Well, I have taken you all along on my journey from the
beginning of summer right into the Christmas season. I’m still not completely “right” and there’s
a few people that would suggest that I have never been completely “right”, but
I have recovered enough that I can now function normally. I still have issues to deal with, but they
are coming along. I’ll consider myself
completely healed the first time I step back on the ice to play a game.
I am resigned to the possibility that may never happen, but
I’m still fighting hard to make it a reality.
My foot is still too swollen to get a pair of boots or to put on my
skate. It still gets painful after a
long day or a long walk, but I’m dealing with it. Considering my foot was surgically rebuilt
less than four full months ago, I think I’m doing well. Yes, I am impatient as I want to be back on
the ice, but, sometimes these things can take 6 months to a year to fully heal
and I may miss the whole season.
I had prepared for that by notifying the organizers of both
my teams in August that I was out for the season. It was the one Doctor who said, “we’ll have
you skating again by Christmas” that gave me hope and belief that it could be
done. Christmas has now passed and I’m
not close to skating yet, but we’ll take it on a month to month basis and see
what happens.
In the last couple of weeks in November Hershal warned me
that he would be off on paternity leave for sure on December 18 and earlier if
the baby arrived earlier. Well, baby did
decide to make his entrance a little early, so I missed a few days with Hershal
and have now been bouncing back and forth between Gordon and Edwin.
I decided to take break on treatments to my foot and
concentrate on trying to get my left hand fully functional. I have gone from almost not being able to
close my fingers in hospital, to a point where I have full mobility in my
thumb, about ¾ mobility in my index and baby fingers but the middle fingers are
still stubborn. The actual middle finger
is about 50% whereas the ring finger just barely bends. We’ll see what happens in the new year.
After speaking with Edwin about the realistic chance of
getting the foot back to normal, he said there is the possibility that it won’t
happen, and I’ll be stuck with a somewhat bigger foot. That was also what the surgeon told me, and
we shall see. I took some steps (pardon
the pun) to see if there was another solution.
 |
| MY CURRENT, NON-FITTING SKATES |
I phoned my skate guy, Jay, at Scoff’s Hockey Shop and explained
the situation to him. I asked if they
had skates big enough to fit fat feet.
He told me that he had several very large sizes and he would see what he
could do. So, one day I made the trek
into Burnaby to see about getting fitted for a bigger pair of skates. Unfortunately, there is nothing big enough in
the standard size skates.
He did offer me another, somewhat more expensive
option. There is a company in Winnipeg
that he deals with, that makes custom fit hockey skates and if I was interested
we could go that route. The custom fit
skates are more expensive than standard skates by about $200, but if I can get
back on the ice it would be worth it.
So, we got started.
Jay scanned both my feet with a 3D scanner and it was kind of cool to
see the images as it took in ever bump, and hollow on the feet. He said he would send in the scans and then
what they do is 3D print my feet and then custom build skates around them. That way the skates literally fit your feet
like a custom skin. Several NHL players
are using them now and these skates may be the way of the future. I’ll be right in on the bottom floor of a “cutting
edge” market. Again, excuse the pun.
Jay warned that the one big stumbling block here will be the
opening. He says there is absolutely no
trouble custom building the skate to fit my foot. The stumbling block is where you put your
feet into the skate. It must be wide
enough to accommodate the foot, but still be able to be laced up. That may not be possible, but these guys have
worked miracles before. Here’s hoping.
No comments:
Post a Comment