Tag Archives: cycling

You gotta ride. You just gotta. Even, especially, if you’re getting a bone marrow biopsy

Personal stuff, Ride reports (not Tu/Th), ,

This was not the way it was supposed to work out. A couple months ago I scheduled my first bone marrow biopsy. You know, that thing on everyone’s bucket list right? I mean doesn’t everyone want one? More on that later. But the original appointment was for a Tuesday morning at 10:30am. That meant things were going to be tight, since I’d normally get back from the Tuesday ride at 9:40am, but I had it worked out. No problem taking a shower, getting dressed, leave (by bike, of course) for the shop at 10am, switch to the shop bike, ride to Kaiser, lock it up and get registered by 10:30am.

And then, a few days before the appointment, I get an automated reminder call, telling me the appointment’s at 9:30am. What? I was sure it was 10:30. Even had a mailed reminder on the kitchen table that said… 10:30. Logged onto the Kaiser website and I find a SECOND appointment, scheduled an hour ahead of the first. I guess for prep? So plans change, no way to do the full ride, I’ll ride as far as I can up the hill until 8:15am, then turn around and head back home.

Really unfortunate to miss the whole ride this morning. Another stunningly-beautiful morning, and I found myself actually engaging in conversation, rather than gasping constantly for air, with Kevin, Kevin and George.

Everything else went according to plan, although there was no real reason I should have had to be there so early. Well, maybe one. Figuring out how to tie a hospital gown behind my back. There’s got to be a better way; I suggested Velcro to the nurse, but she said that had been tried but the Velcro snagged on everything else.

A bone marrow biopsy is not the most-painful thing someone might have to endure, but it will create pain in places you didn’t know you had. You’re numbed up with lidocaine first, but even that, well, it’s not like the way it works at the dentist. The initial jab at the surface is good and deadens quickly, but then the needle’s pushed further, literally to the bone and a bit into it, and oh yeah, you feel that. She warned me about it, but you really don’t know how it’s going to go because there’s really nothing else like it.

Oh, forgot to mention you’re lying on your stomach, head staring downward towards the floor, while the doctor is explaining what she’s doing mostly to an assistant learning the ropes, the nurse, and occasionally, to me. What’s fuzzy is the timeframe. How long will each step take. Is she going to start jabbing me with something (after very, very, very thoroughly cleaning the area with alcohol, or maybe it’s a numbing agent?) without warning? Yes, she warned me.

Nothing’s terribly remarkable until she starts extracting bone marrow. That creates a peculiar and uncomfortable sort of pain you can’t put into any sort of context. The best you can do is detach yourself a bit from the experience and think that it’s only a matter of time and it will be over. How much time? What are the variables? That’s what goes through your mind, especially when she’s first feeling around for a softer piece of bone, something easier to pierce, and not finding anything. Apparently I don’t have an issue with bone density anymore. The ideal bone is found in a post-menopausal women, she says.

The doctor and nurse both claimed I had much less trouble with the procedure than most, but I mentioned they couldn’t have missed how tense my legs were during the procedure, and at one point, the doctor asked me to try and relax my back. I laughed at that.

She eventually does get through though, the extraction process completes, things are cleaned & sealed up and we discuss how long it will be before we get results from the lab (about two weeks) and what to expect for the next day. The nurse is not happy that I’m riding a bike back to work; in general, the idea is that you get driven home and take the day off. Well, that might be how it works for some, but I didn’t require anything other than the local anesthetic so I wasn’t at all “loopy” and I’m not the type to pass up work in favor of “rest.” And the bike thing? That was a bit weird. It didn’t seem to make much sense to them that someone would ride a bike as transportation. Fortunately my doctor knows that’s just who I am and told the others it would be fine.

Of course, my blood pressure went way up, likely from the lidocaine causing an adrenalin kick. The nurse wanted to see that come down and couldn’t believe I felt fine on my feet. She said she’d find the doctor to make sure it really was OK for me to ride back to work, and I waited, and waited, and waited… ok literally for almost an hour… until I finally self-released myself and left. I did find my doctor in the hallway and made sure she was good with me riding away, which she was. And then, 50 minutes later, I get a phone call from Kaiser wondering if I made it back in one piece. 🙂

Sad start to a tough day

Ride reports (not Tu/Th), ,

It was the same phone call we got maybe half a year ago, just as Kevin and I were getting ready to ride this morning. Your cat has been found dead, hit by a car, about a quarter mile from home. Probably within a hundred feet or so from where our other cat had been run over. This was a cat we’d inherited about 6 months ago from someone who’d moved to a place that didn’t allow pets. For a few weeks we might have re-named her “razor” for the way she struck out at anyone trying to be friendly, but she soon turned into a wonderful, playful and well-mannered addition to the family. So I began the ride already a bit sore after having to shovel a place for her in our side yard, an area which, over the past 28 years, has become the final resting place for quite a number of pets, including rabbits, chickens & cats. In fact, it’s tough to find an area that hasn’t already been used, and this morning, yes, I came across a few rabbit bones.

It was 10:40 by the time we finally got out on the road, quite late for a longer ride, but the days are still long enough it’s not much of an issue. From Redwood City all the way to Mount Umunhum, and part of the way back. The ride to the base isn’t terribly exciting; I greatly prefer having a “real” climb much earlier in a ride than mile 40. We had lunch in Los Gatos on the way, quite a bit “heavier” lunch than what we’d normally have if we did the Pescadero loop (Kevin and I each had a “plate” of Mexican food, his a Torta, mine a pair of Tamales) and it took a bit before we felt like we had our legs back.

Just about the time where I started to feel OK again, I felt awful again. That mile 40 hill. The steep section of Hicks. I do mean STEEP. I have no recollection of it having been THAT steep any time I’ve ridden it in the past. It felt Redwood Gulch steep! A full tenderizing treatment before even getting to the main event, Mount Umunhum.

I’ve ridden Mount Umunhum twice in the past. First time was probably 1973 with a good riding friend of mine at the time. I think the attraction was visual; seeing that huge radar dish in action, from many miles away, was very impressive. Things were different then; you didn’t have the internet so research on the status of a road could be tough. For navigation, you had a combination of the AAA “Bay & River” map, along with USGS topographic maps. We discovered the road was “closed” with signs saying it was an air force base and tresspassers could be met with violent force. And yet, as we rode up, there were real estate signs for properties along the way!

My next ride up was in 2009 with my son. Again the road was “closed” although its status was much friendlier, as it had been purchased by one of the regional parks and was undergoing renovation. It was open to hikers but not cyclists? We rode anyway, looking out for park rangers as we tried to weave our way through on the remnants of pavement that existed.

Today? The road is not only open to all, but beautifully paved and, of course, it’s still almost-impossibly steep in sections. Kevin was definitely doing better than I, as he managed to stay out of his lowest gear almost the entire way up. Me? I was thinking, at least a couple times, that a 32 in the back would have been nice. I mentioned to Kevin that, the first time I rode up it, I probably had a 42 in the front, 26 in back. Hard to imagine it can be climbed in a gear like that.

There should have been a fantastic view at the top, but the valley was shrouded in heavy haze. Too bad; you can see in all directions from up on top. The site itself is a bit barren, almost sterile. Just a huge concrete box that looks like the prototype for the Borg Cube. I should also mention that there’s no water anyplace on the climb, so make sure you’ve got two full bottles before you start up.

The descent? It’s so stupid-steep it’s really not much fun at all. One of those few roads where you find yourself thinking a bike with much wider tires and disc brakes might be nice, allowing you to not worry so much about gravel in the corners or your rims heating up so much that your tires blow off. We did stop once on the way down, to check how hot the rims had gotten, and were quite surprised to find they didn’t burn your fingers. The combination of Bontrager carbon rims with Bontrager cork-style brake pads works very well indeed!

For the return we stuck to the original plan and met my wife at our Los Altos store, where we checked out the status of “deconstruction”, before being driven home the rest of the way. 75 miles instead of 95, but that was enough for today.