A few weeks ago, I had the misfortune of tearing the tendons in my right arm.

It was a total fluke -I was golfing (or attempting to) and had just made one of my famous 23-yard drives off the tee block when I felt a sudden pain rip through my elbow.

At the time, I didn’t think much of it, so I continued playing.

By the time we arrived at 18, the pain finally forced me to stop.

A trip to emergency the next day confirmed my worst nightmare -my golf season was finished.

Apparently tendons can take a very long time to heal and recovery may include some sort of physiotherapy. We’ll see.

I had to laugh; one of my friends suggested that maybe I didn’t warm up properly.

I told him that after 12 holes and close to 80 swings I was as warm as I would ever be.

As if that wasn’t enough, the past few weeks I’ve been sporting a stiff knee. The doc also looked at this and it turns out I have something called “water on the knee.”

A horse needle was used to extract the liquid and I was instructed to avoid strenuous activities (no problem on that one, doc!) So there I was, feeling very sorry for myself. Until now.

You see, I have just read our feature story -a wrap-up of the Donald Woods murder trial.

It has made me realize just how insignificant my little health problem really is.

If you’ve been hiding away from the world for the past few years (or haven’t spent much time in Ontario) and haven’t heard of this tragedy, Donald Woods was the trucker who was murdered for his load of chicken.

He was found dead in his truck on June 23, 2006 behind a Wal-Mart store in Pickering Ont. (For the complete details, please see the story on pg. 18).

I’ve lost friends to car accidents, cancer, heart attacks and Aids. They were all tragic.

But Donald’s death was senseless, brought on by greed, nothing more, nothing less.

He was a family man making a living doing what he loved, trucking. He did no wrong to the convicted killer Paul Cyr. He did not deserve to die.

Think of Donald the next time life throws you a curveball. We’re all lucky to be here and life shouldn’t be taken for granted.

No matter how bad you think you have it, some people would love to have your problems. •

-Rob Wilkins is the publisher of Truck West and he can be reached at 416-510-5123.