Flipper, Flipper, Faster then lightening...

While I'm back at law school and there is much to discuss (like how Professor Fall thinks he is smarter then any Supreme Court Justice to ever sit on the bench, the death of the Chief Justice, my stalker, the workload, the excitement from starting classes, Hurricane Katrina-I don't mean to put this so low on the list but I've been avoiding media coverage since to be honest I can't handle it, or the embarrassing scene from the weekend) I find myself focusing on my little brother (a.k.a.-Flip*).

I already wrote about how he's injured himself. He had an MRI Tuesday (which given my experience with knee problems I read) and then an appointment with the guy who does all the knee surgery for the local professional football team (only the best for him). After seeing the MRI I immediately knew the news wasn't good-really I knew after seeing the trainer test his knee last Saturday.

He has a surgery scheduled for October 13th to repair his ACL (the MCL is also torn). After having been through ACL replacement surgery I feel terrible when I hear anyone has to go through it. But, it's just that much worse when it's my baby brother (Ok, I know he's 17 and a senior in high school). But, this is the kid I made sure got to school in the morning from the ages of 6-13. We're far enough apart in age that I've always been kinda motherly to him and the fact that I was the one around when he was in Elementary school (and not my parents) has always kinda furthered that whole notion.

I am a firm believer in the fact that nobody should have to go through grafting of a tendon and bone drilling to replace any torn ligament-but I really feel my little brother shouldn't have to. It's not like we've been afforded great advantages in life. We grew up in a "paycheck to paycheck" home-for lack of a better term. Nothing was ever really handed to us. I paid for a substantial portion of my undergraduate education and am paying for all of my law school.

He was supposed to be different then me. I was the "smart" one. I worked my ass off to get where I did, but he really had something special. It's not that he doesn't work hard-it's that we all had just figured it was a given by this point in time that he would get a college scholarship-He's been an All American since he was Freshman; he also won the high school diving state meet as a Freshman at which point he really proved himself to other people. He's been working at this since age 6 and now some stupid injury might come in the way.

I'm sitting here, crying as I write this post, just wanting to convey that outside of my mom he is by far the most important person in my life and I just wish he didn't have to deal with this.

*My nickname for my brother. Nobody else calls him that these days-when I want to sound really dated I call him "Flippy." I was always the only person at football games standing up screaming "LIGHT 'EM UP FLIP!" It goes all the way back to when we were little kids and he did flips off the 1/2 wall between our living room and kitchen into the couch and used to smack his head on the coffee table when he went too far.