Typing With Fat Fingers . . .

First off, it's been pretty amazing to hear from so many folks over the last few days. Thanks to all of you, it really means a lot to me. As far as important progress updates, well, the big ones won't happen for a few weeks at the earliest. I might get pretty stoked about getting the tubes out of me femoral arteries so that I can sit up and bend my legs, but I realize that's a bit less exciting to most of you. So I'll try to post when something meaningful happens down here in Salt Lake, or when I head back up to Jackson or whatever.

The big question, I assume, is whether or not I get to go through an amputation as a result of the frostbite. Like Allen has noted, that's a difficult question to answer right now. I can say that my fingers are in pretty good shape, though swollen and blistered, so I ought to be keeping those I hope. On my left foot, the biggest question marks are my big and little toes, though all of the toes are somewhat vulnerable. The right foot is the bigges issue though -- at this point about half of my foot and all my toes are at risk. The extent of all of this depends on how I recover over the next couple weeks.

What I can say for sure at this point is that regardless of what does or does not get lopped off of my feet, I won't be slowed down. It's a setback for sure, but we've all had setbacks and dealt with them over time. This is just one more challenge. I had been hoping to race the Eugene Marathon in May this year, which probably won't be happening. It's probably a bit early to commit to a race right now, but I'll be aiming for something in the spring of 2010. I'll also try to put some updates about that up over the next few months.