Post-Christmas Post

How inventive is that for a title! :-)

On Monday, December 29, 2008, our basketball team traveled to a holiday tournament. We would be playing two different teams. Well, at the start of the second half of the first game, our head freshman coach got tossed with two technical fouls. His technicals lead to five points for the opposing team and a tie game!

I needed to take over the coaching role which I was not prepared to do during the holiday. The boys were exited as I stepped up to perform. I told then that this point bleeding had to stop and stop now! They did exactly that.

We dropped into a 1-3-1 defense and just chewed up the other team's offensive play. On the other end, we actually began to loosen up and score points. By the end of the game, we had a good ten point lead and the victory.

Well, because the head coach was tossed due to technical fouls, he had to sit out the second game as well. We weren't thinking ahead and should have called our 7th grade head coach to come over to the gymnasium. He was sitting and assisting the 8th grade coach in their tournament games at the local elementary building.

The team started out really well and right where we had left off. We had a 10-1 lead in the first two minutes. But our defense started to wane and the boys allowed the opposing team back into the game. My biggest player and one of our best failed to score throughout the entire game. Ouch! I'm not sure why he didn't perform well, but he didn't and we didn't win either.

With just 43 seconds left in the game, the other team had a slim two point lead. We had several chances to score, but failed. We ended up having to foul the other players in order to attempt to get the ball back into our possession. Their foul shooting was perfect and we eventually lost by 6 points.

Oh well, the boys did a very good job both game, but the stars weren't aligned in our favor that day. I told the freshman head coach to try his hardest not to do this ever again to me. :-) Heck, I don't even get paid for my coaching. LOL!!

The next exciting thing that happened to us was on New Year's morning. At 5:00 a.m., our 19 year old son knocked on the bedroom door and asked mom to help him. His stomach ached so bad that he needed help. It was the worst pain he had ever felt in his life.

We called the family doctor who advised us to get him into the ER. Withing 30 minutes, he was in the local ER and being evaluated by the triage nurse. The doctor soon examined him and wanted to rule out any issues with his gall bladder or pancreas. The location of his pain was the indicator.

All his tests came back fine. They assumed that he was having severe symptoms to a gastro-bug that was making it's rounds. In fact, our son saw a high school buddy in the ER. Last week, my wife saw one of his ex-classmates buckled over in the local grocery store where the young woman was working. That was three 19+ year olds we knew that were ill in just a couple of days with similar symptoms!

He's feeling much better now and resting. He received three different medications for his symptoms.

Ahhhh... The holidays can certainly bring great joy and laughter, but also a few other exciting moments, too.

dad