This will only make me mentally stronger

At the beginning of last week I thought, OK, I just won't get on any practice bulls in order to let the swelling go down so I would be ready to go in Des Moines. I called Tandy's office because he said something about wanting to get some x-rays.

He wanted to come in on Wednesday and whenever I showed to get the x-rays they said that my finger was pretty much broke in half and that I some more bones broke behind my knuckle, and that in order to fix it I would need to have surgery.

So then I asked, "what if I don't have the surgery? What are my other options?"

Basically they said that if I didn't have the surgery that my finger would grow back crooked and that I wouldn't have my strength back in that part of my hand. I was like, "OK, but what if I put a cast on it?" And they said the thing--that if I put a cast on it that it's still going to grow back crooked.

Then I asked if I could wait until after the next two events – Des Moines and San Antonio – and the hand specialist is telling Tandy and I that it's a pretty easy surgery, but he thinks I'm going to be out for two months and maybe even longer than that before I can ride again so he was saying it's better to go ahead and get it done. Plus if I ride again it's just going to make it even worse.

All of this stuff was coming down on me at once so I sat down and just talked to Tandy without the hand specialist in the room and asked him, "What do you think I should do?"

He said, "Well, I sent you to this man because he is a specialist and he does all my hand surgeries for anybody that comes to me. He knows what he's talking about."

I figured since we only have the two events and one of them is a two-day event and the other is just a one day event and then we have a little bit of a break I might as well go ahead and get it over with as soon as I can so I can get back to riding.

After the surgery I was sitting in the recovery room talking to the nurse and I heard my doctor talking outside of the room so asked her to have him come in and I said, "We just had the surgery so what do you think? Was it better or worse?"

He said, "It's exactly like I thought it was. The surgery went great, but I'm still saying the same thing about the recovery time and rehabilitation." He hasn't changed his mind, but I have to go back to the doctor in two weeks and hopefully after these two weeks things will be a lot better.

I hate being out. I hate not being able to ride. I hate that all my friends are going to the bull ridings on the weekends and me not being able to be there. Just watching the bull riding this weekend on TV made me realize that sometimes you take it for granted that you're actually there.

That changes once you actually have to sit home for a couple of weeks. It makes you really appreciate the fact that you can compete.

I'll hopefully be back in Orlando. I have a lot of friends and family that want to come to Orlando to watch me ride and I also have a lot of friends and family that want to come to Dallas to watch me ride. One way or another I'll be back for one of them – that's the plan anyway – because having to watch it on TV sucked.

This weekend I looked at the draw and I saw a bunch of just really nice standard bulls. I bunch of bulls that you could be anywhere from 87 to 90 points on in the draw both nights. Oh, man, whenever you see stuff like that it just makes you kind of cringe being a bull rider because you're thinking, "You mean I have to miss that?"

Everyday was there and having fun and it just makes you want to be there.

I think that's something that all bull riders do--they crave it. That's the reason that you can keep going out there night in and night out and whenever you have to sit back and put it on hold for a minute it just makes it ten times worse.

It was definitely frustrating and felt mixed emotions.

I was sad because I wanted to be there and I've worked my whole life to be where I'm at right now. To have to side on the sidelines and just watch is not real fun.

I have to two weeks before I'm supposed to do anything. That's when I'm should get my cast off so my plan for this little break is that I've been at home watching bull riding tapes and it just makes you want it so much more. Whenever you get to watch it and you know you can't do it for awhile it just makes you crave it.

As soon as that two weeks is over with I'll be back in the gym and I'll be riding the Mighty Bucky. Yesterday I rode some horses bareback that way I still know what it's like to keep an animal underneath me and stay a little bit in shape anyway.

I've also done a little fishing, but I haven't done very well at it so I don't know how long my fishing career is going to last. I might just decide I want to ride horses for the next two weeks and then whenever the two weeks is up I'll bust my butt in the gym to get ready to come back.

The main thing is staying mentally tough.

If I let myself get down and depressed about this whole ordeal then it's not going to do anything but hurt me. I have to keep my attitude up and stay mentally strong. If I get down then whenever I get back I'm not going to be worth a crap. So the way I see it is: I'm going to give those other guys a chance to win now because whenever I come back I'm going to be so mentally tough that it's going to be hard to beat me.

That may or may not be the case, but that's what I'm going to tell myself.