The Last 10 Years - Chapter 12 - The Bruise of Elvis

While living in Halifax, a bunch of guys from our ward would get together a couple times a week to play basketball at the church. Brent enjoyed these times and often found himself as the one calling around to make sure there would be enough people for at least 2 teams.

One night in February of 2003, he'd been gone an hour or so and the phone rang. I remember it was a Thursday night because I was watching my favorite TV shows and I was really irritated that I had to get up and get the phone. (I actually got to the point where I refused to take calls while I was watching my shows and I'd just let the phone ring until the caller gave up. If it was commercials, I might answer, depending on what the caller ID said.) It was Shad, our next-door neighbor calling to tell me that Brent had twisted his ankle really bad and needed to go to the ER. (So much for my TV night.)

Shad came to our house and stayed with the girls while I took Brent for x-rays. This is what his foot looked like when we got home that night.

We were really surprised (and really grateful) that is wasn't broken. Brent had to hobble around on crutches for a couple of days and he couldn't wear a shoe on that foot.

After a week and a half, this is where he was at with the healing process:

At 2 weeks post injury there was still quite a bit of swelling but the bruising was starting to fade.

So by now you're probably wondering where my title came from. One day Brent got bored and decided to turn his bruise into Elvis. As miserable as this was, it could have been worse. The ankle could have been broken or it could have been his hand. One's hands and fingers become very valuable when sights are set on dentistry. Its pretty hard to fit your fingers in someone's mouth if one of them is broken. In fact, Carolyn, if you're reading this, didn't Tom break a finger during one of those basketball nights? As I said, not a good thing for an aspiring dentist.