Tuesday, December 27, 2011

It's slow going with throwing, but with cancer putting a dent in my mediocre slopitch career for a year, at least there's knowing

My rock star surgeon, Dr. Robert Lee, said that I couldn't start throwing a softball until after Christmas.
I gladly obliged. I waited for Boxing Day.
My good pal Carla McAloney came by yesterday and we threw for about 15 minutes in our front yard.
Beforehand, I was worried that my shoulder was going to fall off. I mean, they took the bottom of my trapezius muscles and folded them into the middle of my back in my eighth and final surgery. Who knew what might happened?
My shoulder held up fine. I'm not even sore today. On the flip side, though, I was disappointed at my balance. I didn't feel comfortable at all transferring my weight from my right leg to my left. Yes, it was the first time I had thrown in over a year, the first time since a bout of Solitary Plasmacytoma cancer, 20 radiation sessions and eight surgeries involving the collapse of my T-2 vertebrae.
Worried that I fall, I short-armed the ball a bunch, prompting Carla, of course, to belt out, "Nice work, T-Rex."
I know. It's just a starting point. I just thought I was farther along balance wise.
Overall, though, it was a spectacular Christmas, especially when you consider that I was tied to bed at VGH, with all sorts of tubes and contraptions connected to me, a year ago. We had a bunch of family from both sides over on Christmas Eve, I saw my folks on Christmas morning and Carol-Ann and I had dinner at her brother's on Christmas.
I even made it over to VGH after breakfast on Christmas. I picked up a couple of bags of chips, a couple of bags of cookies and assorted other junk food and dropped them off for the staff. You can't imagine Christmas in the hospital. You really can't. 
And then I walked out of there and went home. That was my present to myself.

1 comment:

  1. I'm pretty sure the doc meant Boxing Day too, so you're all good. And even though you've been through a good spell, you probably can still out-throw me (it's like I woke up one day and had not strength to throw a ball years back).

    Man.. now you have me wanting to go out and throw a ball around. Sheesh!

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