March | 2013 | Steve Tilford

I can’t say yesterday was close to a good day. I had been waiting around Vail for the past two weeks to have this follow-up, two week appointment with the surgeon. I was hoping that the guys at PT would tell the doctor, or the doctor would see himself that my arm is doing stellar, thus accelerating the whole process.

But, that wasn’t to be. My doctor wasn’t even at the appointment, the fellow that had been at the surgery met me and pretty much just gave me a physical therapy protocol that I was told the day after the operation.

So, that means, 4 more weeks of having my arm tied to my side, then I can start riding inside (which I’m already doing) and if everything goes according to the standard plan, he told me 3 to 4 months before I can compete again.

I can’t really comment on the whole day, publicly, right now. I need to get a physical therapist at home now. I’m going to wait for a referral from the head guy here, Dirk, before I decide. Dirk, and Brooke, and the other PT people were the highlight of the experience so far. Seems like the hands on people have the most knowledge sometimes, but since this is all new to me, I’m not really sure what to think right now.

Plus, this sinus thing has moved into my chest, so I slept about 2 hours the last 2 nights. I’m not sure I’ve been so miserable in recent memory. And I don’t really care much right now. And yes, this is all considered whining.

The upside to yesterday was, even though I felt like shit, Trudi and I walked over to the Burton US Open snowboarding competition at Gold Peak and made our way up to the half pipe to watch the first qualifying runs, between doctors appointments.

It definitely wasn’t the smartest thing to be doing with my arm in a sling and a huge risk if I fell down. The hill was so steep and so slick that it was incredibly hard to get up the half pipe. Coming down was much worse. I think if I did that 3 times, I would have destroyed my shoulder operation at least once. Luckily, that didn’t happen, but I wasn’t in control of my footing at anytime.

Once up there, it was incredible. I don’t quite understand how this sport got to this point, but the pipe is so huge and these guys are flying so high. There were a bunch of 13 and 14 year old kids from Japan and Australia. I didn’t hear the announcers saying an age over 20, but I know that some of the guys were. I think Shawn White qualified 2nd, and he’s “old” in this sport.

Anyway, it is super cool. I think the winner of the half pipe gets $45000 for this competition. That is more than most total prize lists of the biggest bike races in the country. Man, sport is fickle the way the wealth is spread.

We’re heading back down to Denver today to give Vincent back his dog and spend the night. Then back to Kansas on Saturday. I think there is still a lot of snow on the ground there, not that it really matters to me. Funny how that is.

After getting all the bandages off at the doctor’s office.

This was between runs. The snow patrol guys go down the pipe to smooth out the ruts. Looks how small they look compared to the structure.

It is amazing what great photos you can get with just an iPhone.

Here’s Trudi intently watching.

We were nearly at the bottom of the half pipe and the guys were way over our heads when they came out.

This guy came up a little short, right in front of us. There was a big wind from the West, so alot of guys were getting blown over and had problems on our side. I don’t think this worked out well for him, but don’t really remember.