A shoulder injury sustained in a vehicle collision has forced local resident and masters swimmer Graeme Gordon to seriously re-evaluate what kind of a swimmer he can be. Whether he can ever swim competitively again, for example.
The collision with another vehicle occurred in late August 2018 in Rocky Mountain House.
The injury and its consequences also forced him to take a different job. He used to install internet as well as video cameras, security systems and satellite TV — mainly in rural areas.
"I can't do that anymore," he told the Albertan earlier. "I don't have nearly as much strength as I used to in my shoulder. It separates when I try and work with (it). There's a lot of pain."
So now he's a technician and salesman at Staples.
Gordon had surgery on the shoulder last month and is now recovering.
"There's impingement at the joint because the joint was out of place. So this was to get the bones back in place and to get rid of some of the damage," he said.
"I strongly advocate people signing their donor cards," Gordon added, saying a tendon now in his shoulder is the result of tissue donation.
Gordon has long been a successful swimmer. As recently as May 2018 he won nine medals, including four gold during the Canadian Masters Swimming Championship in Calgary .
But he's wrestling with the fact he likely can never be the same swimmer he once was.
"It's completely difficult to say, but I don't think with the mechanics of my shoulder I'm ever going to be at the level I wanted to be at," Gordon said.
"I mean, all the goals that I had coming into this season have all been completely washed away.
"I'll probably try and still get out to meets and race, but I'm not going to have that serious same kind of focus and I'm going to have to completely change the goals that I have."
Gordon said instead of being a competitive racer, he may attend meets as more of a social event.
"The goals that I had of breaking Edmonton master club records and the goals of winning medals at Nationals and U.S. Nationals, I don't think I'm going to be focused on that anymore. It's going to be more of a social (thing)," he said.
"There's a couple of things I need to do. One of them is pretty much learn how to swim again, but differently. I need to change out the muscle groups I'm using to swim with and just get down the pool.
"I don't think you can take the swimmer out of me," Gordon added with a laugh. "It's just not possible."
Gordon recently turned 40 years old. As a result, he would be racing in the 40- to 44-year-old age group.
"I was so looking forward to this. Like this is the only thing I was looking forward to when I was going to be turning 40 was being able to compete at this age group," he said, adding guys in that age group are extremely competitive.
"I don't think I'm ever going to be anywhere near as good as what I was expecting to be, going into this new age group. So yeah, it's pretty much career ending."
He had been anticipating racing for a long time to come.
"I was expecting to swim until pretty much the day I keel over," Gordon said with a light laugh. "There's no limit. There's 100- and 105-year-old swimmers out there.
"Now I mean, if I can still stand and walk and fall into the water and get from one end to the other and create, I would still love to do that. But because of the injury, I won't be able to be at the same competitive level that I was at.
"Unfortunately I think my shoulder might not ever recover properly after the accident."
"I'm going to miss being able to compete against people as I grow older that are fast and just are able to help with being positive and just having fun," he added.
"I'll be kicking around the pool, it's just going to be — different, you know?"
Gordon has been a coach, but he said he has no plans to get back into that role.
"I did more than a decade of coaching for numerous teams. I've enjoyed the coaching success that I've had, but I'm happy to move on and let new coaches come up and new coaches inspire new athletes," he said.
Outside of the pool, Gordon plans to push for changes to compensation for those injured in vehicle accidents.
Gordon says he's had great support from Staples customers and the community as a whole.
"I think this community is very encouraging, very supportive, he said. "It's such a great community for support and looking after each other."
