Yesterday at Sunday afternoon, Delfino appeared on Fabricio Oberto’s internet radio show De todo menos basquet (Everything But Basket) . He talked with him about many issues, one of them, of course, the injury that has kept him out of the courts for nearly a month.

Although keeping his proverbial good humor, Delfino still sounded worried and frustrated when referring to his injury. He’s still experiencing some of the symptoms (see below), and though he acknowledges making progress, he sounded like he was expecting to be in better shape at this time. “I’m still in the basement, in a dark tunnel”, he said metaphorically.

These are the most important facts he mentioned:

1) He didn’t identified the exact moment when he was hit, but he said that against New Orleans (he didn’t came out in the second half) he couldn’t continue playing because he was moving like a fool. “More than usual, at least”. He also said that at first they thought he had a neck strain but soon realized his injury was a concussion (conmoción)

2) He described his symptoms as dizziness, photophobia (“I’m wearing dark glasses even at home”, he joked), and especially big headaches. He also said that he experienced “things moving” while watching them (“se me mueven las cosas” )

3) During the last weeks he wasn’t allowed to do any physical activity or mental activity like watching TV or connecting to Internet. “I was told to relax, but couldn’t do any exercise, or watch TV, or connect to Internet, or read a book. ¿How could I possibly relax?”, he complained)

4) Last three days he was allowed to do some exercise –he made 15 minutes of bicycle- and, if I didn’t understand wrongly, even drive his car and walk his dog. He had, nevertheless, to ask for authorization to participate on Oberto’s show and it was for a limited amount of time.

5) He said that fan support was important for him. He encouraged his followers, for example, to help him win the best Santa Fe’s 2010 sportsman poll (He’ll soon find out that many of his votes came from the crucial district of Whitby, Ontario J) By the way, in the last towo days he gave away two jerseys -one of the Bucks- to his twitter fans. He promised a third one if he surpasses some amount of votes in this poll. Be alert.

6) Talking about big fans, he had his mother helping him with home duties and food. “She flew here recently and she’s cooking me some good Argentine food”, he told Fabricio. “Beware because you’ll get soon the size of a center”, was his answer.

7) Finally, both they made some fun of their diseases (Oberto, who owns a winery, recently retired because of an arrhythmia so they joke a getting out a Cabernet that could be called “Conmoción” by Carlos Delfino or a Malbec named after Oberto’s arrythmia); remember fondly some melody they sang after beating Brazil at last Worlds, and talked about music, which allegedly is the main reason for the show to exist.

Unlike Oberto who’s more into international and Argentine rock, Carlos turned out be a “cumbia” fan, especially in its santafesina variation. The cumbia is one of the most popular rhythms here, a favorite of low and lower middle classes (there’s even a sort of gangsta cumbia (cumbia villera)).

I’ll leave you, then, with “Bombon Asesino” (Sweetie Killer?) by Los Palmeras, one the Cumbia groups Carlos mentioned during the show. Nothing gangsta about them, as you will see.

Summing up, this interview left me in more down mood than when I read the official report that went out a couple of days ago. They talked about a 90 percent of progress and that he will be coming back in 15 days, which I found now somewhat optimistical, according to what Carlos said yesterday.

In any case, it doesn’t seems to be a bad idea to show him some love at his Facebook page or on twitter. Maybe it can help him to go through these days until some light is found at the end of the tunnel he feels he is in.

You can listen to the whole show here.