i'm not a gymnast.

While trying to showcase my amazing handstand skills to my campers this week, I made a fatal flaw. According to Lindsay, the globe-trotting 11-year-old in the cabin, I went up in a good handstand but tipped a bit too far over before returning to the ground in the correct manner. This slight hyperextension stressed my back muscles in a way that would haunt me for the rest of 5c, even to this very moment. After the handstand, I immediately knew something was wrong. I tried to stretch it out during the inital pain onslaught, but to no avail. Within 5 seconds, I had turned into an old man. I struggled to get down to the floor, where my sympathetic campers tried to massage the pain away. Liles also tried to help by shooing away the campers while my eyes were closed so that she could trick me into thinking it was still them, being creepy. Oh, Liles. I got some Ibuprofen that night, along with an ice pack to "numb" the pain that left me in a slightly bent position while walking and hindered my ability to sit and stand with ease. It did nothing, basically. The most comfortable position was lying on my back that night, but I can't fall asleep that way. I can only sleep on my side, which was the least comfortable way possible. This happened on Sunday, and I was feeling a little bit better by Monday night, for Spy Hunter. I took the slow group (as usual) and we chilled out until we decided to be a little bit hardcore. In the midst of cheating to gain the backpack of Meredith Bryson's group with the youngest girls, I saw the opportunity to have fun and look silly/intense all at the same time. I ran down the hallway of Millis and jumped the wall and hit the ground running to maintain the 15 feet within my camper as she squirted her water gun with all the fury she could muster. This was not a good idea. It was like pushing the Restart button on my pain. That night I went to bed all ice-packed and ibuprofened and prepared for another uncomfortable night. Tuesday wasn't so bad because the pain was easing up. I still had my old man moments when I had to bend down to reach something, or if I sat down for too long. Also, the nurse added two Aleve's (or something non-ibuprofen-y) to my regimen, making the pain less and less intense. I'm just nervous now that the pain will linger until moving-in day, where it will refresh itself and rear its ugly head again. I'm praying that won't happen. So, yeah. There's my 5c story. The moral of this story? Don't do handstands all the time when you know you're not that good at them. One day it will backfire.

p.s.- 5c = awesome!