Saint John Times Globe - Thursday, November 12, 1998

By ED WINCHESTER

Special to the Times Globe

The dastardly disc: Ed Winchester with the herniated disc that interrupted this Olympic training this fall. It was removed during surgery at St. Joseph's Hospital a few weeks ago.

Editor's note: Renforth's Ed Winchester was sitting on top of Canada's rowing world this summer, competing all over the world with the eight-man crew that is heading to the 2000 Olympics in Australia, until a back injury put him out of commission and into surgery. This is the second installment of the journal he will be writing for the Saint John Times Globe over the next few months as he pushes himself back to gold-medal shape.

I came to with the foggy sensation of being halved, the way a magician's assistant is sawed in two, her legs separated from the rest of her body to complete the hackneyed illusion.

Then came the morphine, hitting me like a fluffy Mack truck with a cotton grill.

The clock in the recovery room said 1:30 p.m. Three hours had been stolen by the anesthetic, but the lumbar discectomy surgery was done.

"Here, put this in your next story," said Dr Ed Abraham, handing me a plastic jar of fluid containing what looked like a mangled oyster hastily torn from its shell.

I was holding the herniated disc in my hand. I knew it was mine because it was my name on the container's label.

"More morphine," I said.

Days earlier, the national team lightweight men's eight - my crew - had trounced the world silver-medallist Americans to win the Head of the Charles down in Boston.

I tried to visualize myself back in my seat in the boat, attacking each stroke, burying the other crews out on the Charles. But from my new seat on a guerney at St. Joseph's Hospital, I couldn't picture it.

And I knew why. I didn't need a fresh, 10-centimetre incision at the base of my spine to remind me rowing was a lifetime away.

I’m pushing the incision too hard, too soon, I say to myself, but it still doesn't get me off the goofy indoor-ski contraption at the Aquatic Centre. I finish the 60 minutes, record the calories and distance and go to check the scar.

It's November 1 - nine days after the surgery - and I know I shouldn't be working out. The incision in my back, now glowing red from inflammation, has been disturbed.