I’ve been working extremely hard this year on a project that makes no sense. If it were a PhD project, my professor would long ago have advised me to abandon the topic and find a new area of interest. But I can’t because I’m an addict. I’m addicted to the game of basketball and no matter how hard I try to put it out of my mind, I just can’t. I’ll do anything to get back on the court.
In September of 2021, I started having intense pain shooting down my right leg. I went to a chiropractor who ordered an MRI. The results were not good. Three bulging discs which may or many not be cause for concern and a narrowing spinal canal which was the immediate cause of my pain. The canal was so tight, there was no room for the nerves to properly function. Like the tanker that got caught in the Suez a few years back and forced 10 year-olds from Texas to Taiwan to miss out on Star Wars Legos, the nerves that run from the spine down the leg were being pinched by my very own genetic bottleneck causing intense leg pain known to most as sciatica.
“You should think about giving up basketball,” the chiropractor said. “Maybe just shoot free throws at the County Fair for a prize.”
First of all, those free throw contests are all rigged. I shot over 88% from the line and I can never make a County Fair free throw. The rims are oddly shaped to the point where the ball doesn’t really fit. Maybe the one thing Joe Biden could accomplish in his administration is to make all the rims at the County Fair free throw contests regulation size.
Anyway, when the chiropractor told me I should give up basketball, I cried.
“I’m not ready to give it up,” I whimpered to my wife, sounding like Antoine Walker when he found out he was broke.
In February, I had a double laminectomy at L3-L4 and L4-L5. Essentially, the neurosurgeon went in and removed the lamina (bone) at two levels to allow the nerves more room to breathe and function. I think of it like a marriage where a couple that had been sharing a tiny New York apartment finally moves into a bigger house to give everyone a little more room to breathe. The surgery was deemed a success but to me it feels a bit like Karl Anthony Towns’ career. I’m still not even remotely convinced.
The process of the surgery itself has a tendency to upset the nerves. In my case, I had intense pain down my right leg (more intense than the pain pre-surgery) and lost feeling in my right foot and toes. Five months later, the pain down the leg has dissipated but the toes and the foot remain a problem. In particular, I am unable to bend my right big toe which makes it impossible to push off the right foot which makes it impossible to run which makes it impossible to get back on a basketball court.
So every morning when I wake up, I do a series of foot and toe exercises to try and coax the right big toe into functioning like a normal big toe. What was once the leader of all the toes on my foot has been reduced to a meaningless figurehead, like a top general in the Trump administration. I know the big toe is still there because I can see him. He just doesn’t serve much of a purpose these days.
In December, I’ll be 52 years old. I should just retire and watch The Old Man on Hulu. But I can’t. I find myself having dreams about playing the game I’ve always loved. I imagine running up and down the court at the Rucker in New York, outside Kenwood Academy in Chicago, at the Five-Star Basketball Camp in that iconic orange t-shirt, at the Blue-Chip camp in Indianapolis, all places I played back when running and jumping and moving freely was something I took for granted, like breathing.
Six months post surgery and I’m still not sure I’ll ever be able to play again. The doctors say nerves heal at the rate of 1mm per week. Given that timeframe, my foot should be back to normal by the end of September but like Durant being traded, I’ll believe it when I see it.
Until then, I’ll keep doing the toe exercises, (and the back and core strengthening exercises) hoping that one day soon I’ll be able to get back out on the floor. I’ll no doubt be a slower, horribly average middle-aged player, but I don’t really care. At least I’ll be playing the game I love.
