—That wasn’t so bad, was it?
I come back to the facility and roll on the training table for more ice and stim. The training room has a sterilized hospital smell to it: salves and creams and freshly laundered towels and cleaning supplies. I hate it, just because I know what smelling it means. I’m injured again.
Training tables in two rows line the back of the room and up front are the taping tables and a long counter with all the tools of the trade for trainers: tapes, goops, bandages, scissors, meds, rubber gloves, adhesive pads, X-Acto knives, nail clippers; you name it. The locker room is on the other side of the wall with the counter.
I lie on the table in the back corner sulking with an ice pack wedged in my taint, electrodes diagonally pumping through my testicles; electric chair for my spermatozoa, waiting for our team doctor to arrive and assess the situation. Once the MRI results are received, the doctor meets with the athletic trainer. They discuss the findings, come up with a course of treatment, then they brief the head coach. Once everyone is on the same page, they tell me. Make sense?
MRI findings:
High-grade complete tear and stripping of proximal left adductor longus and brevis, with distal retraction and about 5cm tear defect gap with intervening edema and hemorrhage. Strain of the adjacent pectineus and obturator externus and gracilis muscles and attachments.
Moderate proximal hamstring tendinosis and/or strain and scarring are seen, with longitudinal thinning and possible tearing of the proximal deep margins at the ischial tuberosity attachments bilaterally.
Dr. Schlegel, Boublik’s partner, walks out of Greek’s office and comes to my table with an excellent poker face.
—What’s the word, Doc?
—Well, there are three muscles in the groin that come up and attach to the pelvis. The MRI showed that you tore two of them off the bone: the longus and the brevis. There’s a five-centimeter retraction on those muscles, meaning they tore away and retracted from the bone by five centimeters. That’s a significant retraction, but there is still one muscle intact and there are some fibers from the torn muscles that are connected to the pelvis, along with the intact muscle. In light of all that, we feel that we’ll be able to avoid surgery.
—Okay.
—But this is a significant injury, Nate. We’re going to give it a few days to let the swelling go down, and reassess. But we think we’re going to send you to Vail for a procedure that we’ve had a lot of success with lately. Greek will tell you more about it, but it’s an injection that uses your own blood to help speed up the healing process. It’s called a platelet-rich plasma, or PRP, injection. It has proven to be a very effective treatment, especially with athletes. But this is at least an eight-to-ten-week recovery.
—All right. Thanks, Doc.
—No problem. And get some rest.
Doc Schlegel leaves and I don’t. Greek comes out and asks me if I have any questions about what Dr. Schlegel has told me.
—No, not really. He said I might be going to Vail. And he said I’m done for two or three months. And he said to get some rest.
—Yep, exactly. Now let’s get another round of ice and stim going.
Eight to ten weeks puts me into December. NFL teams have fifty-three active players. Coaches want all fifty-three men helping the team win: practicing, sitting in meetings, playing in games. If someone gets hurt, they have to decide how to handle it. Do we keep him on the roster and hope he gets better in time to play at the end of the season? Or do we put him on the injured reserve list, and call it a year? This frees up a roster spot and someone healthy can be signed and start practicing immediately. But injured reserve is a death sentence. Once you’re on the list, your season is over.
The next morning I come into the training room on crutches with a watermelon cock. The swelling has overtaken my genitalia, mushing it into the opposite corner of my crotch. Black-and-blue ribbons curl up and down my inner thigh. A mile’s worth of chains are wrapped around my pelvis, intertwined, cinched tight and locked. I am worthless. The medical staff reaches the same conclusion: no point rushing this injury back on the field. Greek tells me I am going on injured reserve. My season is over.
What do you call a football player who’s not playing football? You don’t.
On Wednesday morning we watch special teams film and I see my injury on the big screen. There I am running down the field. But it doesn’t feel like I’m watching me. I’m watching someone else: something else. I’m watching a video game. When the video game player hitches and starts hopping, I think, what the fuck is wrong with that guy? Fucking run! Run, you idiot!
I crutch in and out of a few meetings that day but soon realize there’s no reason to be there. I’m not going to play; no need preparing like it. Besides, a cripple hobbling in and out of meetings every day is not a welcome sight for those trying to focus on the task at hand. A cripple makes them confront the obvious: you’re one play away from ending up like me. NFL football players must believe they’re invincible or they’ll get trampled on the field.
As I lie incapacitated on the back table on Wednesday, one by one my coaches come to pay their final respects. They tell me to hang in there; work hard on my rehab and I’ll be as good as new. They use hushed voices and somber tones. They wear grave looks on their faces. This is my eulogy. They are moving on in order to save themselves. They have no choice. I’m dead until April.
The limp and the hop; perfected in silent corridors, echoing off the tiles of an empty shower room. The watermelon ripens in the corner of my manhood. After four or five days, the swelling has gone down enough to go to Vail for the PRP injection. In the middle of the week, Sara flies to town and drives us up into the mountains while I squirm in my seat like a thing unhinged.
The procedure is set for the morning. We go up the night before and check into the Sonnenalp resort, dimed by the Broncos. It is just down the street from the highly esteemed Steadman-Hawkins Clinic, in the heart of beautiful Vail. It is a great place to convalesce. I haven’t seen Sara for a while. And it’s nice to get out of my house in Denver. The room at the Sonnenalp is nice, too. It has a mountain lodge feel: spacious and cozy. We have a fireplace and a big bathtub and despite my disability, I am determined to take advantage of the accommodations.
As I lie on the bed, and as she scuttles around me rearranging things, I grab her and pull her on top of me. I kiss her and reach between her legs. She protests the advance, if not simply to spare me the embarrassment. But I persist. She stirs passions in me that even a watermelon cannot deflate. She is the most beautiful creature I know. And my subconscious knowledge that we won’t last makes certain I’ll appreciate her while we do.
Delicately we remove our clothing. She maneuvers herself on top of me, flinching only slightly when she sees the rotten fruit. But her touch sparks a miraculous blood flow. In defiance of the forces that oppose it, my valiant soldier rises to salute his muse. In appreciation of the gesture, she gently accepts.
Slowly we squirm, but I am wilting. I remind myself of the objective—coming—and try to clear my head. The misery of life’s worst moments, deepest pains, and saddest bedridden days of depression are no match for an orgasm. But the body on body, the thrust and the cushion, the sensual bumping and pressing that accounts for the real action of love, is nearly impossible.
But my will leads the way, and we find the elusive rhythm. Her skin flushes, her hair follicles dome, and her lips redden. I feel a spark ignite in the depths of her ocean. Faint, then less faint, creeping toward us cautiously, the tide unlocks the gates of her hibernating libido. I paddle out to meet her. In slow motion and clothed in windblown linens, we splash into each other’s arms as the symphony approaches its climax. Just when the final note is to be carried into eternity, the conductor drops his baton, the instruments crash to the ground, and a solitary oboe pushes out one flitting note. Poof.
—Did you?
; —Uh . . . I think so.
Watermelon seeds.
The next morning I crutch into the Steadman-Hawkins Clinic for my PRP injection. They give me a hospital gown and I crawl onto a gurney. Of course my nurse is hot. This pattern develops around every genital area injury I have in my career. The more emasculating and uncomfortable the injury is, the more attractive the woman will be who treats it.
She ties up my arm and pushes in the needle. They need a good deal of blood for the procedure. One vial, two vials, three vials, four: I lose count. Many vials later, she pulls the needle out from under a cotton swab, presses down, and covers it quickly with a Scooby-Doo bandage.
She leaves the room with the vials and comes back with my blood in a bag. She opens a large circular machine and fixes the bag inside, closes the top, and turns it on. It is a centrifuge, and as it hums and spins, the properties of the blood separate into smaller pouches on the sides of the machine.
—See that one there? The one that looks like urine? We don’t need that. But see the dark, thick red stuff? That’s the good stuff. Look at that. That’s beautiful.
She fingers the bag.
—That’s the platelet-rich plasma. That’s what’s going back inside you.
She points to my balls.
After thirty minutes, the machine clicks off, the separation complete. She takes all of the bags and leaves me on my gurney to count the holes in the particleboard ceiling squares, wondering if I could pop one of them off and find the ventilation ducts like John McClane in Die Hard.
Shoot. Ze. Glass.
After a few hours of waiting, it’s time for the injection itself. They’ll sedate me, my nurse says, because of the location of the injury. It will be painful and squeamish otherwise. For both of us, I assume. They wheel me into an operating room and I look around frightened. All of these people in masks. Why so many people? And why the masks? I’m not wearing a mask! Where’s my mask? And it’s so cold in here; so cold.
The anesthesiologist introduces himself and pushes a needle into my hand in one motion. My nurse pulls up my gown and swabs my groin with alcohol. I wonder if she can see my penis. Nurses have kind eyes. I feel the drugs hit my bloodstream, tubing through my veins and arteries. At the same time I feel a trickle of alcohol catch momentum, run down a ridge, and hit the tree line in the crease between my leg and my crotch. The race is on. My eyesight fogs over. My lips feel big. It isn’t cold anymore, except for the river below, raging toward a protected marsh. My nurse watches over me maternally. I close my eyes and surrender to the drugs.
In the hallway on the way to the recovery room, I meet Dr. Marc Philippon: PRP injector, world-renowned hip surgeon, excellent human. He is still masked and wears a full blue hospital suit. His floppy Scandinavian blond hair, flowing from underneath his light blue skullcap, and his bright blue eyes strike a vibrant image in my loopy mind.
—Everything went great, Nate: really, really great. You’ll be fine in three weeks. Now rest up. All you can do is rest.
I manage a single question before his wingtips are echoing off the linoleum floor of the long hospital hallway, blond hair bouncing to the beat.
—Will you tell that to Greek?
I am back at work the next morning; strapped again to my electric chair. My only job now is rehab.
At 8 a.m. I jump on my table.
At 12 noon I jump off and go home.
The four hours in between vary slightly from day to day, but closely follow the protocol for “torn groin muscle,” ramping up the work slightly every day, depending on how my body responds.
The injected plasma encases the damaged tendons and hugs them with nutrients, forming a bridge of goop that the retracted muscles can cross before reuniting with the bone that held them since the womb. I sit on the table and meditate through the hours of ice and stim, picturing the PRP as a fleet of noble warriors sent to save a town from a bloodthirsty regime; sort of like the Three Amigos. My torn groin is El Guapo.
Every day I go home at noon and sit on the couch and think. That’s it. Sit and think, and find your way to God.
Some days I have bright ideas for home improvement. I live in a big house alone. It’s my house! I bought it! I go to Home Depot and buy every color of spray paint they have and get to work on a mural in my master bathroom. Stencils and acrylics and oils and brushes follow. The walls are my canvas. And my targets.
The next day I throw butcher knives at the walls. The one after that I string pinecones from the rafters to usher in the snowy season. I read the first thirty pages of lots of books. But I can’t concentrate. I take guitar lessons once a week in Boulder from a bluegrass guitarist named Brad. That gets me out of the house and gives me something productive to do. I write a few songs, a few poems. I keep a journal that drips blood when I open it.
The entertainment center in my living room is set into the wall about three feet deep and has a six-inch-thick drywalled shelf, skeletoned with two-by-fours, that’s built into it, dividing the top from the bottom. Sometimes I have the TV on the bottom, sometimes I move it to the top. But I really want it in the middle. That fucking shelf is no good. But it’s built into the damn house!
One day after rehab, I go to Home Depot and buy everything I need to demolish it: multiple power saws, hacksaw, crowbar, sledgehammer, and disc sander. Then I go home and tear my living room to shreds. When I’m finished, there is a layer of dust caked to the furniture. But the television now sits proudly in the right spot, surrounded by a torn-up wall with cables hanging out of it and exposed two-by-fours and drywall.
The injury also gives me more time to spend at home tracking the movement of the family of mice that has moved in. One night, after ingesting some unprescribed herbal medication, I am cleaning up in the kitchen. There is a single light on overhead. I lift a pot and a mouse darts across the countertop. I jump out of my slippers, hit my head on the ceiling and moonwalk into the pantry. While I’m there I inspect the area and find a collection of turds in the corner. I’m not surprised, as I often poop there. But in the opposite corner of the pantry is a collection of much smaller turds: mice! The next day at rehab I can hardly contain myself. I relay the story of the mouse to everyone in the training room. When I’m done with my workout I go to Home Depot. By now they know me.
—How did the demolition go?
—Eh, ya know. Least of my worries now. I have mice.
—Mice?
His face lights up.
—Follow me.
He takes me to an aisle that’s lined floor to ceiling with widdle fuzzy murder tools: snap traps, glue traps, trapdoor traps, poison pellets, poison goop, poison juice, poison poison. I decide on the old-school, hinged snap trap. It was not a large mouse. Yep, this should do it. I pay for my tools and race home. I’m so excited I barely notice my depression.
I set one trap next to the small turd pile and the rest in and around the kitchen. Then I leave the house to summon the death angel. When I walk in the front door a few hours later, a cold wind blows through me. A rodent lies dead on the kitchen floor. He died of a broken heart/neck. I lay another trap in the same place, knowing his bride will come to pay her last respects. When I wake up the next morning, the trap is gone. I find it underneath the dishwasher. Bitch got snapped and dragged herself under the dishwasher, where she wiggled free and was off in the night. Well played, Minnie, well played.
From that day on I sit on the kitchen counter every night with an airsoft gun and night-vision goggles, waiting to see if there are any more. I have soaked the airsoft pellets in poison juice. I’m not going to be made a fool of by some common field mouse. Eventually I get all five of them and seal up their entry points, which I find on either corner of the garage door. I feel triumphant in my kingdom of solitude.
But I am a living shadow outside my house, ducking in and out so as not to be seen, not to have to speak to anyone. At the facility I am t
he model of hard work. I earn employee of the month honors twice in a row. Pro Bowl center Tom Nalen and I were injured in the same game and were put on injured reserve on the same day. Our daily lives at the facility are mirrors. But it is his fourteenth season in the NFL. He is the glue that holds together the offensive line, which holds together the run game, which holds together the offense. Without Tom’s presence, we struggle to find the rhythm all year long.
One solace I find in my injury is the opportunity it has afforded my friend, fellow tight end Chad Mustard. He played for us the previous season. He is a six-foot-six former basketball-playing beast with quick feet and a big heart. He is a huge man, so huge that when there was a shortage of offensive tackles, they gave Chad a new number and stuck him next to the guard. Go for it, Chad. He does anything that is asked of him on the football field. And he can do almost anything. The more you can do, the more they ask you to do.
But when we signed Daniel Graham in the off-season, Chad got squeezed out. He moved back to Nebraska with his wife and started substitute teaching. When I got hurt, they called Chad and he was on a plane back to Denver. He even got his old locker back, right next to Tony and S.A.
We go 7-9 and miss the playoffs for the second year in a row. It is our first losing record since 1999. I receive a clean bill of health after the last game. In the off-season I become an unrestricted free agent for the first time in my career. That means I can test the market if I want to. But Ryan says the Broncos want to re-sign me. Coach Shanahan has been very good to me over the years. There’s no reason to leave. Plus, chances are there wouldn’t be many takers. I am an undersized tight end with body issues. The fact that they want to give me a new deal in spite of my recent injury is a great sign and not one that we should overlook.
We begin negotiations on the first day of free agency. What that means is that Ryan and Bruce begin negotiations with Ted and his team. Ryan wants to get me guaranteed money up front in the form of a signing bonus and add a few conceivable escalator clauses in case I end up catching a shitload of passes and touchdowns. I say, go for it, buddy! Get me all you can get me. My life hurts. But pain is glory. And glory is money.
Slow Getting Up: A Story of NFL Survival from the Bottom of the Pile Page 20