Mourning feels he is ready to comeback, but doctors say otherwise.

I definitely hope we haven't seen the last of Alonzo Mourning on the basketball court. I love his game, and hope to see him play again, but not at the risk of his health.

------------------
The whole world we travel with our thoughts,
Finding nowhere anyone as precious as one's own self.
Since each and every person is so precious to themselves
Let the self-respecting harm no other being. -from the Samyutta Nikaya

 

Mourning progressing, but career still in doubt

By IRA WINDERMAN Staff Writer      


MIAMI -- Faith, Alonzo Mourning said, has him convinced he will make it back to the NBA.

     But the medical reality remains that the Heat All-Star center does not know with any certainty when, or even if, he will be able to return to a sport he had dominated before being stricken by a serious kidney illness.
 
Alonzo Mourning won't be emotionally charged on the court anytime soon.

     Speaking Wednesday from the same AmericanAirlines Arena podium he used in October to announce he would be sidelined indefinitely with focal glomerulosclerosis, Mourning offered an update on where he stands with his treatment.

     "I'm actually feeling great, to tell you the truth,'' he said in an upbeat tone, as he awaits today's departure for Washington for a non-playing role during All-Star Weekend. "My doctors are extremely pleased with my progress. Actually, my doctors are surprised I'm progressing so rapidly. But I'm not progressing as fast as I want to progress."

     What Mourning wants is to rejoin a team that takes a 30-20 record into the All-Star break, just one game behind the Heat's pace of a year ago at the 50-game mark, when Mourning stood as the pre-eminent center in the Eastern Conference.

     "I want to play this year, and my doctors aren't as optimistic as I am,'' he said. "Believe me, they have a better medical sense than I do. So I'm going to pretty much let them make the decisions for my body."

     That decision is that Mourning is not at a stage where a decision can be made, and that he likely won't be at such a stage when the NBA playoffs begin in late April.

     However, Dr. Gerald B. Appel of Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center, among the first doctors Mourning had consulted, Wednesday said without setbacks, Mourning "certainly" could return for next season.

     For now, Mourning, 31, said the only definitive answers are provided by his faith. The results of the next three months of his medication regimen well could determine his basketball future.

     Asked if he could accept a doctor possibly telling him he had played his final NBA game, he said, "No, but I would have to.

     "I don't even want to think that far ahead. I know that's not gonna happen. I know I still have some basketball left in me.

     "I do know this: I don't know when I'm going to be back, but I have a strong feeling that I will be. I don't know when it's going to happen, though."

     As many friends and fans have done with Mourning, the 6-foot-10 center has pressed his doctors for a more definitive prognosis on a possible return date. None has been forthcoming, beyond the optimism Appel offered Wednesday.

     "They can't, and I put pressure on them to do that,'' he said. "I say, 'Tell me, you've got to know something. Can you give me a window?' They don't know. They just sit back and monitor it and wait… They just don't have a clue when I'll be better."

     On a regimen of as many 11 pills a day, some that disorient, some that nauseate, Mourning has lost 20 pounds since the onset of the illness. He said he is nowhere near playing shape, unable to tackle anything close to the rigors of the NBA, not even a token appearance at an All-Star Game where he was voted in as a starter by fans.

     "No,'' he said, "that wouldn't be realistic at all.

     "I have my good days and my bad days. Some days I say to myself, 'Hey, I'm gonna be back this year.' And then the other days I'm like, 'Man, this doesn't feel right today.' "

     So far, there have been mostly small steps -- permission to shoot baskets, more recently allowances for light jogging. But that has been about it.

     "Every now and then, they throw me a bone,'' he said of his world-renown physicians, ones he gave thanks that his fame and fortune allow him to retain. "They say, 'Hey you can do the bike now,' or 'you can shoot some jumpers now.' I'd say it has been a slow process." It also has been humbling.

     "A good day is when my body doesn't feel lethargic, it doesn't feel run down. I have a lot of energy on that day,'' he said. "And some days I feel very sluggish. It just goes through phases. My body is just not used to the changes it's going through and a lot of it has to do with the medications I'm taking."

     Throughout the process, an even greater question than basketball has loomed, that of transplantation, the step San Antonio Spurs forward Sean Elliott successfully underwent after years of battling a similar ailment.

     "The bottom line to all this,'' Mourning said, "is if none of this treatment works for me, obviously I'm going to need a new kidney."

     That sobering reality has delivered a perspective that mitigates a zeal to rejoin teammates who have overachieved in his absence.

     "I'm not going to shortchange myself just for some hero kick,'' he said. "I'm trying to get myself healthy, number one. It seems as though I'm on that path, but it's a slow path. Therefore, if the doctors tell me, 'You're going to need to bear with us,' then so be it."


------------------