Today at the gym I shot around for a little bit and it got me excited. This is an action shot that I took myself today. Not great, but it’s harder than you’d think to take a picture of yourself shooting a basketball:

It was terrible, and I was winded just moving around shooting the ball, but it none the less got me excited for my inevitable return to the weekly game!

“The Sunset League” as we’ve now taken to calling it, was started as a random idea back in February of 2008. I have a couple of friends who are teachers, and they got permission to use their gyms for some basketball. So for the last 3 years, more often than not, Saturday mornings at 7am, you’ll find 6-8 of us in a school gym, getting together to play basketball for 2-3 hours. On the list of things that I’ve missed not being able to do because of my illness, this ranks right up there.

I can’t stress enough how much I have missed going for the last 6 months, but I just knew it wouldn’t be a good idea. Even on my off week I just wasn’t in a position to be physically pushing myself up and down the court.

But as excited as I am to get back at it, I’m pretty anxious about it too. I just told the guys on our email thread (after staying silent for the last 6 months!) that I’ll need another month or so before I can come back. After all, I’m currently the heaviest I have EVER been, and I’m in the worst shape of my life.

I’m working on it though. I tried several times to get myself to workout on a regular basis during treatment, but it just took so much out of me that it hardly seemed worth it. I just couldn’t keep it up. Now however, as we countdown to the end, it feels different and I have no doubt that this is the actual start of me reclaiming my body, my health, my fitness, and my life.

My body has been ravaged by cancer, poisoned by drugs, and I’ve allowed it to slip away into a unfit form unlike I’ve ever seen it or known it before. I think as far as my physical fitness and health goes, this is rock bottom. So its all looking up from here!

In about a month I look forward to blogging about my first game back. I’ll be a few pounds lighter, in better shape that I am now, but with still a long way to go. I’ll have just gotten my ASS kicked all morning long, but I’ll be happy! It will mark a milestone for sure, a true marker for me that I made it through. I can’t wait!

In!