Summit

This was all very greedy of me and I'm extremely sorry. I made myself eligible for the voting knowing there was a slight chance something like this happened. I wanted to go really badly.

At a tournament yesterday the injured area of my left hand started to burn worse and worse over the course of the day. I had to drop from the tournament. I wasn't kidding when I warned people that I wasn't "back" at all after Pound, as much as everyone wanted me to be. I had gone a long period of time without playing prior to the week of that tournament, which is why I was able to make it through it. But ever since the Monday after Pound, I've been having pain again. Surely enough I overloaded my hand yesterday. It's a good thing I went to the tournament, otherwise this would've happened at Summit.

I think I should start by updating people on my hand problem. I gave people some inaccurate information ~2 months ago. An MRI had come back showing a 1-2mm tear. I was skeptical about this being the problem, but the MRI report said that it was "likely symptomatic." Long story short: it isn't the problem. We still don't know what's wrong with my hand, but I knew it was a lot more complicated than a tear that small. Several parts of the pinky side of my left hand feel severely injured. To be honest, it feels like I have 3 different wrist problems. My ulnar styloid (tip of the arm bone) feels rough and destroyed. My triquetrum (bone in the corner of the hand) burns like hell on the palm side and feels cracked (I know it isn't because I've had x-rays but when I rub on it there's this part I can go over that feels like a crack). And the soft tissue crevice between these two bones is very rough and burns with pain as well.

One thing I want to clarify is that these problems did not gradually develop over time. There was a distinct moment on May 5th, 2014 where I was doing backwards waveshines against a Jigglypuff player in friendlies with my left hand extremely tensed. I felt an explosion (best way to describe it) in my left wrist and had to go out and buy a splint right away (I uploaded a picture of this to Twitter). I could tell that it was no ordinary wrist sprain and that things would never be the same again.

2 years have passed, I've seen at least 10 hand surgeons, and no one knows what the hell is going on. I've had 2 surgeries, both done by the same doctor. The first one was to remove the ball of my wrist which had become arthritic from this injury. But problems persisted, so I had another MRI done and it showed nothing. The same doctor went in for another surgery and said that I looked normal from the inside. The second surgery had no purpose.

For the first time, though, I'm currently seeing a doctor who seems to have some ideas as to what it could be. I'm having an ultrasound done this Thursday in the hopes that it shows something. That's why I can't go to Summit regardless. When I saw him last week, he told me that he had 2 openings for an ultrasound: April 21st and May 5th. I scheduled it for May 5th because I was going to be at Summit this weekend, but I called him this morning and had it rescheduled to the 21st. I have to prioritize fixing my hand. It isn't worth it for me to go to Summit and delay this ultrasound by 2 weeks, as much as I want to.

Now, regarding the Summit.

I feel very guilty about this all - a lot of time/money/resources went towards me, and there was a lot of hype surrounding it. I will be doing my best to undo any damage this may have caused:

First and foremost, I'm sorry. I think letting people know that is pretty important.

I'm also sorry to Otto; he was supposed to team with me.

I'm working on having my flight cancelled.

I am unsure about who the replacement player will be. I would imagine it's going to be Duck but I'm not the one in charge so I'm not going to make any official statements.

I've spoken to Germ and he will be replacing me with the 16th player on the Summit 2 poster he drew. Those posters haven't shipped yet, luckily.

And perhaps most importantly, for the people who paid money so that they could give more votes to me, I am going to do my best to give back. I will be doing set critique for the first 20 people who message me. Here's how I will do this:

From what I know, there is no "receipt" to show that you voted for me during the final voting process. So I guess the Tweet showing that you nominated me will have to do. If you could please send me a screenshot of this tweet, as well as a screenshot of a receipt showing that you purchased something to give me votes, plus a set you'd like critiqued, I'll watch through it and critique it for you.

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I guess this means I'm retired again. I'll be honest at this point, there's a chance I never make a full return. My left hand feels ruined beyond belief. In the past few months I tried my best to rest a lot so that I could attend a few tournaments but it eventually caught up to me. I wouldn't be surprised if I need a prosthesis or something to play full-time again, because actual bones feel injured. That being said, if there's a fix out there I'll do it. Smash aside, my hand is in constant pain even when I perform everyday tasks. I just hope I can get to the bottom of this soon. Please don't hesitate to message me about having your set critiqued.