"Road Rash" = Water Retention?

I play on a coed softball league on Monday nights during the Summer. I have been playing for years. It's one of my favorite sports (volleyball is another) and therefore I really get into it.  Sometimes I get a little TOO into the game and end up with "road rash". Well, last Monday night I ended up with the worst softball road rash I've ever had!

Let me first paint this picture for you. I was on 2nd base. A teammate was up to bat and another teammate was on 1st. I SWEAR one of my teammates yelled, "Brooke! You HAVE to run on this one!"  Being who I am, I hadn't been paying attention to who was suppose to be the last batter or how many outs we had.  I knew I was way down the line and so I assumed that the person up to bat was our last batter for the inning.  *SMACK*  He hit the ball and it was headed deep into center/left field.  I took off running and when I got to 3rd I happened to look to the outfield and noticed the guy had caught it and he was in a hurry to get it to the second baseman.  That's when it hit me. Oh shit!!  We'd only had one out before that hit and the batter was obviously NOT the last batter.  I had to get my ass back to 2nd before the ball or I was the third out of the inning.  Shit, shit, shit!  I hauled ass!  I got within 4-5 feet and I could see the ball coming.  I dove for it!  I hit the gravel/dirt and I slid and hit the base, but it was too late.  Barely.  I ended up with a massive rash on my right leg and on my right arm.  I did, however, do a very nice somersault out of the dive to land back on my feet.  :)

It was much worse than it looks.

Monday night when I got home I rinsed my leg off in the shower.  Ouch.  That night I got maybe 2-3 hours of sleep because even the slight breeze from the ceiling fan blowing on my leg was too much!  It burned so bad!  I have had numerous softball induced road rashes before, but never one this big on my calf.  They are usually on my bum or thigh.  The calf is so different!  It feels all tight when I walk.  Ick.  Tuesday morning I decided I had better pour some peroxide on my leg and arm.  HOLY SHIT DAMN ASS SHIT!!  I may have blacked out for just a moment.  Okay, not really,  but holy crap it hurt like hell!  It brought back all kinds of childhood memories...memories of me running from my mom who was chasing me with a bottle of peroxide because I had wrecked my bike and my knees were all scraped up.  I wish I could've run from myself on this horrific Tuesday morning! 

My misery was not over.  Wednesday and Thursday evenings my right ankle swelled up into a disgustingly chubby cankle.  The worst part is that I naturally have cankles.  It's true.  One time in high school a friend bought me a one-size-fits-all ankle bracelet.  It didn't fit.  Embarrassing.  So, when my cankle swelled from the road rash I ended up with a fat roll!  Yes, I had a fat roll on my cankle!  I felt like the damned Michelin Man!  All I could think of that would be causing me to have these cankles from hell was that damned road rash.  Is it possible for road rash to cause water retention in the limb it is affecting?  I'm going to say, yes, yes it is.

 Now that the scabs are coming off I look like a burn victim.  It's gross.  It is definitely going to scar.  What's another scar though, right?  It will take attention away from my cankles, so it's all good. 

It's like some awful nightmare!  Ick!

I do not think I will be diving/sliding anymore!  Maybe I'll pull out some old triple jump skills instead.  Can you picture that?  Me hauling ass to a base...the ball has been thrown and if I don't do something to get there faster I will be out...so I hop, skip, and jump...I'm flying through the air...BAM! perfect landing and I'm safe...the crowd goes wild!  Okay, okay, so that is NOT how it would turn out.  It would be more like this:  hop, cankle gives out, falls on face...road rash on face and broken or sprained cankle...out for season. 

"It's not how good you are, it's how bad you want it."  (I wanted to make it back to base in a bad way!)  :)