Vi-Ci!!! (Friday, Sept 3)

Justas had told me the day before that his wife who is the trainer of the team would be picking me up to take me to get my physical done. Enter Migle (pronounced like Mig-lay). She is a little bundle of energy (who I lovingly compare to Dawn Poe!! :) ) and the most helpful person I have met thus far in Lithuania. She speaks very good English and seems to love when Americans come to play for the team (they usually have about 1 or 2 a year). We drove to the Kaunas hospital where the sports medicine building is. We went into the sports med office and I was immediately ushered up to the bathroom where I had to give a urine sample and then taken down the hall where I gave a blood sample. The hospital was actually pretty crowded, with mostly old people which means that not many of them speak English. I kind of equate English speaking here to Spanish speaking in America. Most of my generation and those after in the US seem to know some sort of Spanish, but not many people older than me do. This seems the same as English here in Lithuania, where people my age and younger know English but older people do not. Therefore, most of the hospital workers did not speak it, which again made it nice that Migle was there to be my translator. After giving these samples of all my bodily fluids, I went back downstairs to the sports med room where the actual physical started. I got my blood pressure taken, asked the usual health questions, and rocked my eye test with flying colors as usual. I then had to ride the exercise bike for about 10 minutes and then get my blood pressure taken again. This all seemed to be going well, although let me tell you, I am not a fan of a doctor’s appointment of any sort where you have no idea what’s going on and the doctor keeps speaking in a different language to his other workers. But, like I said, all this seemed to be going well. And then we got to the knee strength test. As all my lovely sports med and PT people from SLU have already told me, my left knee is a little jacked up. I’ve always been able to play on it, but it creaks and pops when I walk and I’ve come to terms that when I have kids it won’t be an option for me to get in the squatting position to play with them. And although I explained this a little to the doctors, they got to see it first hand from the Biodex machine. Basically they strap you in to a seat (so that you don’t use your upper body strength) and then they strap your leg into a rotating arm at the bottom. This is all hooked up to a computer that measures your leg strength. I had to straighten and flex my knee as hard and as fast as I could 3 times for about 15 seconds each, starting with an ungodly level of resistance and then easing the resistance with each rep set. It was intimidating enough not really knowing what I was supposed to be doing at first, and even more when all the doctors were huddled around cheering for/yelling at me. After starting with the right leg, they could see the deficiency in my left leg right away. So after basically failing this test, they decided that they would get an MRI to make sure that it wasn’t anything serious. To get to the MRI room was an adventure itself. Although the hospital is apparently the best in the area, it was definitely not up to my go-to physician, Emily Wambold’s, status :). We had to walk through the basement which was mostly unfinished with exposed pipes and lots of places that seemed left abandoned in the midst of construction. After the MRI (which was exactly like an American MRI only louder) we travelled back through the scary hallways where I went to get 2 different heart tests done. Here is where I learned another difference between European and American cultures- there is no discretion here. They had me strip down topless right away for both of the tests which no one besides me seemed to care about (you would have DIED Kate!!). But the thought of awkwardness didn’t last long because the absurdity of the first heart tested trumped everything else. I had to lay down on this bed, and then this lady put a clamp on each of my ankles and wrists. Then she had all of these little wires that had a suction bulb attached to a metal ring. So she suctioned all of these metals (about 8) around my heart and then proceeded to do the heart graph tests. I’m sure my story doesn’t give it justice, but I wish I would have had my camera to document this as I felt like I was undergoing some weird medical tests like a guinea pig. However, apparently my heart tests went well and showed that I had the heart of an athlete. This whole physical process took from about 9-12:30 and then Migle took me back to the hotel.



After telling her a little about my first Lithuanian meal debacle she came in with me and talked to the workers, asking them if they could give me some less-Lithuanian food. So for lunch then I had some chicken and mushroom pasta that was very good and a far cry from the egg salad. After lunch they had me change rooms because they said the internet access was better on the 2nd floor than the 4th floor that I had been on. So after moving all 125+ pounds of my luggage (that I had already unpacked) 2 floors down I took a short nap before evening practice. Migle, who seems like she will be my personal chauffer until they find a car for me, came to pick me up and we drove to the gym that we practice in which is a large rec center type place called Orange Virus that the famous Lithuanian basketball player Arvydas Sabonis built here. I got to meet all my teammates for the first time and found that yes they all can speak English, but they just don’t do it that often. Although I haven’t mastered any of their names yet (let’s just say they’re a little more exotic sounding than say a Rachel or Brittany), they are all extremely helpful if I ask them something and they are all pretty darn good players too. I’m looking forward to getting to know them better and excited to play with them. The head coach is still working with the Lithuanian men’s national team so the assistant coach is running things until he gets back and she also speaks English. The only person I’ve met so far who doesn’t speak any English is our strength and conditioning coach. So when he started giving directions for stretching and warm ups I mostly watched the other girls and followed along. Many of the warm ups were the same as the US, but unfortunately no, we didn’t do any Coach Brown “big pushes” (although I did slip some in on my own :)). Practice drills were also very SLU-like. We did a 3-man weave series, an 11-man like drill, 2 on 2, lots of shooting drills and we went over our first play and then scrimmaged half court with it. We ended on a pressure free throw-like competition where we rotated in a circle shooting and you had to run if the person in front of you missed. Although the running was simply a light jog down and back, the girl in front of me always made it and I always made mine so I never made anyone run (whew). We ended on a cheer where the coach said “Vi” and we replied “Ci” (pronounced like “chi”), which is our team name- VICI Kaunas. So overall, my first professional practice went well. The hardest part was that I am so used to always knowing everything that’s going on and being a vocal leader, but that is kind of hard to do now. Instead of asking questions about strategy and game play I’m more concerned with questions such as “what are we doing?” and “Am I on offense or defense?”. But after I get my feet under me and more settled in, I’m sure I will revert back to my usual inquisitive ways.

One of the courts at Orange Virus- EVERYTHING in Lithuania is yellow, green and red!