January 7, 2007

Hello, and thanks for visiting my site.

This is my first journal entry in quite sometime and there are quite a few updates that I would like to tell you all about. I will start with my surgery and continue to move forward.

As most of you may have heard I was experiencing pain in my right groin and kind of thought nothing of it. I took the typical approach on it as if I had a pulled groin and did my best to rest it and lay low. The pain went on from September through January (06) and every time that I went to the doctor they weren't able to find anything wrong. Finally after Nationals in St. Louis I had severe pain and went to the emergency room where they were able to find that I had a Torsion and it had to be repaired immediately. I had the surgery and was held off the ice for 6 weeks.

The surgery went well and took care of the groin pain. I was able to start back skating and work up to the level I was hoping for before the surgery took place. I did a few shows and had made a few changes to my team and coaching. I had been working with Nedda Soltani since the summer of 2002. Nedda and I had a great relationship and have many great moments together. This is a women who did everything in her power to help me succeed. I couldn't have asked for a better person to help me through those 4 years of training. Nedda and I became very close and at some points I wasn't able to divide our on ice work, and our friendship. I don't fault Nedda for anything negative in my skating.... this was solely a decision I had to make and probably one of the hardest to this point in my skating career.

I returned with my training back at the Toyota Training Center in El Segundo, California (formally known as Healthsouth Training Center) and started working under Burt Lancon. Burt was an Olympic Team member himself and has helped me do some new things with my skating. We have had very many compliments on my skating through this past year and im looking forward to what my path may hold. This year in no way has been easy for me.

After I thought I would be good to get back on the ice and train away I had come down with a severe staph infection. This infection was a result of my surgery and had held me back for quite sometime. I kept getting these bumps on my body that were extremely painful and the doctors would have to lance them open, put a wick in them so they were able to drain, and then put me on very heavy antibiotics to get rid of the infection. The doctors were having a very hard time getting this under control and I was sent to see an Infectious Disease Specialist who finally seemed to help me.

I had to miss a few competitions this past season due to not having any energy from all the med's I had been put on. My team and I tried to not let too many people know what was happening and just do my best on the ice but I was at times not able to jump for a week or two, sometimes not even skate at all. This had gone on for about 8 months and was one of the most frustrating things to deal with.

I had a decent showing in Finland finishing 5th and squeaked my way through the Pacific Coast Sectionals to once again qualify for the U.S. Championships. I am looking forward to skating in Spokane. My training now that I have been healthy and able to do so, has been going very well. I am feeling good about the upcoming weeks and am going to take this event stride by stride not expecting the unreachable from myself. Knowing there have been a lot of men to retire this years Nationals will be very interesting. My goal for Spokane is to make the top 6 at this years Championships. I know it will be televised and hopefully you will be able to see good things from me :)

I thank you again for visiting my site and have a very healthy and Happy New Year.

Nick