horse or my bike either. In fact, I can actually skate ramps and bowls on my rollerblades! I was always the co-ordinated one. But recently, something changed. And admittedly, Clumsy-Samantha is the only Samantha my boyfriend knows.

• We met in March. Our first date was going to be mini-golf. But I had to cancel when I tried to cook burritos. Yes, somehow while cooking burritos I ended up with second degree burns all over my left hand. I spent a night in hospital and two months as an outpatient.

Second degree burns

Bruised knee

• While playing football, I managed to kick myself in the knee. I was only chasing after a ball.
• I was brushing my teeth in my bathroom. I forgot I'd closed the door behind me and when I went to leave, I walked straight into the door.
• I was dancing in my shower when I slipped and fell into the shower screen. Thank God it didn't break or it could have been much worse.
• I walk into doorframes regularly and often simply turn corners too early and walk into walls.
• I so badly bruised my knuckle knocking on doors that I couldn't make a fist.

Swollen knuckle

Scratched cornea

• We were playing golf last weekend and while walking towards my ball, something flew into my eye. I ended up in the emergency room for the second time this year. Scratched cornea and three days of recovery. (That one wasn't clumsiness but these things just keep happening to me.)

In fact, it had become such a joke how often I hurt myself that the radio show I was a co-host of introduced a new segment: Sassy's Accident of the Week. There was not a single week that I did not have an accident to report.

But back to my boyfriend and his request that I please not hurt myself before the weekend. Well not two hours after my boyfriend and I had this conversation, I went to football with my dad. We were warming up and Dad kicked a ball at about shoulder height to me. I could have ducked and headed it, I could have jumped and chested it. But I was lazy so I caught it. And in the process of catching a ball, (yes, simply catching a ball) I managed to stab myself in the eye with my own thumbnail. I wish I was kidding...

Stabbed eye

So now I'm paranoid about it getting infected or something. I'm actually scared that I am going to ruin my boyfriend's birthday weekend with my clumsiness. If I don't hurt myself beforehand, what if I hurt myself while I'm with him?

But it makes me wonder, why am I suddenly so clumsy? I know when kids are growing they lose track of their own lengthening limbs and can become quite klutzy but I've been 167cm for about 10 years now. I'm fairly used to my size. Dad thinks it may have something to do with my anxiety. Like maybe my mind is so busy stressing and worrying that it doesn't properly process my surroundings - or only enough to survive but not remain uninjured. I just hope I live until Sunday night so my boyfriend can have a happy birthday...

Miss SAMawdsley xx

Questions:

• How clumsy are you?
• Have you ever injured yourself in a stupid way?
• Do you have any theories on how a person could "get clumsy"?