Kym’s Blog

Back in January I suddenly realised that we were not that far away from seeing both boys playing together in the same soccer team.

Matt had decided to play with Dan’s club, the Unley Rangers, in the Collegiate League, and, while Dan was well entrenched as the first team’s keeper and Matt was mostly likely to play division 3, it was not beyond the realm of possibilities that Matt may get his chance to play up a level while Dan filled in down a level for a game.

Of course that all turned to shit late in February when Matt injured the knee that he had been trying to bust for about 4 years. His reconstruction at the end of March meant that my dream would not come true in 2010.

That was spectacularly confirmed at about 4.40 pm yesterday when Dan broke his lower left leg! It was an innocent enough piece of play … Dan rushing out at a striker who thought he was going to get one past him … a clash of both players on the edge of the penalty box … and the save was made. I have probably seen almost 500 very similar saves from Dan.

This time though, instead of the cheers from the supporters all we heard was a blood-curdling scream of agony! To be honest I was pretty sure what it was as soon as I heard Dan, way too much noise for a knee or some other injury. One glance at his leg confirmed it.

After waiting on the cold ground for around 60 minutes he was transferred to Flinders and underwent an operation last night to insert a rod up his leg. He’ll be in for probably a day or two, followed by some time back at home with us.

If anything good has come of this it is the reminder once again of the team spirit at the Rangers. His team-mates, coaches and the supporters hung around for over an hour as it got colder and colder and bloody dark, cracking jokes when they were needed and helping out the ambos when they eventually arrived.

The club was also in contact many times during the evening checking on his condition and the visitors started rocking into hospital at around 10.30 this morning.

So the current score is … 2 sons … zero left legs that work properly!

But … back to my dream. The one good thing about sport is that “there’s always next year!”

I just don’t seem to be able to find the time, or maybe the energy, lately. I guess what energy I might have for sitting in front of a laptop doing “webby” things at night has gone towards the boys’ soccer website over the last 12 months. You can see the fruits of those labours at the Unley Rangers website. Fortunately it has become a key communication strategy for the club and its players and supporters, and as a result I have found it a rewarding exercise.

Life goes on of course and there are a few things that deserve a mention I guess. These are in roughly time order.

One of the most disruptive, certainly for Matt at least, has been his knee reconstruction back at the end of March. The next couple of weeks were far from easy for him, all those school holidays spent basically sitting around doing nothing were pretty boring. He has had a couple of minor setbacks along the way, the most worrying was a stumble on the stairs at school which resulted in him being back on crutches for his year 12 formal late in April.

He is well and truly on the mend now. He is walking unaided with only the slightest of limps and is able to ride the exercise bike to try and start building up what is now a pretty thin left leg again. He can still only drive an automatic though.

This would have been a huge issue for us (we only have manual cars) were it not for the generosity of firstly his cousin Nicole, who loaned him her car for 3 weeks while she was away on holiday, and the Rodney and Karen who have let him use one of their loan cars for the following 5 weeks or so. Thanks heaps guys!

His soccer this year has of course been limited to admin roles, but he was a major organizer of the Rangers’ Ladies’ Day breast cancer fundraiser and has a team manager type role for the Div 1 team each Saturday.

At around the same time Hedy had a job shift, into a management role with a global consulting group. She is the SA Operations Manager and has, I think, around 12 staff reporting to her. I was not surprised to hear her say the other night that she is finding it enjoyable … I think it gives her a chance to still apply her technical skills while also giving her the influence needed to fix things that she feels need fixing. Her health remains good, although she is still easily tired out.

Jez and Laura’s wedding in mid-April was a wonderful evening, with the reception at Bird in Hand winery providing one of the more memorable “function” meals we have had. We had a great night, although I at least felt a little tired and emotional the next day when we journeyed back to Hahndorf for breakfast and to pick up the car we had left there the night before.

On Anzac Day Hedy and I tripped up to Mintaro again for the day to check the progress on the Payne country house. We, along with the Littles, had an enjoyable lunch with Andy and Seona on their verandah … each trip for us brings their vision into a bit more focus, the ruin is gradually becoming a livable house, very gradually!

I will have forgotten something for sure, but these are things that come rapidly to mind right now.

Just a quick post to let you know that Matt’s knee problem turned out to be his ACL … he has had surgery today to reconstruct it.

He has quite an impressive looking brace arrangement attached now … and a bit of pain unfortunately. His biggest problem though is that it will be about 9 or 10 weeks before he can drive a manual car again … and all we have is manuals!

If anybody knows of an auto sitting around doing nothing … or if anybody would like to drive a manual Honda Civic in exchange for their auto for a few weeks … please let me know!