Life Roadblocks: Sickness and Surgery

To be blunt: December was a rough month for training. For the first three weeks I had a nasty cold, and just before Christmas I decided to reward myself with an appendectomy.

I took this selfie immediately after surgery. I do not remember taking it.

However, that isn’t to say I wasn’t motivated. In fact, when I woke up the first thing I said through a muddled haze of drugs was:

I have a tournament on…January…10th. Can I play in it?

The nurses pretty much thought I was crazy.

A week later I realized they were pretty much right. It burned me to withdraw from the 2nd tournament I’d ever entered. I felt like a quitter, especially withrdawing after a crushing 1st tournament defeat. I wanted more than anything to get back out there and redeem myself. Instead, I lost about a month of training, my fitness, and a routine I’d worked so hard to build up to.

In short: I was not happy.

Finally, about two weeks of recovery-induced laziness, I felt ready to go for a light run. Just 1 measly, stupid mile…

Yeah, you’re damn right that’s my new Christmas watch - longest run: 1 mile!

…but it was glorious. For 8 minutes I ran, able to do exactly what I wanted, move exactly how I wanted, and go exactly where I wanted. A smile spread across my face as I took a spontaneous turn. Everything felt so…normal. And that’s the funny part: you don’t appreciate how great ‘normal’ can be until it’s taken away. I idly wondered if this is what old people feel like when they golf.

So now it’s been three weeks since I’ve picked up a racket — but I can’t wait to get back to normal.