Blurting out before more organized thinking – differences among sports

When I suffered the accident that ruptured my ACL on June the 8th, about 10 days ago, I was among friends and fellow powerlifters. One of them followed me to the hospital. My physician, also a friend and someone who knows me for years, was there.

It was easy to face it lightly: “ok, another stupid powerlifting injury, we’re all ogres anyhow, we break stuff, we recover, we get back under the bar and that’s that”. I got home feeling ok and painless. The pain started the following day, when I also developed a very strong infection, possibly a zoonosis caused by bird and bat guano. Impecable timing, isn’t it?

Spending a day emptying yourself on a toilet doesn’t do much on the ways of keeping your spirits high, neither does a 40o (Celsius) fever. But… powerlifters are Vikings, “this is just a bruise”.

One day, though, you must get out of the cave, even a consultant who works in front of the computer such as myself. And then… there’s the real world, made of pessimistic people, whose depression, frustrations and anger they are eager to hang over the next miserable person. What if the person doesn’t feel miserable?

Then come comes the “estrangement”. They – “the normals” – will work hard on you in order to produce enough “miserability” to create the symbolic hook they can hang their crap on.

My MRI came back – the injury is worse than we thought. More structures were compromised, but the team (physician + physiotherapist) still believe we can go through the competitive season and have surgery soon after the last championship.

Today I will drive alone to Minas Gerais – a neighboring State. A small meet. I simply NEED to lift weights in that sort of festive environment the championship is for powerlifters. We are a brotherhood of weirdos and in a time like this, I simply need to be among them. Even if they have no idea what I’m writing about to you here. Even if they don’t even know what a doctorate or a postdoc mean.

It is among them that I feel at home and get my guts on the right place to face anything. “Normals” are quite toxic to strength athletes…

A nice link to share:

http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=164909