Ride # 64: One of Nine Hundred and Eighty-Four

Last day of July
around 3:30 in the afternoon

Of the last nine hundred and eighty-four hours, only one has been spent riding but that one hour was today and I'm psyched. Hopefully this is a turning point, the first easy 15 miles of many miles to come, and come soon too so that I can be ready for the D2R2 and the Dirty Forty. I'd give myself a 60/40 chance of being ready. Which isn't to say 100% but hopefully comfortable enough to acquit myself well and finish both. That's the goal, anyway.

To achieve that, and to reconstitute some of the muscle that's been lost in the last 41 days of idleness, I'm starting a moderate weight training program (being worked out). The idea is to rebuild the left quad and strengthen both hips and quads. I need to put on some weight too, I'm a powerless 141.5 lbs at present. I attribute the loss to muscle atrophy. I want to bulk up with 5-7 lbs of muscle distributed across the hips, quads, and glutes.

I drank my first almond milk/protein shake today. More on that later.

The real news is that I managed to ride today! Finally.

Up to Sholan Farms and back via Elm St, a shortened Sholan Loop that still had moderate climbing. Stamina-wise I felt great, like it was nothing, like I could have pedaled for another two hours. But when I focused on it, the knee felt tight, crinkly, punky, about-to-be-sore. I was hyper-conscious of it for awhile. But when I let go of that and just rode without thinking about it, any sensation in the left knee that caught my attention was minimal and unremarkable. Certainly nothing more than any of the other vague aches and various tight spots in the lower back and upper legs. Nothing to cause me to wince or go "ouch! damn!"

So a minor step. One hour. And a sweet hour it was.

Ride Stats: 14.7 miles at 13.5 mph, one hour and four in the saddle. Was tentative. Not convinced everything is back to normal. Certainly need to get stronger quick.

Forward!

End of the Tour but Not the End of the Season

Tour de France 2014

The Tour de France has come and gone now. I watched it with enthusiasm but not being able to ride myself was frustrating!

Quick update. Much better but still can't ride. The area below the left knee cap remains tender and undependable. Rest and wait.

I 'm doing hip strengthening exercises though I am not yet on a definitive routine. I realize that to continue cycling at the level I aspire to, I have to beef up my hips, glutes, quads, and lower back. Once upon a time, vain about the sculpted nature of my chiseled hockey legs, I took their strength for granted. I had sequoia trunks below the waist.  But somewhere over the course of two decades, the legs lost some of their strength. They softened. They were tethered to my torso by unstable and not-well-conditioned ligaments and tendons:; they lacked the animal power once inherent in them.

New and drastic measures required. Assuming present condition is NOT the result of psoriatic arthritis, Lyme Disease, the Ebola virus, lead poisoning, voodoo, or any other arcane and hard-to-diagnose maladies, then it follows that it's a strength thing. So strength as purpose the focus going forward.

Ghosts of Triumph

Tour Observation

Here's a curious thing. The TV coverage of the Tour referred occasionally to past winners that later on ended up being disqualified for doping. Marco Pantani and Byrne Riis both came up at various times. But Lance was never mentioned. Why is Lance more toxic than any of the other cheaters from those days? Because he was a bigger asshole and from Texas?

The double standard stinks. Lance was the most dynamic and charismatic rider of his generation. Ignoring him doesn't make the doping history of the Tour go away. The Tour was (and is?) a stained and tainted spectacle. It is what it is and every rider, doper and non, should be remembered and duly noted for his contribution to the race. It's too late to sanitize the EPO years. Trying to do so is cowardly and absurd. Eddy Merckx? The cannibal. What did he ingest other than the competition?

Losing on the Champs-Élysées 2014

The Numbers Don't Bear It Out

Today was the follow-up appointment with Dr. Hoary Ears. He read my blood work and reviewed my X-ray.

The X-ray of the knee revealed a textbook case of the Perfect Joint. An absolute beauty, no indication of trauma, wear, tear, or imperfection. A proud moment for me.

The blood work? He pronounced the numbers "phenomenal" and said my liver & kidney function was perfect, my white and red blood cell count in harmony, and the measurements for inflammation off the charts GOOD. My SED rate was super low and some other inflammation variable was in the very lowest percentile. In short, there was nothing in the blood tests that led him to conclude that I have psoriatic arthritis. The numbers didn't bear it out.

In fact, I think he was even a little perplexed and almost annoyed that he wasn't able to explain my condition based on the data.

So the conclusion was inconclusive. Part of me was disappointed. I wanted to know that I had something! But apparently I don't "have" anything. Except a sore knee still.

He ordered an MRI just to rule out structural damage. "I want to see what's in there," he confessed, unwilling to settle for no diagnosis.

But it's increasingly looking like a pedestrian case of Repetitive Use Injury. Or an old-fashioned case of patella tendonitis. Just like they said the last time.

The prescription? Rest it another three weeks.

Argh! A grievous blow to Team Shad.

This puts my participation in the D2R2 and the Dirty 40 in jeopardy. On the current timeline, if I'm to stay off the bike for another three weeks, that will be TWO MONTHS without riding. Already my left quad has atrophied. It's like vanilla mousse inside that pink epidermal skein. Makes me nauseous to consider what putty it's become!

And how is the knee today? Tight. Not correct. A nag. How will it be tomorrow? It's anyone's guess.

Recovery?

Prednisone

Not knowing exactly what the problem is, it's hard to know exactly what's helping me feel better but feel better I do, no doubt. Most of the pain is gone; anything residual is almost phantom pain, a nagging tug, a reminder that "ouch! this used to hurt," though it doesn't anymore.

Maybe it's the Predisone that Dr. Hoary Ears prescribed. Today is day four of 2 tablets a day. Tomorrow I take the last two. Or maybe it's a combination with the Indomethacin, little green gel caps of which I have a whole bottle still.

Or maybe it was Master Yang. At my last treatment (four days ago) he suggested that by my next treatment, tomorrow, the pain would mostly be gone. He was right - but did he bring it about?

Or perhaps it's simply that an "episode" has run its course, whatever the episode was.

Then I think, if it was the Prednisone responsible for my current state - pain receded, swelling basically gone, 80-90% mobility recovered - does that embody real healing or just a mask the symptoms?

This shit gets psychically taxing!

The thing is, I almost tried to ride today. I was sorely tempted, that's how good I felt. But then later in the afternoon, about the time I would have gone, I felt some tightness and quasi-discomfort in the knee and I thought, No, probably not a good idea to try riding yet. Tomorrow, another session with Yang. Friday, the feedback from the blood work and X-rays.

If by Saturday I am still pain free and the various test results didn't raise any red flags and if Master Yang has given me his blessing, then perhaps I'll try riding for the first time since June 19th.

Gad. The better part of July, my favorite month, spent hobbled. All these beautiful long hot summer days. I think back to February and the many harsh cold weather rides and recall how I dreamed then of the long balmy days of summer and how I'd be riding four and five times a week in nothing but shorts and a jersey and I how I longed for that. Sigh. Hopefully, there will be some of that fine summer riding to come but I've missed out on a good chunk of the Niceness so far.

Desk of Dubstoevsky

The Plot Thickens

The dark places between East and West

Here's a scary word: spondyloarthropathy. That's the term that the rheumatologist (who I saw almost two years ago when I was experiencing very similar symptoms and whom I saw again yesterday) invoked. This guy is old school, he's been around the medical business a long time. He has bushy ear hair and he's portly. He'd make a perfect inn keeper in Middle Earth looming over stiff-jointed hobbits with an air of authority.

What a surreal visit it was. His bubbly nurse's aid took my vitals in a freezing examining room (perfect blood pressure 110/63), then had me slip into the paper thin johnny to wait for Dr. Hoary Ears. The doctor comes in, sits down, asks me what the problem is and remarks that I look good. I tell him about the knee. Let's see it, he says. I get on the examining table, straighten it out, he glances at it, touches it a little, then says "Okay, put your clothes on and meet me in my office, I'll review my notes from the last time you were here."

Pretty cursory exam, I think, but do as I'm told. In his office next door, he sits in a plush leather chair behind a big polished wooden desk and beckons me to sit in a comfy leather chair as well. I do. He peruses his laptop and asks "Did your father have psoriasis?"

Not exactly the first question I expected and I'm immediately annoyed (my father, even in death, manages to intrude into my affairs). But Dr. Hoary Ears is getting at something by looking backwards, analyzing my genetic history. Though I don't know it at that moment, he already suspects something.

"Do you have any skin rashes?" he continues. No, I tell him, though when we'd looked at the knee in the examining room, it did betray a trace of dry skin, something I hadn't noticed before. He then asks about gout, have I ever had it? I tell him maybe once but that I don't think this episode is gout. "Neither do I," he answers, but still asks me about my diet.

A little more review of the notes, another minor question or two and he says: "You have one of two things. It's either gout or a form of spondyloarthropathy."

Yowza, I think, this guy is bold. "And I don't believe it's gout," he adds. "I'm inclined to think you're experiencing psoriatic arthritis." When I later look that up, the symptoms do seem to fit the situation, albeit broadly. Though I lack the skin condition associated with psoriasis (hmmm, what about that 'dry skin' on the knee cap? I think), this description seems to fit:

"Some people with psoriasis can also develop psoriatic arthritis, when the immune system attacks the joints as well, causing inflammation. Like psoriasis, psoriatic arthritis symptoms flare and subside, vary from person to person, and even change locations in the same person over time."

And this:

"Psoriatic arthritis also can cause tender spots where tendons and ligaments join onto bones. This condition, called enthesitis, can result in pain at the back of the heel, the sole of the foot, around the elbows or in other areas. Enthesitis is one of the characteristic features of psoriatic arthritis."

The thing is, there's no definitive test for psoriatic arthritis. Diagnosis is based on ruling out other things (like Lyme Disease) and then matching symptoms. Some of the symptoms I have match but I'm not showing all the symptoms. So what's to be done? Immediately, pain management and inflammation reduction. To achieve those goals he prescribes two drugs: indomethacin (25 mgs, 4 times a day), and prednisone (a steroid, 20 mg, twice a day). He also sends me to Emerson Hospital for blood work and X-rays of the knee and schedules another appointment for a week from now. So, take the drugs and see what happens.

All of which is quite interesting because an hour prior to seeing him, I'd gotten a treatment from Master Yang and we'd made progress. Yang was able to bend the knee and engage in some chi pumping both with me on my back and on my stomach. We hadn't been able to do that Wednesday. "Much better" he told me and suggested that "maybe next week, pain gone." I wanted to believe him.

But what if Master Yang is wrong? What if this isn't a pinched nerve and what if he's treating me for something that isn't? I ponder this. Again, the terminology is suspect. Perhaps "pinched nerve" means different things to each of us. The one interesting thing, which I realize later while reading about psoriatic arthritis, is that it's a condition that often develops in, and emanates from, the lower back and the sacroiliac joint. This matches the area that Yang is concerned with and for which he's treating me. So maybe, terms aside, he IS directing his treatment to the appropriate condition.

So I am now tethered somewhere between East and West. I want to trust Yang ("No need for X-ray" and "Is not a problem with knee, is a problem here <lower back>" but I'm inclined, perhaps out of lifelong cultural conditioning, to accept the Western explanation. It seems twisted but I almost want to believe that I have a "condition" (probably genetically-gifted) rather than a "pinched nerve" - I want to believe that what I've been doing (riding like a man possessed, eating well, stretching) is GOOD for me and not a cause of my current incapacitated state. If it's a condition that periodically flares up regardless of my behavior, than I can adopt the fatalistic approach of what is, is, and get on with dealing with it.

But if what I'm doing and the way I live is causing this condition, then I'll have to modify what I don't want to modify. Of course I'm thinking of cycling. That's the Big Unknown here. A genetic condition means that cycling is not causing this. But a "pinched nerve" might be the result of riding too much (or maybe being incorrectly positioned on the bike, or perhaps riding a bike that doesn't quite fit .... though these two possibilities seem remote as I've been fitted for my bike and have been riding in comfort all season, until now).

I'll take Dr. Hoary Ears' drugs and go back next week and review the X-ray and the blood test results. I'll also keep my next appointment with Master Yang. I will wrap myself in the swirls of the yin yang and hope that somewhere in the meeting of the two my corporeal self will come back into sweet harmony.

East and West

Following last Friday's Qi Gong session with Master Yang, I had one of the worst days of this whole episode. Saturday morning I woke before dawn with my leg throbbing. It went on that way most of the day, like I'd been kicked hard in the thigh and the knee. The whole left quad and knee felt like a wooden block, thick and tight and angry with pain. No position sitting, standing, or laying was really comfortable. I despaired.

Prague, The Czech Republic 1998, or
The way I felt Saturday

But the day after that, this past Sunday (World Cup Final Day), I began to feel better and by Monday I was bending my leg almost all the way without pain. I could ride in the front seat of the car without contorting myself into weird positions, could sit up straight at my desk for extended periods of time, was able to walk less stiff-legged. Tuesday continued that trend and on through this morning, Wednesday. But something shifted around noon today and just like that I began to experience real discomfort again when taking a stride. Pain developed right below and to the left of the kneecap rendering the leg essentially un-bendable again.

And that's where I am this evening. I had a session with Master Yang this afternoon and while it didn't result in any dramatic improvement, it was instructive. He reiterated his belief that I'm suffering through a pinched nerve and pointed to his left buttock. Regardless of whether it's actually a "pinched nerve" (does that term mean the same to him, not a native English speaker, as it does to me?), he insisted again that the problem is not the knee. And he proved that as much. How?

During today's session he had me lay on my stomach and tried to raise my foot (leaving my quad flat on the table) to flex my knee. He was hoping he could initiate a little chi pumping. No way. He held my ankle firmly and attempted to bend the leg at the knee but he didn't get more than 20 degrees and the pain hit. I couldn't do it. I laid there, face down in the crinkly-paper-lined face cup and remonstrated with myself. "I'm trying!" I wanted to say, because I was, though without success.

But later in the session, he had me lay on my back. This time he held my foot with one hand and slipped his other hand under my thigh and raised my whole leg, and then tried to gradually bend my knee. It worked! In no time he had my entire leg folded. He gently worked the leg further in, pushing my folded limb toward my chest, into my torso. It felt so good to bend the leg! Then he re-positioned himself and gathered up my other leg and then he had both of them, holding them expertly, securely, and he began rocking into me & pushing both my folded legs inward toward my pelvis and torso. Amazing! I relished it, the egg position, and no pain!

And that, he pointed out at the end of the session, is his proof that something in the lower left back/butt is seized up or pinched or blocked (fill in your own descriptive term). Once he relieved the pressure by raising my whole leg and supporting it while bending, the knee was fine. But stretched out on my stomach and trying to bend ONLY the knee (to raise the ankle/foot perpendicular) was impossible because that position, evidently, results in the proverbial pinching and thus triggers the pain sensation in the knee area.

That's the East. As for the West, I saw my primary care doctor on Tuesday and she encouraged me to follow through with the rheumatology appointment this Friday. To her credit, she advised that the rheumatologist I'm seeing tends to over-prescribe medication and that I shouldn't feel compelled to take something that doesn't seem appropriate. Interesting inside tip.

That's the latest update. Fuck, this blog was supposed to be all about my year of training rides, a rider's diary. And now it's turned into drear health updates.

When my knee felt as good as it did on Sunday I started to have hesitant ideas about being well enough to ride on the weekend. Today disabused me of those thoughts.

Team Shad Update: Not only am I incapacitated but The Virginian too has injured himself. He severely sprained his ankle gardening. Yes, this is what has happened to the squad. Thankfully, as far as anyone knows, I Ward is still out there, still healthy, hopefully climbing his butt up some serious hills and getting reading for the Dirty 40.

The Virginian's sprained left ankle
and Dubstoevsky's bum left quad

Surprise & Wonder

One of sport's great appeals is the ever existing possibility of surprise. No better reminder of that than Germany's dismantling of Brazil in the World Cup quarterfinal match on July 8th. The game statistics are outlandish beginning with the simple fact that Germany scored five goals between the 11th and 29th minute of the first half. It's safe to say that pretty much everyone watching was surprised at what unfolded.

The cycling world is certainly surprised today after Chris Froome, the defending champion of the Tour de France and this year's favorite, crashed three times in two days and had to drop out of the race on Day 5. No returning champion has done that since 1980. A surprising turn of events to be sure.

To behold the surprise is often to look on in wonder. We all stared in wonder at the Brazil/Germany match (except the Brazilian fans who stared and wept).

Surprise and Wonder

Self-referentially, I'm surprised at how quickly I became incapacitated without warning and I wonder what the fuck triggered it.

Though today I feel better. Probably 20% better. I can almost sit normally in an office or dinner chair, with bent legs. I am able to follow through a little bit more on my step while walking so I don't have to hump it around so stiff-legged. Psyched!

But not surprised. Not in this case. Master Yang, at the end of yesterday's session, said I'd feel better today. I have now almost complete trust in him, in his diagnosis and his ability to treat me. He is convinced that I have a pinched nerve in my lower back/butt area. He worked on me feverishly for 30 minutes, at one point climbing onto the table beside me and digging his elbow into my butt like someone trying to grind bone to powder. He focused on the left side but also worked the lower back, the spine, the neck. If his touch caused me to wince or recoil (not unusual) he would chuckle and say "gentle, gentle" and then go right back to pressing and probing.

In my mind, he is not just physically working the hyper-tightened ligaments and muscles up and down my left leg, he is acting like a spiritual bellows, a chi herder driving the chi through my body, endeavoring to breech the blockages, those places within that have frozen up and that impede the flow of the Life Force through my whole physical self. I've been astonished at what he's achieved in a single session. By the end of yesterday's, he had my left leg 3/4s of the way bent and was rotating it as is part of the method of Chi Pumping (my term).

Besides, so far Western Medicine hasn't offered me a better diagnosis or treatment. The blood test for Lyme Disease proved negative, though it was suggested to me that I undergo the Lyme treatment anyway, a cycle of antibiotics. Not psyched about that. I was prescribed some pain meds. I'm fine with that, but it's not treatment. Am going to follow through with a rheumatology appointment on July 18 to see what that branch of the Western tradition has to say. But for now, I'm betting on Master Yang.

I'm more hopeful today than I was yesterday morning when I had a hard time driving to work; using the clutch with my left leg was not fun. But sometime during the morning I began to notice a slight loosening of the tightness in the knee and quad. In the afternoon I had the Qi Gong session and felt a little better physically but a lot better psychologically. Being able to accept a diagnosis and start thinking of what's happening as something known was a big boost to my morale.

I'm definitely some time away from riding again, but then again I can't be sure of that. Maybe I'll be surprised. Maybe this will abate as quickly as it came on. The good thing is that my base level of conditioning was rock solid when this occurred so if I can get back on the bike within a couple weeks, I feel like I won't have taken too many steps backward. I'm confident that a mountain summit loop will still be a routine ride and not a suffer fest.

Dub in a pot top
wearing the neck tube that Scrod sent
as a pirate hat

Twelve Days and Counting; World Cup Mutterings

July 6th, the Sunday of a weekend of unimaginably perfect weather - pristine skies washed clear by Friday's hurricane residue, a booming sun, radiant chlorophyll green pulsing in the solar clarity. Perfect cycling weather!

Though not for the likes of Shaddy Dubstoevsky. No, it's not like Mark Cavendish crashing at the opening stage of the Tour de France, in Harrogate, England, hometown of the fesity sprinter's mother. THAT is bad luck and bad news. But for me, humble in my enthusiasm for the bike, not being able to ride (twelve days and counting) is a bitter pill. I'm still filled with restless energy, still feel terrific overall, like I could jump on the bike and knock back 35 hard miles. Except for the left leg.

Did you hear the one
about the one-legged
bicyclist?

Reality aside, this year's edition of the World Cup has been electric, weird, heartbreaking, scintillating. LuisFuckingSuarez and his chomp to the shoulder of the Italian canoli, the magical run of the underrated Costa Ricans, the tease of Team USA and the enthusiasm across the country for their games, the disappointment of Team USA who, despite prior suggestions that averred this would be a creative attacking force, seemed, like tournaments past, mostly hesitant, un-creative, reactive, passive, unable to take a match by its throat and throttle out a victory. Instead, we got half victories (the tie with Portugal), defeat as victory (the 1-0 loss to Germany that allowed us to move past group play), and just defeat (2-1 to the Belgium Yawns); only during final 12 minutes of extra time against Belgium did the US decidedly show the world that it can play with the best but that, as has often been the case with the US, it was too little too late.

In other scenes of triumph and despair, there was the robbing of Mexico by the referee who bought into the Flopping Interior Decorator, Cock Robben of The Netherlands, and who awarded an undeserved penalty at the nth minute of the match thus handing the Dutch a ticket to the next round (Alas, the Mexicans once more get no respect). There was the "one goal is all you need" Argentine squad that used Lionel Messi like a fly strip to gather the gnats of the Swiss defense to him before the Diminutive Wonder slid a perfect pass to the aquiline Di Maria (Ángel Fabián Di María Hernández) who rifled the ball into the back of the net in the 118th minute to secure the Argentine victory. There was the German squad with their controlled approach to the game; a cliche to use it, yes, but the Germans do play like a finely-tuned Mercedes. They are well-built, perform as expected, and betray a touch of elegance and flash on occasion; they are the quintessence of the high performance luxury car. And of course last night we saw the cudgels come out in the game between Brazil and Colombia, a slug fest of a match that the referee allowed to unfold and that ended, yes, with a Brazil victory but also with a Brazil loss with 22 year old wunderkind Neymar being kneed brutally in the back and suffering a tournament-ending broken vertebrae. It was a truly ugly, wince-inducing foul to witness.

But it's still a crystal clear July day of the most supreme sort and I'm still here with my left knee feeling like it has a Kevlar duct tape strip stretched tight across the knee cap from quad to shin, unbendable. With the fuckness.

Dubstoevsky after 12 days of forced inertia

"Probably Not Structural"

What else to do but ramble about the cruelty of fate, the vicissitudes of life, the uncertainties of the day-to-day? Play "Melissa" over and over on YouTube, a melancholic ballad from a long time ago. "Crossroads, will you ever let him go? Will you hide the dead man's ghost?"

Maybe it's the dead father's ghost that creeps back into the corporeal Me, the departed Major with his gout and hernias and bypasses, with his infidelities, his proud Navy service, his bitterness. I insisted they administer the morphine drip instead of cutting off his dead leg and he died in that wretched rehab clinic just five miles from the sanctuary of his beloved home of 50 years. Maybe it's payback time.

The black cloud, the fetid breath of alcoholic clowns, sinusy in resignation.

Chiropractor takes one look at my ballooned-up knee and declares "It's not sciatica. And it's not a problem with your hips."

"But," I reply, "Master Yang says that the problem is my hips and lower back, that the knee is just a symptom."

"I completely disagree."

Next stop? The Western Medicine Doctor in white coat and an office icy with air conditioning. I explain my history, that something just like this occurred in my right knee some two years ago. He reviews the saga as recorded in my EMR (electronic medical record). Lyme Disease tests (negative), some form of osteo-something-or-other patella growth (nope), gout (not).

"Given that this has happened before, I would say your current problem is not structural. I don't think seeing an orthopedist is necessary. Better go back to the rheumatologist."

But first, the lab. Blood work. Test again for Lyme Disease.

"Can I get a prescription for painkillers?" The Big Question. There's a push against doctors prescribing pain meds across the board. It's a nation-wide trend. I'm prepared for him to deny me. He doesn't. Tramadol, 30 doses. I guess that the size of the knee and the extraordinary pain resulting from the slightest touch to the knee cap convinces Mr. GQ Doctor. His name is Dr. DeMartino, a name I immediately turn into DiMartini. So, a brace of de martinis and a hand full of painkillers, that's worth my $20 co-payment. It cures nothing but it changes everything, if temporarily.

Systemic. Something curdling inside. Something insidious like a wandering nematode, like obeyah, like a spurt of festered karma.

But what has happened is not related to cycling, I'm convinced of that. This is not for lack of stretching, or a repetitive motion injury, or from having a poorly adjusted bike seat. That is good. Biking is the practice that keeps me sane and healthy but biking cannot prevent the emergence of the Poisonous Gall.

Nine days now, and counting. On the cusp of the 4th of July and in a few days my 52nd birthday. Ten days ago I was merrily cavorting, happy in my 60+ rides worth of conditioning, content at a steady 145 lbs (college weight), assured in my hale self. Now? Cane in hand, I tread carefully one leaden leg at a time up the carpeted stairs to the 2nd floor of Chez Shad; timid steps, old man steps.

"Freight train. Each car looks the same. No one knows the gypsy's name."

Indeed. Sweet Melissa in a bottle of Mass Rising. It's July 3rd and 90 degrees and humid. There's a hurricane down the coast and coming our way. Without the Affliction, I'd be riding like a man possessed and savoring the purging sweat, pumping it out, hurtling my way on two wheels through the soupy summer air. As it is, I'm marooned. I can sit for a while but as soon as I stand and straighten my leg, a powder keg of agony explodes across the knee. I can sleep only on my back. Lying prone, I cannot raise my left leg. I cannot turn over at night. I am a lump log of sloth sack. A flat plank of stank unpleasantness.

Here's the thing. It could be worse. Until you're diagnosed with terminal cancer, or told that you'll never be able to ride again, or informed that the person you love is dead, then hope persists. Best to embrace the Buddhist practice of acceptance, of mindfulness and equanimity in the face of proportional despair. Doing so is every bit as difficult as a Zen koan.

"It's all a mystery. Let it come and let it be."

Cleveland Botanical Gardens
July 1, 2014