Thursday, November 30, 2017
“So…let’s pull that tube out of
you,” my urologist said as he entered the operating arena.
I was sitting on a table, pants
around my ankles and covered with a cloth of some kind with the body part he
wanted to operate on exposed to God and country. The nurse had given me three commands to make
the whole process less painful and I was going over them in my head. ‘Breathe deeply, wiggle your toes because
that relaxes your bladder muscles, and pee on the doctor slowly. You’ll feel like clamping shut when in puts
in the probe, but you don’t want to do that because it will make it more
painful, so just open up. The tube will
catch everything,’ she had instructed.
But there was no ‘tube’ to take
out. I’d had a stent in the last time I’d
seen him, one that had been in for ten days as part of the kidney stone
removal, and when he’d taken it out, I remembered thinking it hurt worse than
the kidney stone…which seemed impossible before it happened.
“Hold it doc! There’s no tube in my! Maybe you’re mixing me up with the guy in the
next room?” I said in a panic.
He smiled. Big joker.
Then, without as much as a ‘get ready I’m going to hurt the hell out of
you’, he shoved a tube the size of a fire engine hose where no guy wants a fire
engine hose all while directing my attention to the monitor at the side of my
head.
“See? There’s your bladder and it’s looking clean!”
I was busy looking for the
knife I was going to plunge into his neck, but must have left it in the car
with my Glock. I looked over and watched
what the camera saw as he moved it around looking for the cause of my bleeding.
“Yup. Looking good.
Nothing here to cause that blood in your urine,” he announced as he
pulled the fire hose out with a jerk.
I winced, but never made a
sound. I wanted to show him how tough I
was though that may encourage him to try harder the next time.
He told me he’d seen a cyst in
my kidney when he’d reviewed the CAT scan, but it was nothing to worry about.
“You have a kidney stone up
there, too, but it’s a small one,” he said.
“Doc…they’re all small. The last one you took out could have fit on
the head of a pin. They still hurt like
hell! And where was the blood coming
from I’d seen in my urine?” I asked.
“As well as I can figure, you
passed one of the two kidney stones you had left over from our last visit up there
and it caused the bleeding. I surprised
you didn’t have any pain,” he said.
“Well…I did today thanks to
you,” I said.
He smiled again and told me he
wanted to see me in three months. He
scheduled an ultrasound of my kidneys, ordered a blood test and told me I’d be
doing a 24-hour urine analysis which would be done on what I’d collect in a ‘jug’
for that 24-hour period. Yup…his words…a
jug. He wants to get to the bottom of
the reason I have the stones and why I was bleeding, but has ruled out polyps
for now and I’m happy about that.
I achieved my steps goal for the
month with a little to spare. I was shooting
to average 20,000 a day which would mean 600,000 for the month and I ended with
605,212. After getting only 42,000 for
the four days I spent traveling to Georgia and spending time with Jack, I figured
it was beyond me, but I managed to make up the lost 40,000 steps over the last
three weeks by going over 25,000 on five occasions.
All the walking was
eye-opening. I did none of it with a pack
on my back and since I take around 1,700 steps to the mile, I was averaging
close to 12 miles a day, which is far short of the twenty or so I would have to
average for a 5-month period to complete the Pacific Crest Trail in one
season! I have read by many thru-hikers
that one walks their way into shape over the first few weeks on the trail and
that the miles will start to come easier, but this is hard to imagine after the
month I just completed. Still...I proved
to myself once again that I’m good at accomplishing tough goals once I’ve set
and announced them. I need a
target. December’s will be announced
soon.
Hike:
Two hours.
Training
Heart Rate: 75 bpm.
Calories
burned: 700.
Bonus:
21,000 steps.
Monday,
November 27, 2017
Thanksgiving has come and gone
and tomorrow I will pay a visit to my urologist for my CAT scan to determine if
I have bleeding polyps or not. My goal
of averaging 20,000 steps a day for the month is still in play, though I managed
to get only 8,000 on Thanksgiving. Leaf
raking on Friday and Saturday at Mimi’s helped me make up most of the steps I’d
missed, though ten hours of it did leave my shoulder and elbows aching. Ahh…the beauties of getting old.
With temperatures heading for
the sixties over the next two days, I am hopeful of a bike ride or some other
serious workout. The CAT scan and
scoping may work to screw up that plan, but we will see. Otherwise, I need to pound out 23,000 steps
for the remainder of the month. My feet
are feeling the effort.
Tuesday,
November 21, 2017
“You’re supposed to be that
indestructible force in whom I can always be confident will never slow down. What’s going on with the blood in the urine
thing?”
My good friend Henry, a regular
reader of the blog, was appalled to find the chink in my armor. I explained the situation and assured him
that though I likely had some issue that would kill a mere mortal, I would
survive the storm with something akin to a Band-Aid.
I finally got a hold of the
doctor’s office and they quickly scheduled an appointment for me to see my
Urologist later in the day. I arrived at
that appointment and gave them the obligatory urine sample. They did not want to see the one I’d been
carting around since Sunday in the back of my car. What a waste of a perfectly good, and bloody,
urine sample.
Doctor Luria walked in the
office with an assistant and introduced himself.
“Have we seen each other
before?” he asked.
“The last time I saw you, you
were yanking a tube out of my penis and causing me pain that made me want to
hurl all over you…but no hard feelings, doc,” I replied.
He smiled and then asked me to
bend over and pull down my pants where upon he stuck his gloved finger where
the sun doesn’t shine and announced, “prostate is good.”
This man hates me.
“Did you have any pain while
passing the bloody urine,” he asked.
“Nope,” I said, assuming this
was a good thing.
“Okay…let’s order a CAT scan
and a scoping of the urinary tract,” he said to his assistant.
Clearly I’d pissed him off and
he was going to cause me more pain. I
countered…
“If I’d have said it hurt like
hell when I’d peed would you not have ordered those tests? Because I can change my answer right now…”
He explained that since I hadn’t
had any pain, that I likely hadn’t had a kidney stone and so he wanted to see
if I had some up there hiding and if I might have bleeding polyps, too.
“I know there are some leftover
kidney stones because you told me when you took out the last one. You said they might stay up there forever and
not cause me any problems. Let’s not go
back up in there and start them moving again,” I said, using all of my medical
courses and operating experience to convince him of the foolishness of his
plan.
Again, he smiled and ordered
the tests. He did not seem to value my
expert council in the least.
So…I’m scheduled for both tests
next week. I went home and hiked my
four-mile loop, reaching the last mile, which follows the Towpath, just as
Miggie called to say she was dropping her mother off and was heading home. It was a little after seven and I was walking
in the dark.
“How about I walk into
Peninsula and meet you at Fisher’s. It
is rib night, after all,” I said.
“You want to walk all the way
there in the dark? Won’t you be scared?”
she said.
I’d already told her how I’d
heard a lone coyote howling near the trail I’d been following along the mostly
deserted road I hiked. I may have said ‘timber
wolf’ though when I’d told her.
“Why not? I feel great and we both know I’m indestructible
and that there’s nothing on the trails scarier than me,” I replied.
I hiked into town over the next
hour making it a seven-mile hike and getting over 24,000 steps in the
process. By the time I laid down in bed
to call it a day, I will admit that my feet were feeling every one of those
steps.
Hike:
Two hours.
Training
Heart Rate: 75 bpm.
Calories
burned: 700.
Bonus:
24,000 steps.
Monday,
November 20, 2017
Once again, I went on a writing
hiatus. Not intentionally, mind you, but
I did get out of the groove while visiting Jack in Georgia. My goal of 600,000 steps for November has
become a difficult challenge because of that trip. I logged 15, 13, 10 and only 4K on the four
days I visited. One of those did include
a three-mile run, however, and that felt surprisingly good. I was concerned that running on pavement for
the first time in this century might cause me some problems, but everything
turned out okay. Since my return, I have
been pounding the trails and averaging over 23,000 steps per day to try and
make up the difference. I had 389,000
through yesterday, so I still have to average 21,000 for the remainder of the
month to achieve my goal. Then…Sunday
morning happened.
“Why are you reading about
finding blood in your urine?” Miggie asked, looking over my shoulder as I
perused WebMD.
“Because I had quite a bit of
blood in my urine when I went to the bathroom at breakfast this morning,” I
said.
She was very concerned…and so
was I, quite frankly. I’ve had several
bouts with kidney stones over the years and my first thought is that I was
about to have another attack. I had no
corresponding back pain, however, and so I was reading on worrying about all
the other possibilities. I had gathered
a sample and planned to take it with me for a doctor’s visit the next
day…provided I could get one.
Regardless, I headed out for my seven-mile hike and 23,000 steps for the
day.
I called by family doctor, a
Cleveland Clinic MD, and went on hold for the obligatory ten minutes. Once connected to the appointment desk, I
explained my condition, but admitted it was much clearer this morning.
“It’s kind of rust-colored now,
but I saved a sample from yesterday, which was full of blood,” I concluded.
“I will pass this along to the
doctor’s office and someone will call you,” she said.
And that was the last I
heard. Since I am also waiting for a
call from my heart doc with the results of my wearing the heart monitor for
thirty days following surgery (that was several months ago), I’m not too
hopeful about receiving a call. I guess
blood in urine is not enough of an emergency to return a call, but I think I’ll
follow up today. It may happen to them
all the time, but it’s the first time for me and I’d like some answers…
Hike:
60 minutes.
Training
Heart Rate: 75 bpm.
Calories
burned: 350.
Bonus:
23,000 steps.
Tuesday,
November 7, 2017
You can always tell when
someone has no clue about the difficulty of a job when they set you up to do it
without asking you first.
“Home Depot will be delivering
the new washer and drier on Monday and I figured you could hook them up. Oh…and I told them not to worry about hauling
the old ones out because I figured you could do that, too. It would have cost us $30 for them to do it!”
the Director told me.
Now bear in mind these old
units are in a basement with narrow stairs and two doors leading to the
outside. The machines would have to come
up those stairs and make an immediate turn on a small landing. Two doors would have to be removed. Another person would have to be employed to
help lift the load up and out. I would
have to then load them both onto a truck and drive them somewhere since we do
not have curb side waste removal. All
these things are known by the person asking the question, though I highly doubt
she’s ever picked up a washing machine and tried to drag it up some
stairs…without a refrigerator dolly (or with one).
I’m no shrinking violet when it
comes too hard – or risky – work, but sometimes you need to push back. I laid out all the reasons I’d just stated
and said, “…and $30 would be a hell of a bargain compared to what it would cost
us to remove them.”
She considered this for several
moments…I’m thinking the math would be about $250 for me to move it in time,
money, extra person and gas…but she considered a couple of more moments before
agreeing with my line of thinking.
Sometimes I just want to scream ‘trust me to make these HUGE executive
decisions!’ Ah well…I’m just a man,
after all.
I brought Mimi over to see the
new place. We went to dinner at Fisher’s
where I ordered the ribs, but skipped dessert.
After dropping her off back in Gates Mills and driving home, I noticed I
was still 3,000 steps short of my daily 20,000 goal. This would not do.
It was biting cold outside, but
Dakota and I when on a 2-mile hike to make up the difference. No…not a workout and those have been few and far
between lately, but I continue to eat mostly Paleo and the extra steps seem to
be helping me drop a couple of pounds.
After the latest round of home improvements are complete and I have my
cycling trainer set up in my Man Cave, I think I will get my riding mojo back
in high gear and have a good winter of conditioning.
Monday,
November 6, 2017
Dale ‘Greybeard’ Sanders broke
a 13-year old record for oldest man to hike the entire Appalachian Trail in a
single year in 2017. He is 82. And it’s not the first impressive, physical
thing he has done. In 2015, he became
the oldest person to paddle the 2,300 miles of the Mississippi River. In reading up on him, it became clear that he
has spent his entire life physically active and constantly challenging himself
and his body to do amazing feats. His
next endeavor will be to paddle the length of the Missouri River – a 3,800 mile
quest.
Why? What’s the point? Couldn’t you just hike, bike, or paddle
around the neighborhood every day and be equally as fit? Of course you could. So why does Dale do these things and more
importantly to no one else but me, why do I want to do them? I mean I really don’t know!
I had mentioned bragging rights
a couple of days ago and in the context that hiking the Pacific Crest Trail
just to brag about it was not nearly a good enough reason – or one that would
get you to the finish line. This written
by an author who had hiked the Triple Crown of long-distance, American trails
and was advising others on how to do any one of the three if that was their
plan. And it’s not the only reason I
want to do it, though I am a bit of and ego maniac, I am just struggling with
what goes on in my brain that makes me even think about doing it.
I think I may be looking for
the thing to define myself and my existence.
For many decades now, I’ve been that fitness kook guy, always trying to
do something no one else is doing. I
started on that path when I realized at an early age I was no more than an
average athlete. I didn’t hit a ball
well, sink baskets with any regularity, or run particularly fast. When I played, I won more than I lost, but
not by much. I was never going to beat
those more gifted…or determined…or both.
Nope. I could, however, go longer
or do things no one else was doing and therefore be the best at it.
Am I still doing that? I mean Tour Ohio was something I invented and
then did. Riding the perimeter of the
state on a bike, kayaking some river from source to mouth and then hiking the
Ohio/Erie Canal Towpath hadn’t been done so I tried doing it. It was challenging…and fun…and something to
build upon.
As I head into retirement, I know
I need to stay busy…and active. I do
like to write and I love to inspire others and so if I can do inspirational
things and then write about them so that someone will actually read them and
act – well – that’s a pretty good thing.
At least I think it is. In any
event, I will continue to ponder why I do what I do and report back. In the meantime, I hiked another three miles
through the results of an overnight storm that blew down 25 trees on my
trail. That’s a lot of climbing over,
under and around debris for me…and for Dakota.
It was a hell of a storm. I
pushed myself to 23,000 steps for the day and continued through six days well
ahead of my goal of 20,000 a day for the month of November. I have a long weekend coming up that will
challenge the average though. I will be
driving to Georgia on Thursday to see Jack and then back on Sunday. I see a few more 30,000-step days to make up
for what I will miss. Poor feet…
Hike:
60 minutes.
Training
Heart Rate: 75 bpm.
Calories
burned: 350.
Bonus:
23,000 steps.
Sunday,
November 5, 2017
First…I managed over 25,000
steps on Friday because, well, because I can and then Saturday it was over to
Mimi’s to see what needed to be done. I
knew that the landscaping crew had cut the acre of grass in front of her house,
but she calls it ‘the field’ and doesn’t have anything else done to it. This time, though, the grass had been too
tall and the clumps were laying heavily on the lawn.
“I don’t want you to kill
yourself out there. I know how hard
raking that damp grass is,” she said.
Well…it is a bitch, but rather
than drag it the length of the Yellow Brick Road, I decided instead to
wheelbarrow it to the tree line to the sides of the property. Excellent decision. By the time I’d raked the leaves and grass
and gathered it all for deposit, I’d managed 23,000 steps. Twenty-five would be a snap since I had the
rest of the afternoon, but I was thinking thirty – something I’d only done two
other times since Christmas when I’d received my Fitbit.
Miggie was supposed to meet me
at Horseshoe Pond, but she was tired from cleaning a house all morning with her
mom so Dakota and I plowed on to 30,000 steps alone. Between that and the heavy raking, I was
ready to collapse for the evening when I arrived home.
I ate the Paleo Salad I’d made
on Friday for dinner with thoughts of the fat I must have lost from a good,
hard day.
Sunday was not quite as
productive. I did get up and paint first
thing, but after a sausage omelet, I went to Home Depot to pick out supplies I
would need for three building projects I was doing. Once home, I got the notion that some dead
pine trees in the yard needed to come down.
As I began cutting with no plan for where the pieces would end up, it
dawned on me that I was surrounded by a national park full of dead trees that
had fallen and were decomposing for the good of the earth and that my trees
should join this circle of life. Problem
was, I needed to drag them the length of a football field to the tree line
beyond…and they were heavy. I grabbed a
long strap normally used to attach a kayak to my roof, looped it around the
base of each tree and one-by-one pulled them like a draft horse across the
field. My legs and lungs were screaming
by the time I completed the fourth and final pull, but my Fitbit said only
9,000 steps.
Sweating, exhausted and filthy,
I made my way to the porch where I announced to Miggie that I wanted to go for
a hike.
“But you’ve been working pretty
hard. Don’t you want to take it easy?”
Fair question…and yes, I did
want to take it easy. But that wouldn’t
be the ‘cowboy’ way and besides, I’d just read an article about an 82-year old
man, the oldest ever, who had completed the Appalachian Trail in one year. I had a lot of conditioning to do over the
next two years and pushing my body when it was pleading for rest was one of the
best ways to get ready. I headed out
with an umbrella in hand for a 4-mile hike.
So…thunder, lightning and rain
accompanied me. My Fitbit was acting up
and not recording steps, but I did manage to push it over 20,000 by the end of
the hike. I plopped at the kitchen table
for dinner after a shower to eat and write up construction plans for shelving
and a closet before collapsing in my chair to read more about the Pacific Crest
Trail. God help me on that trip…
Hike: 90 minutes.
Training
Heart Rate: 75 bpm.
Calories
burned: 550.
Bonus:
20,000 steps.
