What a difference a pair of skates make. I went and bought some larger skates on Tuesday and that took care of 90% of my suck. These are nice and roomy and fit my feet well. Interestingly enough, the guy who sold them to me has a wife who’s 80% done with her own chemotherapy.
Does everyone have cancer? It’s getting so played out.
So I was skating much better last night (Barb said I actually looked like a hockey player of some sort) AND I even got a goal!
I was in their end of the rink and the puck was starting to go back our direction, so I started to skate back. I saw one of our guys hassling the puck carrier, so I went straight for the goalie. I got my back to the goalie and my shoulders up just in time to see my teammate winding up. His shot hit me on my right thigh just above my knee (this morning I remain convinced that this is the one spot that doesn’t have padding) and I heard it drop behind me.
I turned around and got my stick on the puck at the same time the goalie covered it with his glove. There wasn’t a whistle yet, so I went ahead and gave a couple of pushes. The whistle blew, and I turned around to skate back to the faceoff circle, getting ready to apologize to my teammate for blocking the shot. For some reason, he was smiling at me, saying “good job.” The other guys on the team were going crazy too. The faceoff was at center ice. What the hell? I never saw it go in myself, but apparently I got my first goal of the season. Rockin’.
So my goal tied the game at 2 all, and we eventually won the game 6-4. There were nine of us there last night and I don’t think anyone scored twice. We’re called the Whalers, but we play like the Devils!
So all through the game, my feet didn’t hurt and I could actually skate. This was a 2000% improvement over the last game. I still got really tired and quite a bit weak-legged by the middle of the second period (thankfully, there’s only two in roller hockey), but that’s what I would expect to be feeling at this point, not having played for almost four years. Oh, and the cancer thing.
Speaking of which, treatment 5a (aka #9) is this afternoon. After this one, only three more to go! And after 5b, I’m getting another PET scan to find out just how little of the cancer’s left.
Well, now it’s time to drag my sore body to the shower and head off to work.