Radio silence...

Last time I wrote I had started my own little derby challenge to get into shape and start playing as a jammer more often... Then I got massive back pains... Two months after that my back looked like this:

No not because of derby

You're looking at a cross section of my spine. The ladder like image on the left side of the white vertical line are my vertebrae (the thicker parts) and the discs in between them (the thinner parts). The white vertical line is my spinal cord. That's more or less a direct phone connection between my lower body and my brain. All pain and feeling signals travel up to the brain through that and all commands from my brain to move my legs travel down through that. If you take a closer look you'll see that the second to last disc has started to run out into the spinal cord canal and even completely blocks it. That causes all kinds of disturbances in the communication that cause pain in my legs, numbness in my legs and pelvic area and muscle weakness in my legs. That's when I looked like this:

Me in hospital clothes and my best friend the rollator

Don't look like I'm in pain? That's because of large doses of 5 different types of pain medication. A normal herniated disc (a disc that starts running out) can heal of it's own accord but not the massive one I had so last friday they operated on me and removed the black part that had run out (white in real life).

Yesterday I came home. I'm now walking with two crutches (the day after the operation I couldn't even turn around  in my bed). The nasty thing is that removing the herniated disc removes the pain I had in my legs. Apart from the operation wound I feel no pain, but the weakness can stay up to a year and the numbness may never go away because those two aspects depend on damage to the nerves (that phone line) instead of just blockage of the nerves.

All in all this means that my journey to play derby as a jammer will take a lot longer than planned and may never come to an end. I am absolutely planning to stay involved in derby. I'm aiming to play again, but if that's not an option I might ref in stead and even if that's not an option I can focus on becoming a non skating trainer and stay active on the board of our club. But first things first: walk without an aid.

So there you have it. That's why I haven't blogged in a while and that's why this blogg will become more of a rehab journey blogg for the immediate future.

However, I DID manage to "play" our first official bout in Malmö. So in a way I have already taken you on my trip from fresh meat to my first bout. But I hope you'll stay with me for the next part of the trip as well. Exciting options lie ahead and I am still sure that derby will blow Europe's and Sweden's mind in the nearby future and I WILL be a part of that. :)

See you on the track!