I've been attending the Santa Fe Spa since signing a professional baseball contract as a lefthanded baseball pitcher in 1986. In the winter of 1989, I flew south to pitch in winter league beisbol in Mexico and injured by pitching elbow. Thinking the...
Read MoreI've been attending the Santa Fe Spa since signing a professional baseball contract as a lefthanded baseball pitcher in 1986. In the winter of 1989, I flew south to pitch in winter league beisbol in Mexico and injured by pitching elbow. Thinking the worst, I returned home to Santa Fe and my orthopedic doctor placed my arm in a cast. Then I signed with a team in the New York-Penn League in 1090. I needed therapy and thats when I met Michael Hoerning at (Turquoise Trail Therapy) the Santa Fe Spa. In six month's he miraculously healed my injured elbow to where I pitched for another thirty-one year's, (pitching in 587 games for 200 team's, winning 459 amateur games until the age of 57!) Having a massive hemorrhagic stroke and going into month long coma.
As the game of baseball was not at the top of my list as I was discharged from the hospital and started the therapy process with St. Vincent's Outpatient Sports Medicine & Therapy some twenty-one month's ago, I was reunited with Hoerning once again.
We started and have maintained the past six month's together with what he's prescribed as NDT (Neuro Development Training.) In his words, " you need to crawl before you can start walking." So here we are today, some short six month's since our therapy started and he has be almost walking on my own, (albeit with the use of only a cane) a far cry from when I was using a wheelchair, to a walker, to a Hemi-Style walker, and now to using a cane.
Once again I am starting to fly to be reunited with my Boston Wolfpack teammates and my new life goal is to one day make a comeback and walk back atop the pitcher's mound and do what I always did best in life, pitch a baseball...
I owe it all to both Michael Hoerning, Tamara Lichtenstein, and the wonderful staff and ownership of the Santa Fe Spa for all they've done for me to allow me to again one day dream of pitching a baseball and beating the odds of healing and getting back on my feet and walking again. I was given only a 10% chance of doing this... But I'm going to not only beat the odds, I will pitch and win again. For "I am ALIVE!"
Best regards,
J. Rodney Tafoya
Author of Ageless Arm~
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