There will be no more eight o'clock wake-ups for John Weisbrod. No more blood-pressure checks morning, noon and night. No more listening to Harvard hockey games on WHRB, because it was too painful for him to sit in the press box.

After logging 46 days in three stints that lasted until yesterday at the UHS Stillman Infirmary, Weisbrod is a free man.

But the recuperation from a bulging disk in his back has been a physically and mentally painful process for Weisbrod.

It all started in late August at the U.S. Hockey Festival, where the bruising 6'3", 215 lb. forward, Mike Vukonich, Ted Donato and Peter Ciavaglia played with hopes of earning a spot for the 1992 U.S. Olympic hockey team.

On his second shift for Team East, Weisbrod absorbed a hard blow to the head that knocked him out of the game. For the next few days, he tried to shake off debilitating headaches but couldn't. Something else was wrong.

"The doctor there found out that I had a staff infection and mono at the same time," Weisbrod said. "He said that it was the worse case he's ever seen, and he was pretty old, so that worried me. I spent August in the hospital with an I.V.I barely got out of the hospital and wasn't fully ready for the season."

"It's a pity I didn't have him for very long," Team East and St. Lawrence Coach Joe Marsh said. "We came one goal away from winning the whole thing there, and he could've helped us. He's a pro-style hockey player, who can bang around and create some space."

The sickness was a bad start to the pre-season. While other hockey players--especially Harvard's seniors--lifted weights and ran wind sprints in preparation for the rigorous winter schedule, Weisbrod was still recovering from his illness.

The "wear and tear"--as he describes it--hurt Weisbrod. He woke up the Sunday morning after the season's opening weekend against Brown and Yale with what "felt like a muscle pull" in his lower back. But the pain subsided, and he travelled to Princeton to play the following weekend.

"Towards the end of the Princeton game, I was in severe pain," Weisbrod said, "and it was hard to bend down. The next morning at Army, I couldn't get out of bed. Hockey is a game where you play through pain, but this was debilitating to the point where you couldn't function."

"You work on parts of your body in summertime," Ciavaglia said. "You try to get stronger, but when you can't do anything to prepare, injuries suddenly hit you. Having mono cut down on John. When you're hurt, you tend to want to rush back too soon."

Three days after his return to Cambridge, Weisbrod entered UHS for his first stay--it would last 15 days. He went into traction to stretch out the vertebrae in his back and loosen the inflamed disk, the lowest in his back.

The treatment seemed to work. Weisbrod came back from the Christmas break refreshed. He felt fine, "almost one-hundred percent" coming into the St. Lawrence/Clarkson weekend on January 4 and 5. He played against St. Lawrence and assisted all four Harvard goals in the Crimson's 5-4 loss.

The next night was not so fortunate. A jarring check half way through the Clarkson contest forced Weisbrod's second trip to the hospital.

"I got hit in an awkward way, a traumatic way," he said. "My body was turned one way, and my legs swung another way. It felt like someone had shot me. I couldn't wiggle my legs or toes. That moment was the high point of pain.