The 21-year-old former Adelaide rookie has been a revelation since the Blues handed him a surprise AFL debut in round one after they plucked him from VFL side Box Hill at last year's NAB AFL Rookie Draft.
"I was just thankful for the opportunity. It's taken a while, but since I've been at Carlton, I've just really enjoyed my footy," Curnow says.
"I've had a good run. It was great news to hear that I'd been rookied first and then to get the call up for the first game was great. I've had a bit of a good run and hopefully I can keep it going."
Curnow has experienced a thoroughly deserved change of fortunes over the past few months.
Let go by the Crows after one season on their rookie list, his AFL dream dimmed during an "ordinary" 2009 season in the VFL.
Things started to look up as he turned heads with a breakout season last year, but his world came crashing down around him when he suffered a badly broken leg halfway through the season.
"I was trying to stand up in a tackle, trying to be the big man, which I really shouldn't have done, and my leg just went from underneath me," he says.
"My body went one way and the leg stayed where it was and it cracked in the top part of the fibula and the bottom part of the tibia."
Curnow would undergo a six-month rehabilitation, two of those in plaster, which he felt had cruelled his AFL ambition once again - perhaps for good this time.
Amazingly, he still took out Box Hill's best and fairest award despite missing so many games with his early form enough to convince Carlton to throw him a lifeline.
Even then a debut seemed a long way off.
"I was still coming back from the leg and a shoulder injury," he says of his introduction to his second AFL club.
"It was always going to be a slow process and by the time I joined the main group in January, I was just really looking to get some good training form up.
"Then I got some early opportunities in practice games and without doing anything outstanding, I was able to do a role for the team and I stayed in the team because of that."
It's a far cry from the long winter months spent toiling away, unsure whether anyone was paying any attention.
"You can run around in the VFL and sometimes think 'What am I doing all this hard work for?' he says, admitting it had been difficult watching the 2009 drafts pass him by.
"You still hold onto that hope that someone's going to swoop in and pluck you from obscurity. Every player has that hope deep down I think, but it just didn't happen.
"You start to think you should be channelling that effort into looking for a real career.
"But you stick with it and it was a relief and a great feeling to get a bit of recognition for the hard work."
The quad injuries that derailed Curnow's first try at the elite level are a thing of the past, but his relationship with his host family in Adelaide isn't.
He still keeps in regular contact with them and remains mates with several of his former teammates including Jared Petrenko, Andy Otten and Tony Armstrong.
Having persisted through such adversity, Curnow isn't taking his second chance for granted and knows his position in the Blues' midfield is very much up for discussion on a weekly basis.
"I've got to be laying tackles, going in for the hard ball gets and the clearances but also spreading offensively and defensively and helping set up stoppages," he says.
"If I can do that, then it's going to go a long way to keeping me in the side each week."
Ed Curnow is a $96,400 midfielder in the Toyota AFL Dream Team competition.
