Thursday,
April 28, 2016
I was shoveling limestone
screenings into the back of the gator and wondering why I didn’t just grab the
tractor and fill it with one bucket load.
As this thought bounced through my cranium, I felt the muscles in my
abdomen tightening and contracting with each shovel full I tossed. I considered how much my biceps and other arm
and shoulder muscles were involved and decided filling by hand was a decent
workout.
I went to our rental house to
do some prep work on the inside basement wall where I was getting seepage. I’d priced doing it the correct way…having a
waterproofing company come out and dig around the foundation to add new drain
tile, tar the wall, and backfill with gravel, but that wasn’t in the
budget. It had started to rain while I
was working and suddenly I noticed a little stream in the wall in front of
me. I measured its location and went
outside to try and determine a cause.
And it was pretty simple.
Downspout.
I dug down around the downspout
to the 4” pvc piping to which it was attached and decided I need to dig that up
and see where it led. An hour later, I
found its terminus, which was simply six inches under the soil and entirely
buried.
“Somebody should be shot for
doing something so lazy and stupid.” Donnie said when I shared the story later.
“I don’t have a weapon and I’m
not sure it’s a capital offense in Ohio anymore, but yeah, that would be a fine
idea,” I said. Or maybe I just thought
it.
The bottom line? I’d managed to dig a very big hole and gotten
a lot more exercise.
I decided to have some chili
for dinner and while it was heating, reached into the refrigerator for the sour
cream. When I opened it, I realized
quickly it was bad…which puzzled me because I didn’t think things that called
themselves ‘sour’ could spoil.
I finished the night quietly,
icing and stretching my foot and feeling reasonably pain-free. I’d only done 10,000 steps and that may have
been the reason. I’m nowhere near
thinking I might be finally getting better.
Bonus:
10,400 steps.
Wednesday,
April 27, 2016
I directed the driver to back
his dumper to a particular spot to drop my stone and stood back to watch it
fly. As the hatch swung open and the
contents began to pour out, I knew immediately I’d received the wrong product.
“Hey…is that limestone
screenings you’re dumping?” I asked…knowing the answer.
“Yup. That’s what the ticket says,” he replied.
“Well…when I went to the yard
and asked the yard manager about this job and what to order, he said ‘304
limestone’, which is what I have written here and what I called in,” I said,
waving the paper I was holding.
“I’m only the driver,” he said,
but reached for his phone and called the sales rep.
After a brief conversation
where the rep assured me he never made a mistake, I graciously agreed to use
the product. I could have forced him to
pick it up, but I’m nice that way…and it was cheaper.
When Justin arrived, he was
skeptical, but it was there – all twenty-one tons – and we had to start moving
it. He loaded the tractor’s bucket and
dumped it in front of the manure pit and I began shoveling and raking.
Eight hours later, we’d moved
and spread ten tons and my muscles were aching…but loving…the effort. I drove from the farm to a side job I was
working before heading home and a little rest before heading off with Jason to move
some furniture from my father-in-law’s place.
I was limping by the time we reached his front door.
“I’m at 13,000 steps now, so
I’m going to conserve from this point on,” I said…but I didn’t.
I knew this would be the last
time I would set foot in a place that held so many wonderful family
moments. I had watched my children
celebrate birthdays and holidays here. I shared many a meal and a laugh with
both of their grandparents and observed first-hand the absolute love that
passes between family members who would give anything for another moment
together. I had been forged in the
warmth of this home, and I was seeing it for the last time. We turned out the lights as we walked out the
front door, but before Jason closed and locked it, I rang that familiar door-bell
just one more time, as I had done for so many years to announce my arrival.
I limped in the house and
applied the ice pack, noting that I’d achieved over 14,000 steps again and
without a hike of any kind. It was a
good day, all-in-all, because I knew in my heart that I’d loved a very special
man, that he loved me, and that there were people in my life that felt the same
about me.
Bonus:
14,500 steps.
Tuesday,
April 26, 2016
Each day I begin work with a
plan. Each day something happens and
that plan flies out the barn door.
“John…come listen to this
gurgling sound in the drain,” a barn staffer suggested.
I listened to the water trying
to drain through a floor drain in one of the horse aisles knowing there was
likely hay and other horse debris trapped in the pipe about twenty feet
away. That didn’t stop me from dropping
to the ground, pulling the cover and sticking my arm down to the point where
the vertical line intersected with the horizontal. Nothing there as far as I could reach, but I
did pull back and arm covered in the wonderfully smelling sewer goo.
“Holy shit, John, you really
stink,” Justin – Captain Obvious – told me.
“You could have put your arm
down there,” I said.
“Yours is longer,” he
concluded.
We worked the line trying to
free the clog, but it became apparent that a jetting was in order. We then moved back to what we’d been doing,
which was loading dirt into a gator and shoveling it out into tire grooves cut
into the front lawn over the winter when the ground was soft by the same
vehicle.
I went home with every intention of doing a Survival Workout, but looked at the debris sitting on top of the Jeep in the garage and realized how I'd be spending my time. I'd heard a crash the previous evening, but could not locate the culprit. Turned out a shelf, which housed scrap wood and hung over the Jeep, had cut loose and dumped about a hundred pounds of wood on the hood. I dealt with it, but ran out of time to be in the woods.
In total, it was a dirty,
exhausting day and one in which I managed another 14,000 steps. I’d brought my ice wrap to work in hopes of
using it during the day, but the frantic nature of the work not only left me
with no time to do it, but also caused me to leave it behind when I packed to
go. Consequently, I did not ice at the
end of the day either, though I must admit by bedtime, I was feeling very
little pain. Maybe doing nothing to make
it better is better than doing something?
Probably not, but that’s how it played out on Tuesday.
Bonus:
14,300 steps.
Monday,
April 25, 2016
I had a call from an old
camping, biking and kayaking friend, Henry Billingsley. He expressed some concerns over my current
condition.
“John…man, I’m bothered. I’ve always thought of you as practically
indestructible and now you seem to be falling apart,” he said.
“That’s because I am,” I
replied.
But not really. I suppose the foot issues, which have
certainly held me back for going on two months, are problematic, but at least I
see some form of a light at the end of the tunnel...not on this day though.
I had problems with our
electric fence at the farm again, which meant walking a couple of miles of
fence line trying to detect anything that might impede the voltage flow. The horses had been leaning against the fence
in their effort to get at the grass on the other side, which meant the jolt
wasn’t enough to discourage them. In
fact, I’d tested it by grabbing it myself before going on my search and found
the pulsing charge, while uncomfortable, didn’t really bother me. How much could it bother a horse weighing
1,200 pounds and trying to get at the equivalent of a quart of Breyer’s vanilla
ice cream?
After several hours of
checking, I called my electrician to have a look. He checked the main power supply and found
everything to be fine, but I did notice him reversing the way the two ends of
the plugs were attached to activate the fence.
I placed my voltage tester on the wire and found the reading no
different than when I’d called him out
“It’s still
reading…yeeaaahhhh….” I yelped as I released my hand from the fence.
“Holy shit, Mike, what did you
do? I just got enough of a jolt to push
a horse off the fence,” I said, shaking my arm while still feeling the tingle
in my toes.
“Maybe the polarity changed
when I reversed the way it was plugged in.
It should go this way.” He
demonstrated the appropriate way to have the ends plugged all the while telling
me it wasn’t grounded and that the whole thing should be reworked.
“So my meter reader won’t tell
me if it’s in correctly and the only way I can tell if I’m fully charged is to
grab the fence and light myself up again?”
“That…get someone else to grab it…or have me do it right,” he said. He gave me the estimate for the necessary
work, which caused me to think about who might take a jolt for the team each
day to be sure we had full power to the fence.
Justin was a possibility, but he was only part-time.
“Alright…schedule a time to
come in a fix it right,” I said.
I left the farm with 11,000
steps and went to Mimi’s to fertilize her lawn and do some other yard
work. I left there with extreme pain in
my foot and still owning a commitment to meet Kimberly for a walk in the park. I thought I’d have time to ice my foot before
going, but received a text from her saying she was drowning and would
appreciate a ride back to her car. She’d
started walking without me.
I grabbed Dakota and headed for
the park where I found her on a bench.
It had stopped raining and when I heard she had more steps than me for
the day, I became jealous and suggested we walk some more. Had I thought this through, I would have
realized she’d be matching my steps, but thinking things through is completely
over-rated. By the time I returned to
the car, I was over 15,000 steps and my foot was screaming.
I iced at home for thirty
minutes before Jason came to pick me up for a trip to Mill Tavern, a burger and
some time watching the game and shooting the breeze. An hour later, when I climbed off the
barstool and put my foot to the floor, I realized just how much pain 15,000
steps could cause. Jason watched me limp
and grimace and suggested he pull the car up to the door.
“Hell no! It’ll get better after a few more steps,” I
said…convincing no one.
So yes, Henry, I’m damaged
goods, but no, I’m not on the sidelines or ready to be put down just yet. I shouldn’t try for 15,000 steps though, at
least not for another couple of months.
Bonus:
15,500 steps.
Sunday,
April 24, 2016
It was a weekend of filled with
laughter and tears, as funerals often are, but this one held far more happiness
than remorse.
I knew workouts would be put on
hold with the activity coming for the weekend, but managed to take a hay
delivery on Thursday, which always makes me feel like I put myself out
there. It was only 200 bales, but they
pushed sixty pounds each, which means I handled around six tons of the
stuff. Jack arrived Friday morning and
after a quick ‘hello’, he moved to the sports ball cabinet in the garage and
pulled out his basketball. “Want to
shoot some hoops, dad?”
I’d already done a bunch of
yard work…weeding, fertilizing, roto-tilling, and grass cutting…in anticipation
of his return. I hadn’t factored in
basketball. “Not that I ever could jump,
but I’m kind of limited with this foot,” I explained.
We drove to Jason’s since he
has a hoop and was home as part of his bereavement leave. He’d been putting the final touches on an urn
for his grandpa’s ashes, which he made from cherry. It was beautiful and his labor of love had
done much to help him cope with the loss of a man so important to him. He moved the cars and for the next hour we
shot around with Jack demonstrating some slam dunks, which I filmed…and drooled
over.
I returned home to do more yard
work and house cleaning since dinner was at my place. I managed some time to ice, but mostly was on
my feet. I was suffering by day’s end.
Saturday morning started with a
smoothie. We needed to be to the church
by nine for visiting to be followed by an 11 o’clock service, a spreading of
ashes in the memorial garden behind the church and a lunch in the church
hall. I picked up Kimberly and Jack and
headed for the church thinking I had good control. I was wrong.
Several times during the beautiful service punctuated by my children
doing readings and Holly and Bill talking about their father, I felt tears
stinging my eyes and rolling down my cheeks.
He had meant so much to me and be a larger than life presence for me
that it was hard not to think about how I would miss the simple pleasure of
being able to visit him and talk about the Indians, the kids, and our
lives. Still…he’d had such a wonderful
life that it was hard to grieve for long.
Kimberly and I took a hike with
Dakota after the service, which my foot was feeling by the time we returned to
the car. I dropped her off and returned
home for more icing before a family dinner.
And then the day after letdown
set in. I went to church Sunday and sat
alone. I’d been sitting with my
father-in-law for the past few years since my mother-in-law died and I again
found those tears stinging and flowing.
I left the church and grabbed Dakota for a trip to the park and a
Survival Workout. Once back home, I
decided I needed some healing time and spent most of the afternoon with my foot
up and wrapped in ice. I did cut the
back lawn before calling it a day.
Formal workouts should begin
Monday again. Life throws curves and I
dance around them to try and stay focused.
Exercise and fitness is important, but tending to family in times of
need trumps it completely.
Wednesday,
April 20, 2016
“Why didn’t you mention you had
a heart condition?” Mark Mendeszoon asked me…or at least I thought that was
what he was saying.
I had just had surgery
performed on my right heel in an effort to relieve the pain I’d been experiencing
for that past year and a half. It had
taken all of twenty minutes, during which time I’d been knocked out. My son Jason was sitting next to me expressly
for the purpose of listening to what the doctor had to say after the anesthesia
wore off since I never seem to get things clearly after being under.
“I…you…what?” I articulated.
“You have atrial flutter and
your heart rate was only 20 beats per minute while I was performing surgery. You need to go see a cardiologist next door…RIGHT
NOW!”
Well…I wasn’t arguing, though I
did explain that I’d had an unusual heart beat most of my life and always been
told it was functional and not to worry.
It seems to skip beats at rest, but beats steadily when I’m
exercising. The doctors in the emergency
room had noted the same concerns when I’d been there two summers ago for my
kidney stones.
“This is something different,”
he said and something I would hear again when I did meet with the cardiologist
thirty minutes later.
“You have atrial flutter, which
means that the electrical impulse that should move across the heart in a
straight line to initiate the contraction of the heart, is bouncing back and
forth in your right atrium and causing this ‘flutter’,” he explained after
reviewing my ECG strips and looking at the ultrasound of my heart. “I’m not overly concerned and I’ll tell you
why.”
He had asked me a series of
questions, the most important being was I getting dizzy and did I feel
fatigued. I’d answered ‘no’ to both of
these, which made him happy.
“Look…with flutter, blood pools
in the right atrium and has a greater propensity to clot. Clots break free and if they end up in your
brain, you have a stroke. That’s
bad. If you were like almost all of the other
people in my waiting room – had high blood pressure, high cholesterol,
diabetes, were out of shape, dizzy or tired, I’d be much more worried and we’d
be talking about blood thinners or pacemakers.
As it stands, I want you to start taking an aspirin a day to help thin
your blood. You are at an increased risk
for a stroke and so you and I are going to see each other from time to time.”
He also described a more
serious concern – the slightly enlarged condition of my aorta. “I can only see the upper end as it leaves
the ventricle with an ultrasound, so I want you back here in 90 days for a CAT
scan so I can be sure it’s not worse. I
don’t think it is and it’s only slightly enlarged, but the aorta is like a
balloon. Stretch it out like high blood
pressure will and eventually it breaks.
If it does, you die. End of
story,” he said.
We talked for a while longer
about my activity level, which impressed him and gave him hope that I would be
fine. “You seem to take good care of
yourself, but you need me to monitor this,” he concluded. He had my full attention.
That was thirty days ago. I’ve been taking my aspirin daily with
dinner, but am just now getting back to exercising. I have been paying closer attention to my
heart beating and I have noticed some dizziness, but that could be the result
of my looking for it. Low blood pressure
and resting heart rates can lead to feelings of dizziness when you move from a
lying or sitting position to a standing one.
The blood needs to catch up with the move and get it to your head so you
don’t pass out.
I did another 11,000+ steps on
the job and then hurried home for a bike ride.
It would be my first outdoor ride since the surgery and I was anxious to
see if my heel would be affected. I rode
off feeling good, but quickly noticed a slight twinge in the right heel, which
I elected to ignore. Ninety minutes
later and after climbing a couple of hills, I was pain free and feeling quite
giddy about having ridden. I went to dinner
with Heidi in Akron and didn’t get home for some icing until after nine, but
there was limited soreness though walking to and from the restaurant had been
slow going.
Recovery continues and like all
people in their sixties, new physical challenges will arise. I know that my body wants to slow some, but
if I give into that urge, I’ll have that much more trouble getting it going
again. The more we do, the more we can
do. I have so much more I want to get
done and so I will push on.
Bike
duration: 90 minutes.
Training
Heart Rate: 135 bpm.
Calories
Burned: 1250.
Bonus:
13,000 steps.
Tuesday,
April 19, 2016
The boot was due to come off
Wednesday, but the way I was struggling with pain in my left foot just putting
a shoe on, I elected to stop with the boot a day early. I was pretty sure the limp the boot forced me
into was the reason for the pain in the other foot, even without a medical
degree to my name.
I went through the work day
taking the normal 10,000 plus steps and headed to Mimi’s afterwards for a
couple of simple chores. Since I’d
started back writing the day before, I had decided it was time to start
exercising at some level, so I drove from Mimi’s to the North Chagrin
Reservation with the intention of doing some portion of the Survival
Workout.
It was a perfect evening with
sunny skies and temperatures in the low sixties. I propped my feet on the gate at the starting
point of my workout and managed 70 push-ups.
My goal had been to reach 100 before my 61st birthday, but
the foot surgery had made that unreachable.
Now I’m thinking I can get there in four weeks. And I will.
I did my dips, pull-ups on a tree branch, rock curls, and crunches
before walking/limping across the rugby field and into the woods. I walked about two-thirds of the course and
completed 14 sets before returning to the car and driving home. I cut it short as much to save my foot as to
get home to Dakota who had eaten four drumsticks from the counter the previous
evening and, according to Savannah who had stopped mid-day, was suffering from
diarrhea. I got home to find I was too
late and with a mess to clean up. At
least it was on hardwood floors.
I pulled out the lawn mower and
cut some grass, completing my steps for the day at 14,100, which is probably
too much for recovering feet. I wrapped
them in ice and ate some pea soup while watching ‘Longmire’. I followed the ice with the night splint for
stretching, which hurt like hell. It’s
time to push myself, in any event.
Survival
Workout: 60 minutes
Training
Heart Rate: 100-150 bpm.
Calories
Burned: 600
Bonus: 14,100 steps
Monday,
April 18, 2016
Where did the last month go and
why haven’t I written a thing? For the
most part, I stopped writing because I stopped exercising, the other reason
being I again got too caught up in doing very little to take the time to do
something that really matters to me…or does it?
Wednesday will mark four weeks
since I had foot surgery to repair a damaged plantar fascia in my right foot
with the hopes that I will again be able to walk…and maybe run…without heel
pain. Time will tell as the healing
process is three months for someone who doesn’t average 11,000 steps a day for
work. “Yours will take longer,” my
doctor reminded me.
And it is. In fact, this past week has seen me grimacing
with each step from pain in my LEFT foot, instead of the right, which is likely
a result of the overcompensation I’m doing from having the protective boot on
the right foot and the corresponding limped I’m forced into from having one leg
longer than the other by an inch.
During this time, I have done
my job and walked quite a lot, but only ridden the bike twice…the only form of
formal exercise. I’ve lost a lot and am
looking forward to the day (today) when I stop wearing the boot and attempt my
comeback.
The real reason I left the
sidelines to join the game again though, was to write something about the
passing of my father-in-law, Bill Heckler.
He died this past Friday of congestive heart failure after a two-month
battle with the same and pneumonia.
I met my father-in-law to be
during the summer of 1973 on a visit I made to their house to pick up a couple
of matching shirts Holly and I were going to wear to work the seafood buffet at
Hospitality Motor Inn. We began to date that
winter…she was still in high school and I was in my first year at Cleveland
State…and so I began to know and appreciate the man he was. It didn’t take long, either. His absolute goodness, his hard working
nature, his honest and straight-forward approach to any and all issues made him
an open book. He quite simply began to
be the most influential man in my life as he invited me into his family and his
world.
Over the years we would grow
very close. We had very similar
interests and we shared a common love of family…which were the same
people. When my children were born, he
embraced them as grandparents do, but with a love that exceeded anything I’d
seen before or since. As the years
passed and I had longer and more time to share in his company, it was plain to
see that there was no close second to the love he gave to his and my
children. In the end, he lived for them
and to see them settled in to secure and happy lives. His compassion for them will be his legacy
and what will affect all that they do and the interactions they have with their
own children and grandchildren as the years pass for them. His impact will be never-ending.
I was fortunate enough to have
been with him to discuss the Indians, Donald Trump and Hillary, how wonderful
his grandchildren were, and how special his daughter and son were only two
hours before he died. When he saw me
walking, with pain, into his ICU space on that day, his first comment and one
he would repeat several times before I left for the night was, “you need to
take a couple of days off and let your feet get better.” In keeping with the man he was, as he was
dying, he was thinking of someone else and their well-being. As much as anyone can, he made me ‘feel’
love. His actions overshadowed his
words.
I will miss him terribly. I will
continue on my life’s journey though, a better man for having known him. I will remember how he treated others and how
he lived his life and draw inspiration from it and try to emulate, where I am
capable, what he would have done in a situation. I will be proud if someday my children, and
others who knew us both, think I was half the man he was
