Restart Button

Some days I wish that I had a restart button and I could go back to when I woke up and restart the day. Today was one of those days. It started out ok. I woke up on time. I made it to the station on time and almost all of the middle school basketball girls showed up on time to head to our game (we had one that was late, but was able to meet us down there). Debi (one of the other coaches) and I were able to lead us all to Seisen (the other school we were playing) without getting lost. Which was kind of a big deal since JuShin usually does the directions for train trips, but she is in the states visiting her brother.

Once we got to Seisen was when things started to head down hill...

One of my girls who usually starts told me she didn't feel good. She said her stomach hurt, but she didn't feel like she was going to throw up. I told her to take it easy until our game at 11:30. Then we walked in the gym and I got a funny feeling that instead of playing C, B, A (beginners, intermediate, and advanced) we would be playing the A team game first. I immediately asked the Seisen coach to confirm the order of the games and instead my hunch was confirmed. Since they were having an event that afternoon in their gym we had to be out by 12:30, so they wanted to play the A team game first since it actually counts for the season record and the tournament (whereas the other teams don't have a tournament). So, I got all my girls together and told them to get ready because we were actually playing first at 9:00 instead of last at 11:30. They of course were nervous and thrown off by this, but I tried to reassure them and they quickly got ready and began to warm up.

I have 9 girls on my team and I love them all. This season has been so much fun (even though we had a month break in the middle). On this day though, I only had 8 girls that could play because one had gotten kneed in the thigh in one of our games 2 weeks ago and it had torn her thigh muscle a little bit and she was still recovering. Then there was my girl from earlier that had told me she didn't feel good, she warmed up a little bit and then came and sat on the bench because she still didn't feel good. So, I ended up starting the game with only 3 of my normal starters.

The game started out well. Seisen played a fast paced game, but we matched them. Then one of my players tweaked her ankle that she had sprained earlier this year and I had to go out on the court to help her hop to the bench where she iced it for a while. After she iced it for a some time she said it felt better and she was able to play again in the second half.

Shortly after that one of my other players went for a crossover move and her knee didn't follow the rest of her body as it should and she ended up rolling on the floor, holding her knee and crying in pain. We had to take her off the court on a stretcher so we wouldn't move her knee. She iced it in another room while the game went on. Eventually she was able to get some crutches and come out and watch the end of the game.

That left us with 5 health players and 1 sick one (who couldn't play more than a minute or two at a time).

Right after the half one of my girls was sitting on the bench and she looked kind of down, so I asked her if something was wrong. She said she didn't feel totally well, that she felt kind of dizzy. But that she still wanted to play after she sat for a while.

Then later in the second half one of my players went up for a layup and when she came down she fell on the floor and was clutching her knee and was obviously in pain. Debi and I carried her over to our bench and we gave her ice to put on her knee. Once the game got going again I asked her what happened and she said that it was straight and then went too far, so I think she must have hyper-extended it. Later she said it hurt to straighten it and so she kept it bent the whole time. We got her a pair of crutches too since she was crawling around on one knee to get places.

Thankfully at this point the girl that had tweaked her ankle was feeling better, so we still had 5 healthy players and 1 sick one (who ended up throwing up on the way home, poor girl).

Then one of my other girls somehow injured her finger. I don't know if she jammed it on the ball or injured it some other way, but it was pretty swollen, she couldn't move it and she said it hurt a lot. She is a tough one though, so she wanted to play through it, but I made her tape it before she could play again. I hope it is just a bad jam, but it could be broken.

At this point my injured player who didn't even bring her uniform or shoes asked if she could play. I told her she had to have her mom's permission. So, she called up her mom who said she could if she was careful. So she ran off to borrow a jersey from one of the C team girls and shoes from one of our other injured players. Thankfully she was able to play and I could sub out the girl who was really too sick to be playing and then give some of the other girls a break who hadn't had many all game. She even scored and fouled in the little bit of time she played.

We ended up loosing by 20. We had only 2 girls who were uninjured and healthy at the end of the game. And yet my girls came off the court cheering. The other team was cheering because they won, so my girls decided to cheer because they lost. It was mostly a cheer that it was over, that we had made it to the end of the game. Today ended up not being about wining or losing, or even really playing well, but it was about surviving, about making it through a tough game you just wanted to be over. I am proud of these girls for sticking with it, for finishing strong and playing tough to then end while battling sickness, injury and even an earlier start than we had planned.

Today I wish that I had a restart button that I could push to restart the day and hopefully have some better results, but at the same time I am glad that I can say I made it through, that we made it through. It was one of those games that you just want to throw away, but hey everybody has one and we survived despite the circumstances. At least we didn't have an earthquake in the middle of the game like we did 2 weeks ago :)

Hopefully we will be better because of today. But also, hopefully these injuries aren't long lasting because we have our tournament in a week. It would be nice if everybody could play!

April 4th

I got back to Tokyo safely on Thursday, March 31st. Things seem to be relatively normal here. It is the most normal thing in the whole world to be back and at the same time one of the strangest feelings ever. It feels like time must have stood still and yet so much has happened in the 3 weeks that I have been gone. It is good to be back and so hard to be back.

We are scheduled to start school again tomorrow, Monday, April 4th. I am ready for tomorrow, but I have no idea what it will bring. How will our students respond to being back at school? How will I respond to being back at school? How are our first graders doing emotionally? What will they need to talk about or not talk about? Will they dive under the desks and/or start crying every time there is an earthquake? Will I start crying when there is an earthquake? (I was pretty scared when I felt my first one since being back.) What about the kids that aren't coming back right away? What is normal and when will things be normal again?

So many questions that I cannot answer. I just have to trust that God has us all in his hands and he has a good and perfect plan. Our community could use your prayers as we start on this school journey again.

This picture always makes me smile, it brings me hope :) It is a picture of a little girl helping to pass out food at a shelter in northern Japan. I don't know this girl, but she is adorable. This picture reminds me that God is at work in all of this.