As my old high school coach would say, "you stunk out loud." (HS coaches have a way with a turn of phrase.) As a quick lesson, in a tournament there are pools of 5-8 people. you fence everyone once and get indicators (a number received + or - based on the number of touches received and gotten. From there you go to direct elimination. (the brackets) If you lose in DE thank you and see you next year. So you can " Karate Kid" your way through it if you want to do it the hard way. The way I chose of course.

Saturday after I lost the bout that left me in 3rd Itook my mask off and started to back out of the frame with my chair and I had a complete breakdown. (damn emotional lability) right before the bout I noticed my diplopia was moving from the extreme periphery to most of my visual field and the venue lights were bothering me. I just have to wear a bag on my head now. There had to be close to 100 people watching. Within about 20 minutes I was fine.

I of course came home and am now doing about 7 loads of laundry. A progressive dinner I knew nothing about yesterday and had to go.

Funny note. As we landed in Mpls it started snowing. I got off the plane, got my chair (I gate check it ever since I went to Dallas to fence and my chair went to Louisville.)and my crap and then they put me back on the same plane. We took off an hour later, one of the last planes they let out during the storm. I don't know what to do about fencing any more. Oh, I medaled in both weapons I fenced.

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Hey you MEDALED! Good for you !! You should be proud of yourself, out of all those people? I say JOB WELL DONE!

I'm sure it was an extremely stressful occasion, and stress enters into anything like this. Overcoming stress in these kinds of things is darn near impossible without some Xanax or Valium! lol

Glad you had a safe trip home! Again, I say Good for you! Hugs, Lee