In an all out attempt to get myself in shape for camp, I have taken my treadmill-babied Sauconys outdoors for for a quick 1-mile run nearly every night for the past week or so. I completed my first run in 13 minutes and 19 seconds and have had some improvement -- 12:19, 12:19, 12:36, 11:49, 11:39. Once I can complete the mile in 11:00, I will take it to 2 miles and then 3 miles. My running goal is to run a sub 30 minute 5K at the Valley Marathon on Thanksgiving Sunday.

I am also competing in a triathlon in a month. I will enter the Pictou YMCA Super Sprint Triathlon on 24-July. I will be swimming in the Northumberland Strait for 200M, then biking 8K and running 2K. I draw my triathlon inspiration from Lisa Bentley, one of the greatest female triathletes of all time. She has won 11 championships at the Ironman distance and ...wait for it ... she has Cystic Fibrosis.

Over the last week, the Life: Pass It On Transplant Society, of which I am a founding director, finally received its incorporation papers. This was imperative to get because we needed to be incorporated in order to deposit all of the sponsorship money and donations we received at our Organ and Tissue Donation  Awareness hockey game in April.

In all we raised over $5,000 around the game and the proceeds were deposited last night into our newly-established business account.  These funds will be used to continue our promotion organ and tissue donation awareness. In addition to our annual hockey game, we will be supporting our charitable partners -- the folks who are in the business of furthering transplant research and supporting transplant patients as well as donors and donor families.

Two of the other directors of our society are Tina Chaulk and Denice Klavano -- two amazing women who made the ultimate decision to donate their childrens' tissues and organs after tragic accidents.

The other two directors are two of my best friends since childhood Chris Meagher and Blair Landry who in the past year and a half have joined me in becoming transplant recipients. They both have had kidney transplants from live donors -- their wife and brother, respectively.

As far as hockey updates go, I played nets Tuesday night. Felt great and made a lot of nice stops and left the ice with about another half hour of hockey left in the tank. Tonight I am considering sparing as a forward with some of my buddies from work.

Since my transplant, biking has been my passion. In addition to the front suspension mountain bike I have owned since the mid-90s (which I ride at the cottage), I have 4 other bikes -- single speed "conversion", a full suspension mountain bike, a cyclocross, and most recently, a carbon fiber road bike. Sunday evening was my first long ride on my new road bike and it felt great. It was quite stiff even though I outweigh serious riders by 50 or 60lbs. In the biking world, I would be known as a "Clydesdale".

I love natural speed. I think there is nothing more thrilling than feeling the power under your feet with every pedal stroke, stride or push. The exception may be downhill skiing, which I took up this past year after 15 years away from the slopes. On my first run, it would have been hard to categorically deny the those tears were not tears of joy. I would go on record in stating they were from the wind.

This weekend was our best of the spring in Nova Scotia. We had 2 days in a row with no rain and with warm temperatures. There was a naked bike ride on the streets of Halifax, in which I chose not to participate.

On a normal weekend at our summer home near Tatamagouche, I spend about 4 hours mowing our 3 acres. This weekend, however the grass was a little wet and we had a little more time to enjoy our weekend together as a family. My daughter, now almost 8, is becoming more and more confident on her bike and she, my wife and I set out on several bike rides. It's not a fast paced ride at all, but they are really enjoyable mixing in sing-songs and deer spotting. One deer crossed the road at full speed not 10 feet in front of us. We saw quite a few more including a mom and brand-new fawn which appear to be living within a couple of hundred feet of our house. Our nearest neighbours.

Tomorrow night I'm back on the ice. Last week's skate was a battle. I fought the puck all night but had lots of energy to last me as the rink allowed us an extra 15 or 20 minutes. I worked on some things and I was better at the end than in the beginning.

When organizing and playing in the Life: Pass It On NOTDAW Cup game this year, I had the pleasure of meeting a real up and coming young defenceman playing Jr. A for the Metro Maurauders. Mitchell seemed wise beyond his 16 years and no wonder.

Not cool enough that Mitchell played in the U-17 world championships for Atlantic Canada or that he played Junior hockey this past season when he could have played yet another 2 years in Midget. 

Mitchell and I were put together because only a few years ago he had osteomyelitis (a bone marrow infection) in his leg which required the graft of a bone from a tissue donor. We were 2 of the 8 lucky recipients playing for Team Recipient.

Mitchell was eligible for this year's QMJHL draft and he told me that he will be happy to play anywhere where he can step right in and play a regular shift and contribute. I was extremely happy to read today's paper to see that Mitchell Shewfelt was drafted to our hometown Halifax Mooseheads http://thechronicleherald.ca/Sports/1246989.html

The Mooseheads are on yet another rebuilding year and I look forward to seeing Mitchell get lots of icetime on a young team.

"ELMIRA -- The Elmira Jackals will open their 2011-12 season with a home game Oct. 14 against the Trenton Devils at First Arena.

Meanwhile, the team also announced Thursday that it has put 19 players on its protected list. None are goalies."


Leaving the door open for a 43-year old goalie with 22 years of elite beer league experience and two new lungs.

I have been a little bit delinquent with my blog updates. This is mainly because I went to Europe with my family for 10 days. You’re asking yourself -- what kind of hockey fan goes to away during the Stanley Cup playoffs? In Europe, NHL coverage is nearly non-existent. In Croatia, it is absolutely not on anyone's RADAR. On our way back, at 4:30am at the free internet station in the Split airport.  I was able to watch the final 10 minutes of Game 7 between Boston and Tampa and that is about it.
 
Happy to be back in Canada and back to the rink. Last night I went to play summer hockey and in Halifax, it was the first time it felt like summer. I was breaking in a new trapper and liked it.  It felt good right out of the box and felt like half the weight of my old one. I played well for the first half of the game but got tired let in a couple of shaky goals and misplayed the puck a few times in the second half, but happy with my game.
 
I also had bloodwork and pulmonary function tests yesterday. My PFTs were “best ever” and my bloodwork came back with my kidney numbers up a bit but they have been higher. Ironically, some of the anti-rejection medications are hard on the kidneys and many longer-surviving lung transplant recipients will eventually require a kidney transplant. I have to be vigilant to drink lots of water to keep the kidneys functioning and I got away from that a bit during vacation. I’m not sure if beer intake counts.
 
Not surprisingly, I managed to add a couple of pounds over my vacation. I don’t think I will have too much difficulty taking that off.

Boomer Esiason is  a former NFL quarterback and now a football analyst and radio host.

He started the Boomer Esiason Foundation (www.esiason.org) to heighten awareness, education and the quality of life for those affected by cystic fibrosis, while providing financial support to research aimed at finding a cure.

Boomer’s son Gunnar was born with CF while he was playing with the Cincinnati Bengals. Gunnar is now in university.

The BEF also provides transplant grants and scholarships to people with CF.

Jerry Cahill of the BEF produces podcasts and exercise videos featuring the importance of exercise in those with CF. These videos are featured on the BEF website.

Jerry has chosen to do a podcast on me and my journey to the Elmira Jackals camp. I am a little nervous about this for certain. My CF had been such a personal story until, quite literally, the 11th hour. However, I think it’s important to the CF and transplant communities that I share my story of success, so I am honoured to do this.

Stay tuned to this blog for the podcast in the near future.

One thing that I had to get used to in rehab was that my workouts were monitored by my Physiotherapists and a lot of data was collected.

The most telling test in rehab is "the 6 minute walk". This is how the medical experts tell if you are more fit or less fit than you were the last time you did a 6 minute walk. If your distance decreases, this is cause for concern.

Although it means nothing to compare your distance with those of another patient, I am told that I have the Toronto General's record of 720m, although I am aware of several World Transplant Games Race Walking medallists do their tests at TGH, so this record is "unconfirmed" at best.  During my assessment for lung transplant I did 313m, which was still quite a feat while lugging an oxygen tank back and forth down a busy 25m hospital hallway.

Since I have returned home, I have been doing my own 6 minute test on an almost daily basis. We have a great LeMond exercise bike at the gym where I work. It keeps data from every second that I'm on it. I have blasted this machine for 6 minutes as hard as I can 173 times over the past 2 years.

Yesterday in my fitness test, I put out the most wattage -- 174.683 watts per second average -- that I have ever produced. There were 18 times in those 173 workouts that my average heart rate was higher than it was yesterday.

What's this all tell me? Simply that I am the fittest I've ever been, according to this measure.

For the past 4 years, "The Call" always meant the phone call that I waited patiently for and eventually received at 6:12pm on August 6, 2007 -- "Mr. Umlah, we have located a potential donor for you. Please make your way to Toronto General Hospital immediately."

After 39 years and 1 day of declining lung function due to Cystic Fibrosis, at 2:00am on August 7, 2007 I received the gift of life.

I woke up 10 hours later to these words from my ICU nurse "We got you an awesome set of lungs!". From that moment, I focused not only on my recovery, but also on making my second chance at life the most fulfilling that I could make it.

The past 4 years have been extraordinary.

When I decided to go on the transplant list, my biggest goal was to have the energy to clean out the garage so that my wife and I could both fit our cars into it. I have done that and more.

However, this blog is about hockey, the game I love and the game that has shaped my life with amazing friends and support network.

I never dreamt that I would have been able to return to hockey. At 6 months post transplant, I decided I'd throw it out there to my transplant team in Toronto. I asked my Turkish transplant doctor of I could return to hockey. He said, to my surprise, "Absolutely, but wear a good chest protector." 17 seconds into my first game, I took a slapshot directly to my rebuilt sternum. I lived. We lost that game 7-1, but I felt great. I knew that my final hurdle had been cleared.

3 full seasons and over 100 games later, yesterday I received "The (Latest) Call".  It was from the Elmira Jackals of the ECHL -- "Trevor, we would be more than happy to have you at the Pro Placement Camp in September." The Jackals are long-time supporters of organ donation.

So, is this is where my road to pro hockey stardom begins? I will have turned 43 by the time I step on the ice at my first pro hockey camp. Three seasons after my former crease mate Olie Kolzig retired from the NHL after a 19-year career. I will be the same age that Gordie Howe was in 1971 when he originally retired from the NHL after nearly 1700 regular season games. He made a successful second run at a hockey career, playing 7 more seasons and retiring at the age of 52 with 2421 professional hockey games under his belt.

The clear answer is NO, I AM NO GORDIE HOWE.

I am not trying to fool myself or anyone. I will not make the Elmira Jackals. For that matter, I am never going to play even 1 game of professional hockey. However, I am not going to embarass myself or the Jackals.

What I hope to accomplish is to demonstrate the quality of life that can be achieved post-transplant while honouring my donor, and all donors.

If one person registers themselves as an organ or tissue donor because of my story; if one person who is sick and decides that transplant is for them; if someone with a loved one in the gravest of situations decides in favour of organ donation; if one kid with Cystic Fibrosis finds hope in me, my goal will be accomplished.

Over the next 16 or 17 weeks, leading up to reporting day (September 2), my blog will track my progress as I try to get in game shape. I will be entirely focused on my fitness regime this summer, even more than I have the past 3 and a half years.

Today, I am still feeling the effects, 3 days later, of playing pickup hockey with a group of skaters half my age.

I'm weighing in at 194lbs. While I am down 20 lbs from my highest weight of 214lbs (15 months post-transplant; thank you prednisone and 39 years of eating whatever I wanted), I still hope to drop 10 more and report to the Jackals camp less than 185lbs. My lung function is around 118-120% of what is considered normal. I hope to increase this by about 5%.

I will keep you up to date.