Olympic Conquest

Cory - His Own Way

I arrive at the physical therapy room to see patients of all ages being tortured through their rehabilitation. The pain associated with rehab doesn't bother me. For any athlete, pain is a normal part of the process. I want to know what's going to happen once my leg is healed and I'm face-to-face with the slopes again. I can't ignore that I equally love and hate the mountain.

Martin sees me at the entrance. "Cory! Good to see you man. Ready to get started?"

He's a bit too enthusiastic. "That's why I'm here," I say.

Martin leads me to a treatment table. I slowly follow him on my crutches, trying not to make eye contact with the other patients. Martin on the other hand says hi to everyone. We finally get to the table and he has me take a seat on it.

"How's it going?"

"It's going."

"I wanted to tell you I'm a huge fan of yours."

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah, I saw every one of your Olympic races. I was even at the last one when you won gold."

"Really?"

"I was a skier myself. Never made it to the Olympics but I definitely gave it my entire childhood trying."

"How come we never met? The skiing community around here isn't that big."

"I grew up in Europe and skied over there mainly. My dad was stationed in the Army in Germany so I grew up skiing the Alps. And when I was in high school, my dad got stationed at Fort Carson, here in Colorado. I was excited to ski here but before I left Europe, I fell on a slalom course and broke both my legs." He lifts up one of his pant legs. "I had a circulation problem and lost this one below the knee."

I look down at Martin's prosthetic leg. My ACL pales in comparison to what this guy's gone through.

"I thought about doing the Paralympics but decided to go after a career in physical therapy instead."

"Sorry man."

"It's okay. I started skiing for fun recently. It's great to be back out there. It's amazing what you can do with a prosthetic leg these days. We'll have to race someday. I bet I could give you a run for your money."

"With your attitude, I bet you could."

I have no idea how this guy can be so damn positive. He lost part of his leg. I'm not buying his happy song and dance.

"You sound like you're okay with having lost half your leg."

"What am I going to do otherwise? Be pissed and miserable the rest of my life?" A pretty accurate description of where I'm heading, I'd say.

"Seems like you have a right to be pissed and miserable if you want to be."

"Maybe so. But that sounds like a drag – for me and everyone else." He looks down at my leg. "Alright, enough talk about me. This is your session. Let's take a look at your leg. Can you lift up and out as straight as you can?"

I try but my leg won't go perfectly straight. It bends at the knee. Martin takes some notes in what I'm assuming is my chart. "Okay, we're going to need to straighten that leg and make sure you have full range of motion prior to your surgery. Since you're a skier, you should still have good muscle strength, but we'll work on that too. You keep up your muscle strength and you'll be back on the slopes before you know it. Let's get you on the elliptical today and, for next time, how do you feel about cross country skiing?"

"Boring."

"Ha! Well, we're going to do that too. The sooner we can get you back on the snow the better."