Back in the Saddle Again

I'm often asked how Lizard can ride his bike with Parkinson's. It certainly is not easy! But this guy never gives up. He's amazing. Two years ago, eight weeks after total knee replacement (which ramped up the Parkinson's but enabled him to walk), he was able to get a full revolution for the first time. (shown above)

Five days after emergency back surgery in August of 2020, he was able to push the pedals all the way around once again. Oh, we had such high hopes! But the back surgery took its toll on the Parkinson's. And, we've since learned his Parkinson's is an aggressive strain, moving a little faster than normal even without surgeries.

We've worked our way up on mileage (six to twelve miles) a handful of times now, only to have to start all over again from scratch every time we aren't able to get back on the bikes for a few days. Lizard can do three miles, but getting above that in winter is a real challenge.

Last weekend, he was able to pedal eight miles for the first time since September 2021. I was SO proud of him! He experienced some difficulties at about a mile, and he wanted to return to the car. He was done for the day. By the time we got back to the car, he was feeling a little better, and he kept right on pedaling. Boy, was I surprised!

We got about mile away from the car again, and once again, he thought he was done. This time, he wanted me to go back and get the car, then return to pick him up. I encouraged him to sit for a bit and try to collect his strength. He downed a couple of energy gel cubes and drank some water. After a few minutes, he was ready to ride back to the car. When we got back to the car, he kept right on going once again and retraced the entire four miles we'd just completed.

Every time we ride, he asks me if he's regaining his speed. Last weekend, I couldn't hold his pace for about 15 seconds. The rest of the ride got slower and slower, but every time he thought he couldn't go any further, he challenged himself and succeeded.

Sometimes, he has to fight for every single tiny little accomplishment. But he keeps right on trying. This guy is my champion. He's had so many reasons and opportunities to give up, but he refuses to become an invalid. When we got home, he listened to Foreigner's "I'm Gonna Win" about six times, then REO Speedwagon's "Keep Pushing."

It is not an easy road, but he keeps right on spinning those wheels!

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Life After Lockdown

Trying to get a vaccination appointment in the Denver Metro area is near impossible. So I scheduled my shots 60 miles away. Lizard decided he wanted to go with me, even though being in a car can be very difficult and uncomfortable for him these days. It's the first time we've been anywhere other than medical appointments since November 2019.

Talk about refreshing!!!

We encountered a dynamite sunrise prior to my first shot.

We arrived an hour and a half early the second time around, so we decided to take a brief little sunrise walk at Garden of the Gods. Oh, my gosh, words cannot describe how wonderful those ten chilly minutes were!

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Wordless Wednesday

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Making Progress

In 2012, long before Lizard was diagnosed with Parkinson's, I'd been given a helpful head's-up by a blogging friend. I had gone over the handlebars on my bike, breaking my wrist and damaging a camera and lens. I didn't realize until after completing Ride the Rockies three months later that I'd managed to re-injure my back in the process. But hey! I made it through Ride the Rockies!!!

The doctor took me off my bike for three more months (the broken wrist and cast kept me off the bike for six weeks while I should have been training heavily for Ride the Rockies). It was the second time in my life I wasn't sure if I'd ever be able to ride again, the first being after emergency back surgery in 2003, and I was super depressed, as well as in demoralizing pain.

At the time, the prognosis was indecisive. I may feel better with time, but I may need surgery again, which wasn't an appetizing thought at all. The surgery likely would result in a loss of mobility that might be worse than what the crushed disc was already causing.

My friend Chris, who had been battling a diagnosis of her own, told me many people will not understand the discomfort they cannot see and do not themselves feel. She had often been told, "Well, you don't look sick..." She told me not to let what other people don't see or understand get in the way of doing my best with whatever I could.

She also told me about the spoon theory... Each day, you have X number of spoons. If you use up all your spoons in the first half of the day, you won't have any spoons left in the last half of the day, and the day's end will be more difficult. More discouraging. More intolerable.


Later, I was telling that philosophy to another friend who also faces daily challenges, and she said she likes to use matches in that theory instead of spoons. She said if you light all your matches before you go to bed at night, you won't have enough power to make it through the end of the day. It's all about rationing what you do have to get through each day as successfully as you can.


Fortunately, my supply of spoons, or matches, whichever illustrates the difficulties better, increased over time, and my days are still improving.

For Lizard, however, since he was diagnosed with Parkinson's last August, we've been trying to determine the right balance and number of spoons or matches he has available each day. One of the most difficult lessons to learn so far has been that not every day will be a good day. He won't have a set number of spoons or matches on any given day. The challenges don't end there.

Lizard has faced co-workers and acquaintances who say things like, "I'm tired at the end of the day, too. It's not as big a deal as you think."

Lizard will be first to tell you there are two kinds of tired. There's the breed of tired after pedaling 120 miles over three high elevation mountain passes. That's the good kind of tired. Then there's the "no energy" tired he fights every day, sometimes every hour, with Parkinson's. The tired that doesn't go away, the tired no amount of medication or exercise can fix. The variety of tired that doesn't make you feel like you've just accomplished something extraordinary.


One of the adjustments we've had to make is a new stationary bicycle trainer. My trainer holds my bike steady. I can crochet or knit or even do an upper body aerobic workout while I pedal, and it's not going to send me into the wall or onto the floor. The yarn can get tangled up in the gears if I'm not careful, though...

Lizard's indoor cycling trainer was rollers. I always thought watching him on the rollers was like bicycle poetry. He was so smooth and so balanced! Last year, that changed, and tremors (temporarily) robbed him of the sport he enjoys most.


Once he and his medication were a bit stabilized, Lizard made the decision on his own to get a trainer like mine so he can ride again in winter without risking injury. He researched the different brands and varieties. He picked one of the top-rated trainers (which also carries a lifetime warranty!!!).

We were standing in line at the recreational sports store, waiting to pay for his new trainer, when a man approached and criticized our choice of trainer. "You need rollers!"

I wasn't about to tell a total stranger our health history, but I also didn't want to be as rude as I felt this man was being. We told him we had researched the trainers, and this was the one we had chosen.

After leaving the store (after stomaching a few more indirect insults for selecting the $300 model over the $1,200 model, which doesn't have a lifetime warranty), Lizard and I talked about how this man made us feel.

We shouldn't have to wear our diagnosis on our sleeves. We shouldn't have to explain our personal choices. And we don't have a real good aftertaste for that particular store or even the brand that was being pushed on us.

I tried to imagine myself in a sales position, which I must confess I would fail miserably because I am not a sales person at all. I tried to visualize an encounter with a customer who selected something different than what I was supposed to be selling. Visions of fast food restaurants played through my mind... suggestive selling, which I have always hated and still hate with a passion.

I told Lizard that if I were to see someone standing in a cash register line with a bicycle trainer, even if I was supposed to be selling a different trainer, my approach would be more akin to, "Wow, so you're into cycling, too?" rather than berating them for choosing something different than what I would choose. But I guess that's why I'm not in retail. I could never survive that world!

Now Lizard can train again in winter, and he's enjoying the new equipment. He even told me he likes being able to move his hands around while he's on the new trainer. Maybe I can teach him to crochet on the bike... Well, it's the thought that counts!


We are still researching everything we can to find ways to better deal with and manage Parkinson's. One day in December, I learned art therapy is sometimes very helpful for people with tremors. I read the article to Lizard, and he began coloring the very next day. Within two or three days, he said the fine detail really was helping him control the tremors because it forces him to concentrate on his right hand, which is more affected than his left hand right now. Within a couple of weeks, he was determined to one day create his own coloring books, and perhaps create a whole line of them for other people fighting Parkinson's. Now, is that positive thinking, or what?!?


Diet is another thing we've been steadily working to improve. Turns out the Mediterranean diet is best not just for everyone, but especially for people with neurological disorders. I'd been keeping pretty much to a Mediterranean diet since long before it ever became a thing, or at least a defined thing. Lizard had mostly gone along for the ride ever since we met... his weakness is bacon.

So now he's fully converted to turkey bacon, and my non-seafood lover is now eating fish at least once a week. (Cod in particular has shown health benefits for people suffering from Alzheimer's, dementia and Parkinson's.) I had to make the seafood change in my life back when I was training for my first Ride the Rockies in 2003. I was vegetarian at the time, and I was experiencing some serious bonking, which means inadequate nutrients to fuel such an active lifestyle. Nuts and beans were not enough protein to replenish what I was burning each day. I HATED fish! But I learned to like it so I could keep riding. It was easy for me to teach Lizard to slowly, carefully and constructively incorporate seafood into his diet.


Now he's doing some Mediterranean diet research of his own, and he says he'd like to become a Mediterranean chef!

He bowled me over on our second date when he fed me homemade chicken enchiladas. Now he's winning me all over again with his quinoa salads and whole grain pastas!






Life moves a little bit slower at our place these days. But that's okay. We're enjoying taking time to smell the flowers. Even in winter.

We'll never give up. Parkinson's is a progressive thing, and it's still progressing. Like Michael J. Fox, we hope for a cure, and hopefully in our lifetime. In the meantime, we're trying to make our lifetime the best it can be. Goal Number One!

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When You Wish Upon a Rainbow...

I just mailed away a decade of my life, so pardon me, please, if I get a little teary-eyed.

About 200 years ago (or so it feels), I adopted a little boy. Not a baby, mind you, but a little boy. His background was horrific. I'd been married and childless for eight long, endless years. I'd been foster parent to three different boys who were not available for adoption, and I was the oldest of a huge blended nest, so having a child I could keep and never have to let go of was a HUGE goal in my life.  More important than my career.  More important than my hobbies. I wanted to be a mom.

That first adoption took five friggin' years. Giving birth doesn't take that long!  I always told interested/curious people I did five years of hard labor. I still stand by that claim. And then some. :)

By the time the adoption was finally finalized, I was ready for another kid. I wanted a little girl. My then-husband wasn't too keen on that idea, and he was growing more and more disgruntled with not being the center of my attention anymore, among other opposites-attract issues, as well as more than a few adopted-special-needs-child challenges.

One Sunday, my bishop gave me a newspaper clipping of a Wednesday's child he thought would be the perfect addition to my family. This little girl was nearly a perfect match for the little boy I'd just adopted. They'd had almost identical upbringings, and they had the same interests and challenges. I thought it would be a slam dunk because I already had so much related experience and knew into what kind of unsanitary, stinky mess I'd be plunging.

The better half, who'd been ditching church for several months, impolitely declined when presented with the opportunity.

So I let go of the dream. For one whole day.


The next day at work, TWO co-workers each individually brought me the very same newspaper clipping, convinced this little girl, who'd been in the system far too long, would be the perfect addition to my family.

Without informing the better half, I prepared another application and family history and sent it off to the distant county of the little girl in need of home and love. Imagine my surprise when three months later, I was informed we were among the top three pre-adoptive families. Would I like to schedule a visit with this little girl, more than 200 miles away?

I bravely approached the better half and presented him with the good news. He agreed to the meeting. I was stunned. Our adopted son was overjoyed.

The following weekend, we drove to the faraway tiny village to have lunch with the little girl and her caseworker.  The girl and my son hit it off immediately, and I felt a potential bond, even though most foster kids have difficulty bonding. Even the better half thought she was a neat little kid.


We proceeded with the necessary paperwork and contacted a caseworker in our own county about a home study, which would be required if the adoption were to happen. About three weeks later, we were informed one of the other two families had been chosen, thank you very much for your time and interest, we have other kids in which you might be interested...

I was crushed, and so was my son, but things at home had become worse. The better half had decided to split the halves permanently. At the time, I thought perhaps that was the reason this new adoption opportunity didn't materialize. It wasn't meant to be, even though it seemed from the beginning to be exactly what was supposed to happen.

I got a new job in another town and commuted for a couple of weeks until I found an affordable apartment big enough for me and my adopted son. A few weeks after the move, I was contacted again by the distant caseworker. The chosen family had received orders to be shipped out of the country for three years. Was I still interested?

New job, new living arrangement, new life, new everything... sure! Why not? Once again, I couldn't stop thinking about how this little girl had every indication she absolutely was meant to be a member of my family.


I had to restart the entire application and home study process, and I had to get a new caseworker in my new county, who turned out to be the very best one I've ever worked with. In hindsight, everything was worth it. One year later, we were family! It was amazing! Everything was so smooth and so quick!

Kids with histories have baggage. I'd trained extensively to be able to manage all the different bags, but every once in a while, a new suitcase would hit me upside the head and sometimes even take me off my feet for a day or two. Yet there were plenty of beautiful moments, too. We literally had a Disneyland life for the first five years.

Then teenage hormones and peer pressure and school bullies set in, and life was one visit to the police station after another. Therapy appointments were non-stop.  The pattern seemed unending.  I'd previously battled depression, especially regarding the whole childless thing, but my past experience didn't help me wade the deep, murky waters of troubled high-risk teens.

Eventually, the adopted boy took a permanent unauthorized field trip, and seven months later, the adopted girl followed suit.

The girl, being younger than the boy, hadn't earned the coming-of-age freedom he gained in spreading his wings and learning to fly. She wound up in residential treatment, and I had to sell my home to pay for it. She spent the rest of her teen years in treatment, and I spent the next decade paying the piper, so to speak.

In packing and downsizing, I loaded armfuls of memories into two separate boxes, one for him and one for her. I couldn't bring myself to throw away the photos, trophies, awards, memorabilia, souvenirs, school papers, CDs, unfinished crafts, first pairs of jeans, first baseball uniforms and the notes/cards/letters.


While I was trying to get my feet back on the ground, both financially and emotionally, I met The Lizard. He very easily swept me off my feet and didn't disappear after popping THE question: "So, have any kids?"

He accompanied me when I had the rare opportunity to have lunch or dinner with the boy, and he'd go with me to counseling sessions with the girl. Much later, he confessed the girl scared the daylights out of him and made him wonder if he was doing the right thing in marrying me. He's been a trooper. And a keeper. He's the bright spot in my life!


About 100 years later (or so it feels), the boy finally found some roots, and I was able to present him with his box. Guys typically aren't as sentimental as girls, but I could tell there were a few items in his box that touched him.


This year, the girl may actually be finding roots of her own. I hope she doesn't transplant again. Takes too long for new roots to set. For the time being, she was ready for her box.

I included the quilt I made from fabric she cut up as a child because she has a little bundle of her own now.


Going through that box of stuff that hadn't been opened or even touched in what feels like a lifetime brought back a storm of memories, both dark thunderclouds and rainbows. There was a Star Trek convention (StarCon) key chain with her name on it. There was an Alaskan license plate with her name on it. Her journal was in there. I couldn't help but open it and page through a bit. The story she wrote (with my help) about a dream she'd had and entered in her elementary school's book fair was in the box. Her Harry Potter books on CD were in there. Her Backstreet Boys CD was in there. Photos I took of her and retouched during Makeover Madness were in there.

And all these years, you've wondered why I got involved in Makeover Madness...


As I taped up the box and applied the mailing label, I felt as if I literally was closing a chapter in my life. Will she feel as if she is opening a new chapter in her life when she opens it? Will the memories tenderly packaged inside help her step back into the role of daughter, as well as mother?

I peek out the window and see yet another dazzling rainbow.

I hope there is gold at both ends of this one.

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The Big One

Seven years ago tomorrow, I went under the knife.

Prior to surgery, I'd been told recovery would be six to eight weeks. When I woke up, groggy and disoriented, but lying on my back for the first time in two weeks, I was told the neurosurgeon did not remove what he'd thought was a defective disc. Instead, he'd found a dime-sized bone chip embedded in my sciatic nerve, and he removed that instead. All parts were still present and accounted for. But now recovery would be 24 to 36 months, and nerve damage could take up to seven years. IF it heals. IF. No promises, no guaranties. A very big IF.

I am prone to depression, particularly in winter, and in some ways, that has been the bigger battle than recovery from injury and surgery. There were a couple of very dark years in the last seven years. Granted, I could not walk before surgery; I had no choice but to undergo the procedure neither the doctor nor I knew he would be performing. The post-surgery pain and recovery was nothing compared to what the bone chip did during its brief foray chewing up my nerve and spitting it out. Yet there were days when I thought the pain would never end. From late 2006 or early 2007 throughout 2008, I thought I was done healing and stuck in that condition forever. It was not a pleasant condition.

I thought I'd never be able to ride my bike more than about 2 miles. I thought I'd never be able to climb another mountain. I thought I'd never be able to take my camera on hikes again. The pain often was more than I was able to bear. I've never suffered a gunshot wound and hope I never do, but that was the only way I could describe what the hole in my nerve felt like. I felt as if I had a bullet hole in my behind, and when it got bad, it radiated to the top of my head and the tips of my toes. I frequently experience spasms in my right hand, the side on which the nerve damage occurred.

Arthritis often sets in where a patient has been opened up, and I have a deep and penetrating family history with that little stumbling block with or without surgery. So cloudy days do not help. I dread the changing of the barometric pressure. During my very own, personal Dark Ages, my two pains joined forces to physically and emotionally whittle away at any determination I could muster.

Sometimes, the depression made it more difficult to get out of bed in the mornings than the pain did.

Sometimes, The Lizard had to remind me I was crawling up the stairs to my apartment before surgery. The discomfort of healing was no comparison to what life would have been without surgery.


For seven years, I have done everything I can to try to encourage and enable healing. Plenty of rest, lots of water, no caffeine, no red meat, and since 2006, no refined white sugar or white starch. I did (and still do) everything the doctors and physical therapists instructed. I took (and still take) every supplement (natural as well as man-made) designed to promote nerve healing and lessen the impact of arthritis. I maintain a diet and regime designed to support nerve regeneration and thwart arthritis. Annual checkup after annual checkup, I hear and obey, "The best thing I can tell you is to stay active."

Tomorrow is the forecast day of the end of healing, so to speak. Technically, the way I feel tomorrow morning is the way I feel from now on. The mending is over.

But I believe in miracles. In the most recent Star Trek movie, not-quite-captain Kirk explains why he cheated to beat the Kobayashi Maru: "I don't believe in no-win scenarios." Maybe that's why I love the movie so much. I don't believe in impossible. I don't believe in giving up. (William Shatner uttered the very same line in "The Wrath of Khan," but I didn't like that movie until "Search for Spock" came out because they'd killed off my favorite character!)


I still feel tiny morsels of improvement. Even now. There are days when I wake up pain-free. Few and far between, and often the sensation doesn't last long. But they happen. Three weeks ago while camping in Moab, I awoke one morning feeling as if surgery had been a bad dream, as if it never really happened. After four nights in a tent, on cold, hard ground! The old body was back after breakfast, but these moments still happen, and I have no reason to believe they will stop or occur less frequently just because a certain calendar day comes and goes.

Tomorrow is the anniversary of my surgery and the fabled end of recovery. I am on the verge of my first-ever 4,000-mile year. I am two months away from a 60-mile day every month this year but February, for the first time ever.

I am at the stage when the body supposedly quits improving and begins to slowly show its age. But I am getting stronger.

I read in Road Bike Rider last week that with proper training, diet and exercise, the body can continue to build muscle until you are well into your 90s.

I'm not 90 yet. And I intend to get there. Safely. Strongly. With both hands hanging on tightly and me wailing at the top of my lungs, "Man, what a ride!"

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Still Healing

Prior to emergency back surgery in 2004, the neurosurgeon said I'd be back to normal in eight weeks. He thought he would be removing a disk; I was unable to hold still for the MRI, so they didn't get a clear image.

While I was out cold, the neurosurgeon discovered a dime-sized bone chip embedded in my sciatic nerve and determined that was the root of my pain instead of a herniated disk. He removed the bone chip. When I came to, I was thrilled to learn all my parts were still intact and nothing had been removed other than the bone chip, but I somehow missed the part about how long the healing would take for this different-than-planned surgery.

We may never know how I chipped whatever bone that caused this situation. The neurosurgeon said it could have happened years earlier, or it could have been fairly recent.

At nine weeks, I was (very slowly) touching my toes. This was pretty exciting for me because other people I'd met who'd had back surgery had told me they still couldn't touch their toes at six months. A couple of back surgery recipients even told me they couldn't touch their toes after two years. Nevertheless, I was not healing as fast as I thought I should, and depression kept taking bites out of my sanity.

At six months, I asked the doctor what the heck was going on. I thought this was supposed to be eight weeks.

"Where'd you get that?" he asked. "This is minimal two years."

Two years?!? I'd been drawn for the 2005 Ride the Rockies, and we'd be embarking on that journey in just a month, and now I found out I still had another year and a half to go?!? This could not be happening to me. I wanted my life back. And I did not like my back!!!

Two years to be able to do some of the things I had been doing prior to the bone chip making contact with my nerve, the doctor explained. Nerve damage, he said, could take up to seven years to heal. If it was going to heal. No guaranties.

In February of 2011, that means I have eight months now to go. Eight more months that the dime-sized hole in my sciatic nerve can heal. If it can heal.

Gone are the days when I could make landmark improvement, such as the first night I was able to sleep on my stomach, nine months after surgery, something the doctor said I wouldn't be able to do and shouldn't do anyway. I'd always been a tummy sleeper, and I absolutely refused to give up on that one!

The day I could put my socks on without sitting down.

The day I could climb the stairs without holding onto the rails.

The day I could swing my leg over my bike when I was getting ready to ride instead of having to lay the bike over and sort of twist it up underneath my leg.

The day I was able to ride two hours in the car without having to take a stretch break.

The day I carried my backpack for the first time since surgery. That was another thing the doctor said I probably wouldn't be able to do.

The day I wore jeans the first time since the doctor had cut me open... Lee Denim Day (in support of breast cancer research and awareness) last October!

I've made a ton of progress, and I'm still seeing tiny little things every now and then. I can't complain. I can do so much. I did two of the hardest rides I've ever done in my life last summer. I have been incredibly blessed.

My dear sweet husband often teases that he enjoys being married to a living barometer. That's because I can feel storms coming six hours before they get here. I can't say I like feeling changes in the weather, but it is kind of neat to have more accurate and reliable forecasts than I can get from any meteorologist. (I can laugh about that because in school, meteorology was one of the careers I thought I might like to do for life. Just didn't know I was going to have a built-in knack...)

Ever since I was able to get back on my bike, I've faced demoralizing stiffness after a ride. Even when on the trainer in my basement during winter. I've been told arthritis can set in where you've been opened up, particularly at my age. So what I'm dealing with might not be all nerve damage. There may be other factors at play.

Nevertheless, I did everything I could to try to stimulate and encourage nerve growth, regeneration and rejuvenation. Avocado, blueberries, spinach, broccoli, lots of water, no red meat, no sugar, plenty of rest, tons of stretching, daily exercise, daily walking, daily prayer...

Last year during Ride the Rockies, I was stiff after each day's ride. After Day Four, the hardest day of the week, I wanted to go home. I didn't want to finish. I did finish, but I really had to fight my attitude every day. I had to continually tell myself this was vacation, and I was having fun. My back knew I was lying and wasted no time in letting me know.

The following weekend, I did the MS-150. After the first 75 miles on Day One, for the first time since surgery, I wasn't stiff. I couldn't believe it! It was a miracle to me. I don't remember if I was stiff after Day Two. I'd finished Day Two in my best time ever, even before surgery, and that's all I cared and celebrated.

After Pikes Peak in August, I was depressed because I came up half a mile short. And I hurt. My body did not like me at all, and I wasn't sure it was ever going to forgive me. I didn't do too much athletically for the rest of the year, not only because of other things going on in my life, but because I felt my body needed time to recover, emotionally as well as physically. The longer I went without doing much, the more the depression kept trying to take over. And I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt I was losing all the ability and strength I had built up.

After the busy holiday seasons, I was able to devote time to the trainer, not my favorite activity, but it was activity. I could try to lose the weight I'd gained, and I could try to rebuild some of my aerobic strength. Plus sweat a lot, and for some reason, that's a healthy thing to do. Stinky, but healthy.

Trainer miles don't count as real miles, so you'll never see them recorded in my road and trail miles; trainer miles count only for sweat and for keeping the saddle tolerable to the rear end throughout the off-season.

Two weeks ago, I wasn't stiff after I got off the trainer. I thought it was because I hadn't worked hard enough. So I worked a little harder the next night. Again, I wasn't stiff.

Ever since surgery, The Lizard has set up a footstool for me to use in getting on and off the trainer because I could not mount or dismount the bike without it. I just didn't have the flexibility, strength or balance.

Last week, I got on the trainer without the footstool. I had been increasing my mile-long sprints ever since the night I wasn't stiff when I got off. I really pushed this time. I did four one-mile sprints, and I did a mile more than I typically had been doing every night, in the same amount of time. I wasn't stiff when I got off the bike. Now I was beginning to feel this wasn't something I was doing wrong. This wasn't because I was slacking. This wasn't because I am a wimp. Something had changed, and I felt as if I was on top of a 14er, even though I'm a good 7,000 feet lower!

Now, I've been increasing my time on the trainer by a mile every night. And I can get off that trainer without the footstool. I'm not stiff when I get off. I can walk just fine.

I'm anxious to see how I do in this year's MS-150. I'm anxious to see how I'll feel afterward. I'm even excited instead of intimidated about Pikes Peak. I was worried two years ago that all the healing was done. I thought I was stuck in that condition forever. But I'm not!

I'm still healing. I'm still healing!

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Owie

11 September 2004
We have been planning for months to climb American Peak today. With American flags. But my pinched nerve is so sore, I can hardly move. So we did nothing. I've lost the entire weekend. Nothing helps. This hurts so bad.

13 September 2004
Saw the doctor today. He says I need to get rid of my wheelie chair at work, turn my whole body when I multitask, not just my arm or my arm and my neck, sleep on my side not my tummy, keep my spine straight when I sleep and stop crossing my legs. I've known about leg-crossing for years.

He isn't sure which of these may have been IT, and stress could be a factor. I could even have done it while thrashing in my sleep. Bottom line is that I will be taking all these steps to make sure it doesn't happen again.

14 September 2004
I was feeling pretty exuberant last night after getting everything popped back into place. Five minutes after getting in bed, though, it happened again. I'll bet I didn't get three hours of sleep. I now have not slept in four nights, and my work product shows it. Plus, I can't stay awake. And yet, I can't sleep, either. It is so intense. There is no comfortable position. And the pain just keeps getting worse.

16 September 2004
The most humiliating moment of the day – I couldn't zip my dress this morning. I had to change into something without a zipper because I couldn't dress myself. Then I had difficulty putting on my shoes, then tying them. It hurts so bad to move.

20 September 2004
The Lizard took me to Northglenn to see the Healing Field flags. He had to take me because I can no longer drive. I'm glad we went when we did, even though I was sore, because they were taking the flags down. If I'd waited one more day, I would not have seen them. They had a flag for every person lost on 9/11. To see that many full-sized flags in one place and know what they symbolize is almost too much to bear. For a moment, I forgot all about my own pain.

14 October 2004
I went to the doctor right after work, and he sent me to the hospital for x-rays. Now I am waiting to see if I have to have an MRI.

23 October 2004
Why is it that I can take these stupid pain pills that I'm not supposed to take while driving, and I'm more awake than I've ever been on any trip?

24 October 2004
I had to buy groceries because I have run out. I could only get one yogurt and a soymilk because that's all I could carry. Everyone says I waddle when I walk.

25 October 2004
I can't tell you a whole lot about any given day because I've been Halloween in action. I'm a total zombie. I go through motions. Some days, the pain is crippling. Some days, the pain is tolerable. I'm on valium and percoset. Oh, and steroids. Lots of steroids.

1 November 2004
My doctor is sending me for an MRI tomorrow, and he is sending me to a neurosurgeon on Wednesday.

2 November 2004
An MRI when you have severe back pain is about the worst thing that could happen, next to being flattened by an 18-wheeler or a mammography unit. The Lizard said I had to crawl up the stairs at my apartment. I don't remember that.

3 November 2004
The neurosurgeon, after looking at my x-rays and MRI, decided I need to have a what-he-thinks-must-be-a-herniated-disk removed.

4 November 2004
From the releases I had to sign about blood transfusions to the releases I had to sign for if I die on the operating table, I am scared.

6 November 2004
I no longer have shooting pains in my leg, but this also is the first and so far only time in my life I've ever had morphine. I don't remember much, except that trying to go up three flights of stairs seemed pretty daunting. They won't let me go home until I can do three flights of stairs.

I didn't have a herniated disk after all. I had a dime-sized bone chip embedded in my sciatic nerve. We may never know how it got there. The wounded nerve feels like a burning bullet hole now. And I feel like I have a 2x4 stuffed in my back.

11 November 2004
I held my food down today!

25 November 2004
Today my skin didn't feel like it is ripping. The superglue or whatever they used to seal up my incision came unraveled or unstuck. Whatever. That's what the "ripping" feeling was, I guess. Now it's gone.

30 November 2004
My doctor said I can use the stairstepper or my bike on the trainer for five minutes ONLY if I stop if it hurts. He said to be very careful because it might not hurt until the next day. He said my legs are very strong. He added two stretches to my routine, which I can start again in the morning. There are two normal stretches I still can't do yet. He said be patient and don't push or I will be really sore.

He said I can go snowshoeing in one to two months. He said not to carry a backpack. But he said I'm doing remarkably well and to keep it up.

18 December 2004
I could see my scar for the first time tonight. To me, it looks six inches. Ugly. Red. Huge. But the doctor said it's healing very nicely, that it's only two inches, and that it's pink, not red. Sure looked bigger and darker and uglier to me.

29 December 2004
I did 20 minutes and 4.6 miles on a stationary bike this morning.

31 December 2004
This has been a great year. I spent months being the equivalent of grounded. But my back is healing. I can walk. I can bend. I can shoot. I can sew. I can knit. I can crochet. I can sing. I can bake. I can write. I can rhyme. I can meet deadlines. And one day I WILL be able to ride my bike again.

2 January 2005
I snowshoed nearly two miles today!

11 January 2005
Two weeks ago I felt like I had a 2x4 in my back. Last week and this week it felt like I have a ruler in my back. I tell everyone I'm working toward chopsticks. They burst into laughter, and then add the next step – "toothpicks!"

I still have sharp pains when I turn certain degrees to the right. I still have moments of exhaustion when I feel the bullet hole in my butt more than ever, but not sharp like it was before the surgery. Just scratchy. I still feel like I have a brick in my back when I shower. Go figure. That is the most weird of all.

I'm not as good as new, but I can feel a difference every day.

23 January 2005
I walked through the valentine aisle of the grocery store tonight. I’ve been avoiding that aisle for YEARS. Maybe even decades. I can’t remember.

Today, I got to walk through it. And look around. And smile. And NOT cry! It took me a few minutes to realize, “Holy cow!!!!!!!!!! I get to buy valentine stuff this year! Woohoo!!!" So I did. [huge grin]

I rode 12.6 miles up Waterton Canyon, which is more than I've done on the stationary bike. Ten miles on the stationary bike is like maybe two or three miles on a mountain bike. So I wasn't really ready for Waterton. A couple of times, I didn't think I would make it, but I did.

Of course, I couldn't do the steep part, and neither could The Lizard. The snow is still too deep.

3 February 2005
I'm not sure my back will ever be the way it was before October. I'm not sure if I'll ever be able to do the things I'm yearning to do.

Everyone was really good about helping me carry things today. People keep telling me to stop trying to lift. But I keep trying. I'm so afraid I will lose all ability if I don't keep trying.

I’ve got be able to do more than I’m doing now if I'm going to do Ride the Rockies. 2005 route to be announced in less than 48 hours now…

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