December2009 [4 months after surgery]
I had Traded Cancer for a Colostomy
then Recovered with Rehab
The first milestone was to earn confidence that I could block shots and take the hits … without an explosion!
from Colostomy&Resection Surgery
Exactly 4 months after surgery, I was back playing hockey.
This was the first big test of my conviction that
After surgery
I will do everything I could do before surgery
Hockey Talk
Hockey team-mates were curious about what had happened to me, so I volunteered to answer any questions they had, and show them anything they wanted to see … and that had a way of dispensing with what could have been an uncomfortable situation. Players aged 50-65 parade around the dressing room and shower together after games – and we jokingly concluded that even with an ostomy, my body would not be the worst among the variety of sizes and shapes!
News of my cancer and surgery somehow travelled around the league of about 250 hockey players. As I played ‘first game back’ with each team, I was amazed at how many players made a point of acknowledgement, usually with the back-handed male style ... 'Didn't slow you down a bit'
'Nice you're back, looking dangerous as ever'
‘I always hated going into the corner with you,
but now I’m really afraid of the shit flying’
‘I thought with your butt sewn shut,
that your stride would be shorter’
It was all sincere and heartfelt, but the presentation
It was all sincere and heartfelt, but the presentation
was the just the best that men that age can do.
After an aggressive altercation around the net, a large and hostile defenseman pummeled me with a verbal tirade of hockey-trash-talk including “…#@*& ass-hole …”. I sniped back ‘you can’t really call me that, because I don’t even have one’. Instantly he went silent, smiled, put his arm around my shoulder, and said in amazement “you’re the one”, knowing only that someone in the league had been hurt by cancer and surgery, but had recovered.
Yes we can.
Ostomates can play Hockey.
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