At the time it wasn’t very painful. I managed to limp off the field without any problems, but soon realized that my ankle felt funny… swollen (but not painful). I layed on the ground, but refused an initial offer for ice. After another minute, my ankle started swelling and was soon quite large—maybe the size of a softball.

Intramural sports had already dispensed their only ice bag for the evening, so Rachelle had to ride over to McDonald’s to get some ice for me. Stepnick graciously drove me home.

I spent Thursday night in the dorms, but quickly realized that I’d have a much better time this weekend at home with a couch and a TV to watch. My mom picked me up Friday morning, and I have been home since.

My ankle has made considerable progress in the last 48 hours. I can now walk on the ankle in a sort of unusual fashion. It doesn’t feel comfortable enough to really use very much yet. But it can load bear without any pain… a very good sign.

I should be back and walking in another day or two. Latin dance on Tuesday might be a little crazy, I might have to sit this week out.

All in all, I feel lucky that it wasn’t anything more severe. It did ruin a lot of my weekend, including missing the Gopher Spring Football Game at the Metrodome and the Drum Major Tryouts this afternoon.

I’ll post a few pictures of the injury when I get back to school tomorrow and have access to my camera again.

The mole on the left side of my head was pretty small, but noticeable as a red/brown bump on the side of my head. It wasn’t noticable except for a week or two after I got my hair cut. Of course, I’ll be glad to have it gone. The other mole was on the right rear side of my head. It was a little bit bigger (but still puny in comparison to the ones removed last time).

I’ve got an appointment to have the outermost stitches removed next week. If recovery goes anything like last time, it’ll take a week or two to be 100% again, but I should be able to function normally for the most part tomorrow or at worst the day after. I’ll just have to avoid strenuous activity for the next few days (to keep my blood pressure down so I don’t hurt any of the sutures).

Solid food. It’s amazing how much we take it for granted, but only when you can’t eat a piece of bread do you recognize it’s value. My diet has consisted mostly of food that I could ‘chew’ with my mouth:

• Breakfast
  • Eggs
• French Toast (the frozen kind you cook in the microwave — avoid the borders as they are still too tough to chew)
• Lunch/Dinner
• Soup
• Chili

• Eggs

Whew, I’m glad that’s over. For example, tonight I was able (with some difficulty and pain) to eat a couple of Hot Dogs at the Twins game. My incisors are still tender making it difficult to eat foods that require me to “cut” the food with my teeth. A fork and a knife have proved to be indispensable. I was able to eat some Enchiladas at Don Pablos after the braces had been on for a week.

I still can’t really eat tough foods. Twizzlers, Skittles, and peanutes are all still impossible to bite down upon. However, every day is better than the day before and with time, I’ll be back to my old diet.

This afternoon at the University I was treated with an assortment of jests, for example:

Mila (sounding innocent): “Does it hurt?”
Brad: “Not really.”
Mila: “Oh don’t worry, it will.”

And of course she was right, they hurt much worse now—12 hours after they were put on. I’m going to try to take a picture of the progress after each visit to the orthodontist and make a slideshow/movie afterwards to illustrate the progress.

Up next: I’m having two moles removed from my head in 2 weeks.

It feels like I’ve got food stuck between every one of my teeth. And biting sucks because it forces the bands farther into the region between my teeth causing pressure on the tooth itself. Hopefully I’ll get used to it soon.

Benefits include an extra credit and not having to go to class. The main negative will be homework, exams, and not a guaranteed A.

I really hope I like the class. It looks very interesting, as I’ve always wondered about how drugs interact in the body. (Maybe I’d enjoy pharmacology more than say going to medical school?… here’s my chance to find out).

Looking for a safe stance on abortion? Me neither.

I’m tired of political candidates pussy-footing delicately around the issue of abortion. Every time I turn on the TV, there’s always some group of hippies protesting “for choice” or “for life.” Each group pisses the other off, and no candidate will take a strong enough stance on the issue of abortion, so I’ve decided to form a political party of my own:

The Regressive Party

I have a different stance on abortion: I’m against abortion, but for killing babies. That way everyone loses, and I win. I’m neither pro choice, nor pro life; I’m pro you-shutting-the-hell-up.

??Via: Maddox??

Personally I’m pro-choice but abortion is a woman thing and I don’t really shouldn’t have any say in the whole affair.

I don’t quite meet the prereqs for the class (Biology/Biochemistry classes), but I’ve had Organic Chemistry II which they said would be sufficient for understanding what was going on. The class looks like it will be pretty small as well—maybe 20 students.

If nothing else, it might spur an interest for me to consider medical school again—something my parents have been pushing for but I’ve been rejecting.

Sorry the updates have been so sparse, but there’s just nothing that important going on in my life currently!

Ooh, when school starts up again be prepared for the new revamping of my self-hosted website, at which point I’ll move my blog there. For a preview see http://froehle.dyndns.org:88/ during the hours that my computer is on (ie noonish-midnight).

(Or for an older (but partially abandoned) and similar project, see http://www-users.itlabs.umn.edu/~froe0071/).

Here’s to hoping that all goes well!