Off the PUP

It's good to be back. As many Daily Mail readers may know, I wrote sports here for about three years, but abruptly left right around the beginning of 2011 and it has come to my attention that many people have been wondering why. Well, here it is.

On Feb. 9, 2011, I was coming back to the office from a Cottey College basketball game when I started to feel dizzy and disoriented and couldn't seem to maintain my train of thought. By the next day, I couldn't remember things I had done 10 minutes after the fact and the dizzy spells were quickly becoming more pronounced and more numerous and I knew from that point on that my days of writing sports were -- at least, temporarily -- over.

Seven doctors and almost too many emergency room visits to count later, I finally found a specialist who could recognize and treat the particular problem I had. Eighteen months and two brain surgeries later, here I am.

I won't go into the specifics on the medical side of it here, but the particular issue I had is related to a chronic condition and a medical device implanted in me that is used to treat that condition. The device used does malfunction as all man-made mechanical instruments do, but the particular issue I had with it is very rare -- so much so that most doctors never see it happen.

I will admit that such an issue certainly is quite an eye opener and bordering on the textbook definition of an exercise in character building, but honestly, I think I've got enough character built up by now to last me for a good, long time! The last 18 months certainly haven't been an experience I'd like to repeat anytime soon.

In my absence, I got an absolutely astonishing amount of support from various members of the community and from the Nevada High School athletic department. Those of you who may be reading this who were a part of all of that, you already know who you are, but a huge thank you is in order. That helped with my recovery just as much as the medical treatment did.

Throughout my recovery and even before I found the doctor who made that recovery possible, I knew coming back and writing sports here in Nevada was what I wanted to do, so when the position opened up, I was pretty quick to jump on it and once I got hired and actually started at the beginning of this week, for lack of a better explanatory phrase, it just felt right.

Although the condition that led to my stint on the sports journalists' Physically Unable to Perform list isn't one that can actually be cured and I will, therefore, have another issue with it at some point in the future, I'm healed completely and back to my usual self now. And though I can't deny that another issue will occur, now that I have a specialist who knows me and how to treat this disorder, any future issue will be fixed in no more than just a couple of weeks.

Barring another such issue, I hope to stick around and continue as the Daily Mail's sports editor for years to come.