Saturday, September 5, 2009

Memorial Vann.....Damn!!!

A had a first in my career last night, a DNS. Did. Not. Start. The reason being, I popped my calf again. Same calf, same place.

With that said, my 2009 season will come to an unceremonious end.

It happened it the warm-up, doing my third start to the first hurdle before heading to the call room to go to the stadium. I felt great too. Once again, there was no warning signal or anything. On my third step driving out of the blocks I felt it.

Same feeling as I had when it first happened, but not as bad. The first time, I couldn't walk for three or four days, this time, I can walk, it just hurts a little bit.

I couldn't sleep at all last night, probably from a combination of the pain and my mind going a million miles a minute.

Well now it is on to the recovery phase once again. Man this is going to be hell, but I am going all in. At least I have months to make sure I am perfectly fine again instead of trying to comeback mid-season.

I am very thankful that I got to get back out on the track for the three races I was able to compete in. I just get this feeling like this is what I am suppose to be doing. I did all the due diligence I could do on my part and things didn't work out. Such is life.

In the game of life, I'm winning anyway. The sport has afforded me a lot of opportunities and if I have to take this step back to move forward a couple more, then so be it. This is just a minor setback, I will be ok. As long as I continue to inhale and exhale, I'll keep fighting.

Next step for me will be heading back to Munich tomorrow afternoon to spend more time getting treatment. I have already formulated a gameplan in my head about the next steps I will take to make sure I can come back stronger. Hopefully the injury is not as bad this time, I will find out for sure on Monday.

For now, I will sit back and enjoy this opening weekend of college football! I'm excited.

By the way, you see the Oregon kid cold clock that Boise State player?!?! Wow, it must really be real in the streets! But how come he did that with all those Boise St teammates around and they didn't jump on the guy after he did it?!?! Wouldn't have happened back in my playing days at Howard, that's for sure.

2 comments:

ejheat said...

Damn right your gonna come back better than ever! I continue to believe you are going to win that special gold color medal in 2012 and many other championships and medals on your long and winding road over the next 3 years, and I'm going to be there everyday, step, and hurdle of the way inhaling and exhaling with you! Your blog father has spoken!!!!

I guess you have a little bit of an understanding now of what I go through everyday with my dystonia disease, but the BIG difference is your injury is curable and as of now my dystonia disease is still incurable! I can only hope we get enough research and something someday to cure this horrific disease and so many other horrific incurable diseases! So, now you have just a little bit of an understanding what is is like to walk in my shoes, but only people who have this horrific dystonia disease will fully understand what we go through everyday!

Last night at the Depeche Mode concert, I thought of you when they sang their awesome song with audience participation "Walking in My Shoes!" Dave Gahan has been dealing with many health problems, yes another Dave in this world, and I really got emotional being there with my health issues seeing him and the rest of Depeche Mode perform for many personal reasons! I did my dystonic dance with my OOM-PA-PA twist, and Coach E is still dancing in his Depeche Mode clean shorts, and directing the band with his baton! All the pains and aggravations from me getting there because of the lightning storms which delayed start of concert about 30 minutes for the opening concert group, and my car almost getting stuck in the mud in the parking lot, where I did find a better parking spot thank God, were all were it for this awesome concert when Depeche Mode took the stage at 9:00 PM! 2hrs later and 2 encores later with the crowd goin wild and crazy giving two 5 minute standing ovations for both encores, and I was exhausted but so happy and grateful I was feelin well enough to be there last night! I was so impressed with the great behavior of the fans in this big crowd in East Tampa, and how courteous everyone was at the concert! Some interesting people watchin and dancin for sure! Tampa is the best concert town in this country, and a much better concert town than sports town! The crowd at every concert I've been to in Tampa over the last few years has been awesome! The final thing I want to say is on my long, exhausting 15 min walk back to the car, which is real hard for me these days, I got briefly stopped by this special young man who saw how exhausted I was walking, saw my dystonia t-shirt, and said the nicest comments to me! We gave each other a fist pump using my left hand since my right hand and side of my body is the real bad side! I'm right handed, but I'm slowly getting a bit better using my left hand but still very difficult! This young man really made me feel good, and this gave me motivation to keep walking despite being exhausted, and brought tears to my eyes! It shows that there are still good people in this world who really do care, and how taking the time for another person with kind words can have such a positive effect and give hope to another person! Much food for thought for everyone to think about! That is the bottom line because me and Depeche Mode "I Feel You" Coach E said so!!!!

Eric

Carla said...

Dag D.O., I'm so sorry to read that. I admire your attitude about the whole thing...seriously. Happy healing