Good thing we have a week of rest

Since the girls were 6 years old they have played recreation soccer.  I signed Madison up first at a field and organization different from the ones her friends from school played in because I wanted her to meet other people.  She played with the same girl from 6 years old to 14 years old except for the year we had two girls teams and they were split up.  (After that her mother and I would write on the forms that they had to be together because we liked visiting during the games)  After 14 the organization didn't go any further and Madison played her freshman year in high school on the JV team.  A few of the girls were girls she played with through her years in recreation, including our friend.

Darcy followed Madison after she turned 6.  She, of course, excelled in the game and was asked to join the competitive team.  She did that two years before we found the parents crazy, the fees high, and our time dwindling.  She went back to recreation soccer and even got to move up an age group to play on Madison's team one year which made our soccer weekends SO much easier.  Darcy also played in middle school so it was just natural for her to join the JV soccer team this year in high school.

Madison meanwhile hung up her soccer cleats after her freshman year.  It took up too much of her time and she just couldn't fit it in with all of the other things she wanted to do.  This year, however, she had to add a fitness activity to her schedule for the IB program.  She decided she would like to get back into soccer.  There apparently is a rule about upper classman on the JV team so we enrolled her in the recreation soccer league that all of her classmates played in back in the day.  The one that was closer to our house.  The one my husband moaned about each time we drove to the other recreation field that wasn't close to our house.  This league goes to 19 years of age.

Darcy decided that her soccer days were over.  She was going to swim and then play flag football in high school.  At the end of swimming she changed her mind.  Unfortunately, the two sports overlapped so she couldn't be at both practices at the same time.  Darcy, being Darcy, worked it out with both coaches that she would go to swim practice four days a week and soccer one day until swimming ended.  But then she made districts in swimming, which extended the sport a week and then she made regionals, which extended the sport another week.  Meanwhile the soccer team had games starting.  By the time swimming ending they had played three games and Darcy was thrown into one practice before the next game.  Foreshadowing...

She played in the game and went to practice for the next few days.  Then she came home and complained of her foot pain.  Several years prior she had been diagnosed with Sever's disease and ended up in a boot like her grandmother.  A boot that we threw behind her wardrobe because we had no other place to store it after her foot healed.  She practiced again and played in another game.  After that game she couldn't do it anymore.  Her foot hurt too much and after much searching we found the boot and she is once again clomping around in it.  The team only has two more games before the season ends (odd season this year since the varsity team is just getting started and goes until end of January) so Darcy has taken to helping with the coaching and spending more time on her studies.  Okay, I made up that last part.

Back to Madison.  She plays in a game every Saturday.  Two weeks ago she got tangled up with another player and the two ended up on the ground.  The girl on the other team got up.  Madison didn't.  She couldn't.  She was holding her ankle and the coach and two girls helped her limp off the field.  At halftime I got her some ice and trudged across the field to survey the damage.  I found her on the bench with ice on her knee.  Huh?  She rolled her eyes, shook her head, told me she was fine.  I went back to the sideline and in a few minutes she was back on the field.  Later she explained that the coach took one look at her pronating feet (not in her orthotics like they should have been) and thought something was wrong with her knee since on a normal person it wouldn't be turned in like hers was.  She tried to explain that to him, but he didn't believe her or didn't listen.  She said the ankle was what she had hurt, but it was fine.  She went all week and never mentioned the ankle again.  Then came the next soccer game.  At the end of the game she fell again, this time getting caught up in a pile of four players.  She kept playing.  After the game we went to dinner and after dinner she said she was sore and her thigh hurt.  We looked and discovered she had a nice bruise. (we forgot to photograph it)

When we got home and she took her shoe off we discovered her ankle was swollen.  Really swollen.  The same ankle that she had hurt the previous week.  While she could walk on the ankle she couldn't turn it side to side or, say, kick a soccer ball.  We had her ice it and elevate it for the rest of the weekend.  Monday after walking on it all day at school the ankle was swollen again.  Back to the ice and elevation.  By Wednesday it looked better, but then she had to sprint down the street to catch the bus.  When she came home the ankle was swollen again.  We don't have a boot for that.

Saturday we wrapped the ankle and she played in the soccer game.  It held up, but not enough for her to kick the ball hard enough into the goal while standing in front of said goal.  She claimed that was the heat and not her ankle's fault.  It was 83 degrees on Saturday with a full sun and she had not lathered up with sun screen.  Ey yi yi!  I'm just glad we have a week off of sports so that both of these girls can heal before the next round of sports begin.  I'm tired of tape, wraps, boots, and whining.