A New Fight

With running in 2008 in the books, my focus has shifted to what I can do to make sure that 2009 is all that I expected it to be before this unfortunate turn of events.

I have spent the past 48 hours or so looking at what I know and what I can do for right now. Here is what I know.

• I'm not running a step until at least January 2009 TBD.
• I'm not skating a hockey game until at least January 2009 TBD.
• I have a broken bone in my left navicular bone of my foot.
• I am in a walking boot and using my own crutches for a week or so to try and give the foot as much rest as possible.
• I am using a bone healing system with electrical stimulation to promote bone healing.
• I have a follow-up appointment on December 22, 2008. Around that same time I will have a follow-up MRI to determine if this bone is healing.
• Everything takes me longer and is much harder including simply taking a shower.
• I cannot change the past, I can only control what I do now and in the future.
• I will finish 2008 having run 808 miles.
• I will finish 2008 having worked 1,498 hockey games in my officiating career.

Here are a few other things that I am 100% sure of:

• I want to run again and Boston continues to be my ultimate running goal.
• I want to work two more hockey games to get to 1,500 career games.
• I am currently doing all I can to get my foot well and stay in as good a shape as I can. This includes lifting weights and riding my stationary bike; which sucks by the way.

Far worse than anything else at this point is the mental difficulty I am struggling with. I have always been an active person that moved quickly when deciding to do anything. The only major injuries I have had in my athletic career included a cracked sternum in high school that didn't really keep me out of action. I broke my right pinkie in college and played the eight remaining games with a brace and wrap on it. I broke my right ankle my freshman year of college and missed the final six games of that season. That has been it. Not a bad run. At the age of 38 I have not been limited all that much by injury, so this is very new to me. Each day I feel like a slug and struggle with what will happen in the coming weeks. Will it get better? I'm pretty sure it will, but when? Will it give me problems in the future? Maybe, but to what degree I don't know. Perhaps the toughest question is whether or not surgery is going to be needed on this thing. That will more than likely be the first question answered and it will be answered around Christmastime. Until then the only things I control are my mind and my rehab. And for now, it's not much, but it's all I've got. Reluctantly I've accepted that.