It's important to be as healthy as possible

Injuries are bound to occur if you're active in sports (although some sports more than others).

But then again, we can also be injured on our front porch swing.

Two weeks ago today, I wrote about how much I love tennis. That day, I went to play a couple of games with my girlfriends. My partner and I squeaked out the first set by winning a tiebreaker, so we moved on to play the winners of another game.

Several games into the second set, I went for a weirdly hit ball and felt a tendon in my wrist do something weird as well. It all happened so fast. One minute I was slamming tennis balls and the next minute I could hardly hold the racquet.

I had to sit out the rest of the game. (Lucky for my friends there was a young girl hitting balls in one of the courts who agreed to take my place.)

I could tell my injury wasn't serious, but that didn't mean it didn't hurt. Aleve and I were buddies for a few days, and my left hand got more use than usual.

This injury is trivial compared to the health burdens many others face.

But this injury was a reminder of how many daily functions tiny ligaments allowed me to do. I couldn't blow-dry my hair or buckle a seat belt. I had to eat left-handed. The first night it was difficult to find a comfortable place to lay my wrist, making me wakeful. Washing my hands, dressing and driving a car were difficult.

The body is a marvelous machine, but there are so many things that can go wrong it's a wonder we function at all.

When my boys were beginning as medical students, they said reading about all the maladies made them hypochondriacs until they talked themselves back to reality.

Worrying too much about our health makes us that way. I love the Redd Foxx quote: "Health nuts are going to feel stupid someday, lying in hospitals dying of nothing."

Or how about this one by George Bernard Shaw: "Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint."

Seriously, it is important to attempt to be as healthy as possible, no matter what our physical level may be.

My mother is now in a wheelchair, but she dutifully gets up every day and walks around the building with the help of a walker. It's painful, but she's staying active.

"Use your health," advised Mark Twain, "even to the point of wearing it out. That is what it is for. Spend all you have before you die; do not outlive yourself."

I think that is what my mountain-biking son, Mike, adhered to as he went off on his annual 100-mile Leadville, Colo., bike race for his 10th year. I plead caution to him, knowing he isn't a fool, but I like to hear him say he is careful. Mountain biking gives him as much joy as tennis gives me, so I say let's not let these tweaks and twists discourage us.

You can see I'm on the side of staying active, not porch sitting, although a bit of both can be good sometimes.

e-mail: sasyoung2@aol.com