Huzzey5: Oh man, I'm a boxer, have been for about a year now. I've been through several matches, been ok so far. I have bad defense but my instructor (Paul Ianuzzi, great guy, he's the current Masters World Champion so he's no average Joe) has kept faith in me due to my hard training and he says I have "8 times the power of any guy my size." I've been training for a big tournament that's coming up on the 9th of Feb, really excited about it. The 1st guy I was to be up against was a guy I lost to before, but Paul has been saying I'd wreck him this time, my defense is better and I've trained much harder.
After months of work, BAM! A week and a half ago I was informed I have a concussion w/borderline second impact and there's no way I'll be able to fight again without risking serious brain injury. Not only has the rest of my life taken a nosedive cause I can't concentrate or think straight, the one thing I love most, fighting, has been taken. It sucks
On the bright side, so long as I don't get hit again there's no permanent damage :/
Sorry to hear that, but no sense messing around further and risking life, or quality of it.
My father was a golden gloves, put the trophy up to serve notice from time to time as I was growing up :-)
I played for awhile when I was bored in the military, but nothing pro, just within the ranks when in Iceland. It started as a way to kill time in the absence of anything else to do at a remote site, so I can't relate to it being a passion as it must have been for you, but I moved away from that and my profession at the time, and hope that you can transition as well.
Good luck, and I'm sure life will have tons of battles for you, even outside of the ring.