Category: Adventure

The Honey Badgers franchise had their first every Holiday Party this year. As all things Honey Badger, this would surely have to be a fun event.

First things first, an official committee of planning experts was formed. Ginny, Caitlin and myself answered the call and had several rounds on intense meetings and debates to plan the perfect holiday party. Input from all sides was great, and before we knew it we had a plan in place!

Not only were current Honey Badgers invited, but many past Honey Badgers were invited as well. It was truly an amazing roster.

The group was broken up into teams and we had some intense Honey Badger Trivia. I combed old stats, emails, and blog posts to gather up some amazing Honey Badger history through the years. It was pretty cool, to go back and be reminded of all the fun it’s been the past 2 years. I also printed out big letters for the teams to hold up to show their answers. It was pretty great.

We also had an ugly sweater contest, because that seems to be the thing to do now and who doesn’t like dressing up like a fool from time to time. The participation was pretty solid with Dustin and myself getting the majority of the votes. Dustin edged me out for first with his sweater that had bells on it. The melody of the bells when rung was truly enchanting. We both got some amazing ribbon pins (I think I kinda came out better with the funnier 2nd place ribbon). Turtle necks are not only ugly, but I can now attest they are uncomfortable as well.

A white elephant style gift exchange took place too. Participation was again very solid. Everyone seemed pretty much familiar with the concept and there were some pretty amazing and creative gifts on display. The mini foosball table was highly sought after and swapped several hands throughout the event. I ultimately ended up with some honey and a badge with a taped r on it (get it, honey badger) and a $10 Target gift card. Not too shabby.

All in all a very successful night. Despite having a rather random gathering of teammates over the years, everyone really gets along really well and all events are always a lot of fun. It really amazes me how we end up with such a great bunch. Many of these people were just randomly assigned to our team over the years and I’m very glad that they were.

I would rate this a resounding success and this will truly have to be a tradition for many years to come!

It’s been four long months, but I was officially discharged from the orthopedics the other day!

I had reconstructive elbow surgery on my right elbow back on July 18, and really haven’t been able to use my right arm since then while it’s been healing up. It was a pretty intense and unlucky injury to the joint, and the result was a very long heal and tough rehab to get it back to being able to perform athletic movements. As I told my PT/OT guys, “I don’t want to just be able to brush my teeth, I plan to throw with bad intent again”.

I’m not going to lie, post-surgery was pretty rough. I was hurting for several days afterwards, but the biggest pain was having my arm immobilized in the splint. It was hard to find a comfortable position that lasted more than a few minutes as my arm would quickly stiffen up and fall asleep. This would be the biggest pain when I would try to sleep. I’d get a few minutes here and there, but wasn’t able to get a solid sleep until the splint came off after a few weeks.

From the splint I moved to the post-operative brace which I would later decorate with amazing stickers. This brace and I would be quite close for the next 6+ weeks, so stickers were surely in order.

The brace allowed me some limited movement in my elbow. While the range was very limited, it was great just to have a little movement and functionality as compared to none that I had with the splint. I would continue to work my elbow as much as the brace allowed, hoping to keep as much movement in the joint as possible.

Towards the later stages of wearing the brace it was becoming quite apparent that my elbow had stiffened significantly. It kinda had me spooked out a bit, as I could tell from the doctor’s and just anyone else I would demo my range of motion to’s body language that it wasn’t too good at this stage. I was not pleased by the loss of range of motion one bit, and realistically knew that I had an uphill battle to get it back coming.

Once the brace was finally removed after about 2 months post surgery, I began PT/OT. I was very eager to begin PT/OT, as I finally felt as though I was actually doing something at this point. They were great and gave me stretches that I could do on my own as well. When they suggested I do them 4-5 times a day if possible, I asked it I could do them every hour instead. I was on a mission, and kept thinking of how Adrian Peterson came back from his knee injury ahead of schedule, why can’t I come back from this fast as well.

I showed rapid progress in PT/OT in regaining range of motion. While many of the stretches aren’t the most pleasant of experiences, I was determined to get back so I just dealt with it. Stretching was pretty strange, you could literally hear and fell things stretching and at times tearing up as I performed much of it. There were times where, I knew I had moved things a great deal (it feels warm and different afterwards) and was a little scared wondering if it would be increased range of motion the next day or a stupid setback.

Once I’d gotten a good deal of my range of motion back, I then was allowed to begin gentle strengthening. This was both frustrating and fun at the same time. While I really enjoyed building that arm back up to something functional, it was very frustrating to realize just how weak I had become over three months it it not being used at all really.

I’ve been going to the gym multiple times a week for several weeks now, and generally keep myself in pretty good shape, so this portion of my recovery went great. I breezed through pretty much everything, making big, steady gains. It was pretty great and I had a great PT/OT team working with me to get me where I had to be.

Now, at four months post surgery I passed all my tests. My range of motion is very solid and better than many pitchers that the orthopedist has worked with. My elbow recovery is at around ninety percent with around two more months to a complete recovery.

I have just resumed going back to the gym regularly and it felt great to be able to do things again. While I’m still super weak, it’s still great to be back to my old routine and getting my strength back. I have even resumed throwing in the repaired arm and am slowing building up a throwing program to get me back to dodgeball form.

It’s been a pretty long journey, but it’s pretty great to be back to almost normal and not having to settle for less than what my elbow once was.

 

After hearing of the damage that Honey Badger Kevin had sustained from the recent Superstorm Sandy, I really wanted to help the guy out. So I put out word to the Honey Badgers, and the response was astounding!

We had 8 Honey Badgers on the scene and got an amazing amount of cleanup done in just a few hours. It was really amazing to see what an organized effort can get done when everyone works together.

Kevin’s and his father were incredibly appreciative, and it really felt great to of been able to help them out. They thanks was extremely welcomed and sincere.

Dustin saved fish, drained a mattress, de-carpeted stairs just to name a few. Jared silently (as always) cleared out an entire side room full of air conditioners. The Ludgates and friend Maggie made short work of the supply room and got all the other numerous items out as well (including a Clue VHS game).

It was truly an amazing effort!

When John B. and Julie arrived we were just finishing up and would then move on to “other” Kevin from the other team. I got directions and mapped them out. When I say the actual map, I knew he had to of gotten hit pretty hard.

When we arrived it was amazing to see just how many people were already on the scene helping him out. I swear I don’t know that many people, let alone have that many friends. It was pretty awesome.

What made this clean up a bit interesting was the shear volume of items involved. I’m sure I hold onto too much myself, but they seemed to of held onto literally everything they must’ve ever had. It was an incredible amount of stuff.

Again, Kevin and his family were so appreciative for the help we were able to lend. They and Kevin’s dad thanked us with more pizza than I’d ever seen. Two pizza parties were had for us on this day of help. Again, something truly amazing.

While it is really a shame what our friends are dealing with, it is pretty great to see other’s selflessly coming to the aid of others during such a time. Literally seconds after sending out an e-mail with the suggestion I had gotten responses of yes, where and when.

I’m very fortunate to know such fine people.

We got yet another big weather event on Monday with Hurricane Sandy coming to town. She surely lived up to the hype with evacuations of the barrier islands taking place.

I’m glad to report that I found myself pretty much safe in Linwood, with only a mere minutes loss in power and no cable for a few days. Not too bad at all.

Sadly a lot of friends didn’t fare as well. The shore took some mighty serious flooding and I’m hoping I can help some people out with the cleanup. I’ve heard some bad stories and hope that there is something I can do to help them out.

Work turned out to be interesting as a result of all the craziness. We were closed for 3 days and came back to a good amount of craziness with a ton of work to get done ASAP.

One really cool project as a result is a relief site to help raise money for students hit hard in the storm. So rapidly building up a page to collect donations to help students in a really short amount of time is cool. It’s nice to know my skills have the potential to reach so many so fast.

This has been a very strange year or so weather wise. I blame the year of the dragon for all.

This has not been a fine week for my right elbow.

My first instance of elbow dislocation happened while attempting a slide into third base during a kickball game. Immediately knew it was out upon impact and rolled around hoping it would find it’s way back into place on it’s own.

Upon laying on my back and announcing “I’m hurt bad”, I could clearly see that the bottom bone of my elbow was clearly out of place. Upon rising I began to think of anything that could help me try to get it back into place.

I decided that the soccer goal post would be worth and shot, and it helped me to knock it back into place! I was able to continue playing, minus fielding and pitching and would go to Urgent Care afterwards to make sure that it was in place and there wasn’t too much ligament damage as well.

Let me say that the folks at Atlantic Care Urgent Care in Somers Point were great! They were so kind and polite, I felt like a dear aunt was taking care of me. They x-rayed me and all seemed well.

Two nights later I was hanging out with the Honey Badgers on the boardwalk. We played some mini-golf which seemed fine on the still sore elbow. I was being extra cautious the whole time.

On my last putt on the last hole, I accidentally leaned against the wall with my right arm. As my bad luck would have it, my stupid elbow caved in and a different bone was not out of place in my elbow. This one hurt very, very bad and I paced around the boardwalk until I could gather myself and decide what to do.

After some attempts of putting it back in myself , I knew it was futile and a trip to the emergency was in order. Sadly I parked all the way on Bay Ave. so my journey back to my car was quite a treck. I was in pure survival mode, pretty much crossing streets with barely looking to get there ASAP. While passing a group of teenagers, I gave them the most evil of stares just in case they had any intentions of messing with my wounded self.

Getting into and out of the car was pretty tough, but I was able to and then drove myself to Shore Memorial. I ran into a friend with her three year old in the ER. I really hope everything went well for them, they’re so nice and I can only imagine how tough  such a situation can be for a parent.

Once I got admitted I was x-rayed right away. This was pretty tough, with things our of place I couldn’t do much if any bending for the x-rays. I joked with the guy and he was really nice about everything.

When the doctor finally arrived he invited me to view the x-rays with him which I thought was really cool of him. I realized that he was in a grade below me in school, and he really took good care of me the rest of the night. Unfortunately the top bone somehow had gotten misplaced beneath the bottom bone in the elbow. He’d never seen this before, the x-ray was comical in a sick twisted way.

He made several attempts at refraction of the elbow. Each attempt hurt like hell, but I knew he meant well. They offered pain killers each time, but I declined thinking that I could weather this storm then drive myself home instead of having to bother someone so late at night for a ride.

After numerous failed attempts another doctor came in help out. I knew that I was in for some crazy stuff at this point, I could tell that they were excited with the challenge my elbow had been presenting them.

Well good cop doctor held my tricep and elbow area while bad cop doctor pulled and twisted on my forearm as hard as he could. I had to press down with my right leg with all my might and pin my shoulders back as well if we were to have any chance with this.

When my wrist would get turned around the pushed toward me, well that was the most painful thing I’d ever endured. We had to give it a few shots to finally get it to fall back in, with me taking a 10 second or so break to crack a joke and refocus for the next excruciating attempt.

When someone announced, “I think it’s in!”, I immediately attempted to move around. Right away I knew it was and was thrilled. Give high-fives with my functioning arm (not a good idea but I was so excited).

Through this whole ordeal, I was silent and so focused on ignoring pain (which was bountiful). I was asked if I was on drugs numerous times throughout the night due to my lack of reaction to my discomfort. Not sure why, but I’ve never been one to complain much. I did give a few grunts and a growl here and there toward the end when everything was out of place though.

They gave me a splint to keep my elbow out of trouble until I can see a specialist in a few days.

Pretty crazy stuff, and not something I would wish upon anyone!