When a Hospitalizing Injury Actually Gave Me Exactly What I Wanted…

I sat on the outside deck of a coffee shop, overlooking the Chattahoochee river near Atlanta on a perfect day in June. I was sipping probably the best frappuccino I’d ever had, and my girlfriend (now wife!) sat across from me. This was one of our favorite date spots when we were in college, and this summer afternoon was the perfect moment to drink coffee to the sounds of a river. But then I received a text that instantly reversed the carefree mood.

My wife and I were both in music school together, and our university was launching a marching band the coming fall. I had opted to stay out of marching band for a few reasons: Number one, it was a huge time commitment on weekends, and I was already a gigging drumset player at the time. I didn’t want to sacrifice my paying drumset gigs to go play in marching band. Number two, I’d never even been in marching band before. Never in high school, and I literally had zero interest. Number three, I was entering my junior year of school, which meant I had to devote significant time to prepare for my junior recital the following spring. Last thing I wanted was endless marching band rehearsals to disrupt my recital prep.

So I had declined the invitation to join, and thanks to other percussion majors eagerly joining I was off the hook. Until the school’s plans changed…

My phone buzzed at the coffee shop with an ominous text from a director at the school: “All music majors are required to be in the marching band this fall. There will be a band camp the week before school, then regular rehearsals during the semester.”

WHAT??? What happened? Why is there suddenly a military-style draft here? They can’t do this!

Turns out some last minute leadership changes due to budget issues had caused a bunch of students to “un-volunteer” from marching band, so they were now short. So better force everyone in to fix the problem.

Oh well. Guess I don’t have a way out of this. Maybe I’ll just transfer to another school. (I actually did consider this, btw.) But then something happened less than a week later that made the decision for me.

I used to play ultimate frisbee for fun with friends all the time in high school and college. It was the only sport I wasn’t horrible at, probably because it didn’t require ball handling skills. I was tall and reasonably fast, and that was all I needed. It was also not a contact sport, which was a plus for my very lanky body type (I never would have survived football). However, any sport that involves running up and down a field quickly has the potential for possibly painful “contact” if you’re not looking where you’re running.

One evening I was sprinting down the field trying to be first to grab the frisbee as it floated toward the end zone. If I caught it, I’d be close to scoring. I ran as fast as I could and began to reach an arm out to jump up and grab the frisbee. But then the earth suddenly turned sideways, and the grass smacked me in the face. It was like I’d just been slammed by a truck then thrown halfway across the field. I didn’t know which way was up, and I also couldn’t breathe.

After a few agonizing seconds of struggling to catch my breath, the pain started to grow. As I literally rolled around on the ground groaning in the fetal position, I felt excruciating pain in my gut as well as a rising nauseousness. As soon as I had the sense to look around me, I discovered what happened. My buddy on the other team was sitting on the ground about 10 feet away rubbing and shaking his head. He looked a bit dazed.

Turns out he was chasing down that frisbee too, but he was coming from another direction. He tripped right when he got close, and his head went into my gut. He ended up being fine, the 180 pound build that he was. But a gut injury for a skinny person generally doesn’t bode so well.

My dad drove me to the ER a couple hours later when my sweating, nausea, and shaking hadn’t subsided. They did a CT scan and admitted me to the ICU with a “lacerated liver.” This meant I had a tear on my liver, and I needed to be on bedrest for a while until the internal bleeding subsided. The surgeon reassured me that thanks to my healthy 19 year old body, I didn’t need surgery. The liver turns out to be an amazing organ that regenerates and fixes itself, so I just had to sit tight for a while and let it heal up. In the meantime, the doctor wanted to keep me in the hospital for a few days just to monitor my condition and make sure everything was alright. I was laying in the hospital bed one afternoon, and it hit me:

I can’t carry a drum! I can’t put pressure on my gut for 2 months. I can’t lift heavy stuff, and I have to avoid anything that’s potentially “jarring” until mid-fall. I. CAN’T. MARCH. SCORE!!!

I sent the dean of the music school an email notifying him of my injury and the doctor’s orders, and I was relieved of marching band duty. Just like that.

I may have gotten my wish regarding marching band, but my recovery wasn’t all fun and games. I was on bed rest for a couple of weeks, then because of the need to avoid “jarring” activities I couldn’t actually play drums for a while. At least I couldn’t play drumset using my feet. Once I was up and out of bed, I started practicing just on my pad since I could sit totally still while doing that. With this focused, pad-practice, I actually starting noticing a lot of weak points in my hand technique and rudiments.

I spent significant time doing finger workouts to improve my doubles. I worked on loosening up my grip for better rebound and better singles, and my paradiddles improved a ton that summer as a result. I gradually put my kit back together for simple, chill practice so that I could still take things easy on my gut. I spent a lot of time playing singles, doubles, and paradiddles with my feet, plus I practiced a bunch of the Stick Control patterns between my hands and feet. I could do all of this quietly while sitting pretty still, so this was my regular practice for about a month.

In avoiding marching band, I ended up spending hours on rudimental practice and hand technique.

In avoiding marching band, I had to ditch some of the drumset gigs I had feared losing as a result of joining marching band.

And to complete this picture… Right after my two weeks of bed rest ended, I got a call from an old teacher to go help out with instructing a high school marching band at their band camp. In other words, after my effort to avoid band camp I was now sweating with a bunch of high schoolers working a band camp that summer.

Life is hilarious sometimes, and this certainly is way funnier in retrospect. But I really am thankful for how that college summer turned out, because it truly did form a turning point in my practicing and growth as a drummer. I still feel the effects of it today! (Not the effects of the liver injury - just the solid practicing.) :) My liver was fully healed and completely back to normal after a few months, but I can’t say I’ve played much ultimate since then. Now I have a wife and a daughter, so I need to stay out of the hospital if I can.

Thanks for reading, everyone. Stay Non Glamorous!

Stephen