Life was good. I was doing things I hadn't really done on the bike before, like discovering roads that everybody rode in the Foothills but were fresh and new to me, like Grapevine.
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| Look, Ma! No shingles! |
So, what's the next challenge? Cyclocross! Yeah, sounds like fun! I've done it before, and everybody else is doing it, so... What can go wrong? (cue ominous foreshadowing music) Seriously, though, THE DAY BEFORE THE RACE (Zombie 'Cross) I'm fiddling with my 'cross bike and taking it for an offroad spin for the first time in, what? 11 years?
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| I'm not sure if I'm reading this trail map correctly... |
Mind you, I was a lowly Category 5 (Rank Beginner) in 'cross, so expectations were limited to surviving and having fun. I spent the entire race swapping places with Patrick (one of my PHP buddies) and a really fast dude on a fat bike (I wanted to beat him so badly... I mean, c'mon, fat bike!)
Cyclocross is an interesting hybrid event contested on essentially road bikes with knobby tires, but some parts of the course are quite technical and may require (at least for a noob like me) dismounting and carrying the bike. For example, straight up a dirt wall.
I had fun, only crashing once at low speed in the sand pit and eventually finishing 13th out of 25 and, more importantly to me, not getting lapped. However, there was a problem. The "twang" you may have heard while viewing the previous photo was my tweaking my calf muscle. Didn't that end terribly for me before?
Yes, it did. This time, after 9 days of progressively worse leg pain, I felt like I had a softball under the right side of my ribcage. With a growing sense of dread I called my doctor on November 6 and we agreed that, given my prior history of DVT, I should go to the ER, where they gave me a stylin' mask to wear while they ruled out the flu.
Lo and behold, I had another clot... A small one behind my right knee. However, a CT scan revealed far worse stuff... I had multiple clots in both lungs, some of them alarmingly large. Diagnosis: Acute pulmonary embolism, which was life-threatening if left untreated. I was admitted to the hospital and put on Heparin immediately.
The next three days in the hospital were intense. The sensation in my chest turned into the worst pain I had ever experienced when I inhaled. I was given a spirometer to measure the volume I took in when inhaling, and while I should be capable of 3500 milliliters, I could barely manage 500. I was maxed out on Percocet and put on oxygen to reduce the breaths I had to take.
Thankfully, I had my family to pull me through. Laura very wisely brought the kids to visit simply so they could see that Daddy was sitting up and taking nourishment, even if he couldn't come home just yet. Hannah even brought Get Well cards her classmates had made for me. How sweet!
After almost 3 days in the hospital, I was good and ready to go home. When I did, there were still a few more hellish days with Percocet, feeling sick, coughing up blood, and injecting myself with blood thinners to kick-start the Warfarin tablets I'll have to take the rest of my life. However, my spirometer volume increased every day.
The discharge instructions from the hospital said "Exercise: As tolerated." I knew that getting on the bike would improve my outlook considerably. That first ride was barely a mile, and I could hardly breathe, but it was a start. The next ride was an 8-mile loop that took me along the Cherry Creek Dam, where I shot this photo: "Refuse to Lose." I didn't feel great in that photo, but I knew I was making progress each and every day.
By the end of November, I felt transformed. Previously, I was a "fair-weather rider." I wouldn't ride in the colder months in Denver unless the sun was out and it was at least 50°. Now, all I wanted to do was push myself. I used my RMRC teammates as motivation. If they rode, I wanted to ride. I even went out on crappy days when others waited for it to warm up. The photo above was used as a "nyah, nyah" when I showed up at our shop sponsor,
Turin Bicycles, for a team ride and found out everyone else had decided to wait a few hours. "I'm harder than you!"
I've ridden more in the snow this winter than I have my entire life before now. While I may never race 'cross again (my wife has asked that, since it got me in trouble this time), my 'cross bike can still be a fun and useful tool.
So, I'll end Part n+1 by saying I not only survived, but I'm thriving. I very much look forward to 2014 as a year of continued discovery and growth.
