Racing in the Rain

“That which we manifest is before us; we are the creators of our own destiny.
Be it through intention or ignorance, our successes and our failures
have been brought on by none other than ourselves.”

― Garth Stein, The Art of Racing in the Rain

Sometimes it's important to hear the inner monologue of a Golden Retriever. Enzo, the narrator of the book, “The Art of Racing in the Rain” is one such oracle. Manifest what's in front of you. That might be difficult to understand, I know it was for me, and I have spent some time on a racetrack. For Enzo it was always about keeping his master Denny safe for what would come next. For Denny it was each next turn as he climbed the ladder to ultimately become a Formula 1 driver.  His forte, of course, was driving a race car in the rain. And doing so, as one may believe required for winning, very quickly. It was an art form.

The twist I would add, is doing so on two tires. The Art of Motorcycle Racing in the Rain, adds a dimension Denny and Enzo did not discuss. 

“Keep the rubber side down”, is one of those trackisms everyone says to one another in the pit, similar to the fatalism of “Break a leg” to wish you good luck in the acting profession.   I'm assuming they say that, I was never in the acting profession. Keeping the rubber side down was something I was never good at. I'm not even sure how it's possible on two wheels in the rain.  Physics supports motorcycle racing on a dry day. There's no such thing as physics on a wet day.

If you've ever watched motorcycle racing on TV the craziest, and to me the most exciting, is watching a motorcycle achieve a high lean angle. There are a lot of parallels to car racing with regard to entering a turn, having visual markers along the way, breaking hard on your way in, hitting your apex, getting off the brakes and getting back on the throttle, to push out your suspension, as you leave the turn. In motorcycle racing you're looking for all the same markers,  around each lap, you're finding your marker and pushing a little bit further, each time, to scrub milliseconds off of your lap time. If you do it well enough, maybe you build to a dropping a second off your lap time and then another second until overall you're improving. 

But a motorcycle doesn't have anything close to the same physics as an automobile. To take a turn on two wheels the motorcycle has to lean inward to stay on the track.  Upright, there are two small patches of rubber touching the road, where the front and back tires meet the concrete.  Racing tires sweep their tread all the way around to the rim, to keep rubber on the concrete as the bike begins to lean over.  The rubber, and the coefficient of fiction between the sticky material in the racing compound of the tires, with the concrete of the track,  push back against the forces of a turn that want to throw you off the track and into the hay bails along the sides. The weight of the motorcycle with you on it, provides the gravitational component, in the normal direction (straight down), as well as the bank angle of the concrete itself. The bank angle, if high enough, returns the tire to its upright rubber meets the road position. Most road racing tracks don't have high banking turns like the oval tracks in car racing where the turn is more like a wall and you don't even have to slow down, let alone turn.  Take a look at the oval at Daytona. Cars and motorcycles can hit that turn at 180 mph and it's just a walk in the park…except for the G-Forces straight into the wall.

But turning is critical on a road racing track that winds all over the place with a normal bank in the turning surface. The good news is that a motorcycle provides some assistance in the turn from the two spinning gyroscopes you are riding a on. The lean of the motorcycle is actually quite easy to do because those gyroscopes are stable at speed. Using those two gyroscopes is one of the most amazing things about motorcycle racing. 

Everybody plays with a gyroscope as a kid so you know you can spin one and it will balance on a string. Same with tops, get them spinning, and they create a reference frame of their own, and hang out for a while with their own life. Now jump on top of two of those spinning weights and try to control them. The way it works is counterintuitive. Using the handlebars, you turn opposite the direction you intend to move.  If you want to turn to the right, you turn the handlebars to the left. It's easier than you think because you actually do it when you're riding a bicycle you just don't realize it. Not when you're rolling through a parking lot, but when you're cruising at speed or downhill. Don't think about it if you're riding your bike today…or even try to explore what I'm talking about. Just let your intuition ride the bike you learned how to do when you were four years old. And wear your God damn helmet. 

Folsom Prison, where I still write to you today, is set up for the recovery of spinal injury as well as Traumatic Brain Injury. I'm an easy case in this place because I have my wits about me. Some of my fellow patients are nowhere near as lucky. Shaved heads where  surgery has been performed to relieve the pressure through their craniums because they have school fractures and internal bleeding in their brains due to falls and other bad shit.  When I see these friends in physical therapy with me, imposter syndrome is impossible to deny. Now of course, they have to wear helmets we're in the hospital, if they fall again and hit these weak areas of their cranium, it's going to be bad. It already is.  Wear your fucking helmet. Scorch, Fog, Low Down, regardless of whether you are mountain biking or riding up to the 7-Eleven to pick up a Mountain Dew Code Red. Wear your helmet.

Obviously when you're motorcycle racing, You are wearing the best helmet money can buy. $450 bucks is what I spent on a helmet when I was in the jam and I had three of them.  These babies are one time use. Hit it once against the concrete, throw it out. It's the carton meant to protect the egg inside. The material inside compresses on impact so you don't want to hit your head against that compressed material the next time.

When you're in a turn and the gyroscopes are in full swing you're in a different reference frame. Straight down no longer exists. The gyroscopes keep you stable. This is how those highly angles are achieved when see them on TV. The spinning gyros hold you stable at whatever angle you decide to lean the bike. Actually doing it on the track is a blast.

That's the basic physics to understand the concept of high lean angle. Where I was headed requires two more things. First, what happens if all this physics breaks, down and the motorcycle collapses beneath you like a folding chair?   Also, what happens, when you remove the coefficient of friction and unlike Denny and Enzo, in their four tired F1 racecar,  you have to race your motorcycle in the rain.  Both are related because this happens when the tires lose friction.

The first thing that happens is the bike slams to the ground in the direction of the lean. An experienced rider will have their knee out, sliding against the concrete, using it as an outrigger. For yours truly it's just a useless appendage to be damaged when the bike slams against the concrete. An experienced rider, sensing the loss and friction in the tires, could use their knee to prevent the impending collapse. Now the collapse happens the bike slams against the concrete. The experienced rider, unable to save the collapse, we'll let the bike go. At this point both the bike and rider will be delivered via slide, off the side of the turn,  and into the hay bales.

The inexperienced rider, yours truly, will try to hang on. The hang on, will jerk the steering wheel, along with the front tire, in the direction of the fall. As the steering wheel comes up, the front tire regains traction, and the entire bike has now been counter steered to turn in the opposite direction. What happens next is comical. If the rider hasn't released the handlebars yet, the massive bike, with its two spinning gyroscopes, flips completely in the other direction, taking its rider with it, and flinging them into the air. 

I can still remember this moment like it's yesterday. Flipped over, looking at the sky, sailing through the air, awaiting impact with the ground. It was almost peaceful. I've never really considered concrete until this moment. Most talk of concrete had more to do with the adhesion of rubber. When you land on it, your discussion switches two hardness. Trust me when I tell you it's very hard. 

The yellow flag comes out and the race slows down on your behalf. I was on the other side of the track, My bike was still running, I was able to get it back up on two wheels.  My dad had come to the track on this particular race day and he was observing the race from over in the racing pits. Imagine what happens in the mind of a parent: a crash occurs and their kids number is announced over the loudspeaker during the yellow flag.  That was a long 10 minutes for my dad before I was able to limp my bike around the track and back into the pit. And then all is well…but is it really?

My dad and I never really had a serious conversation about the what-ifs of a very dangerous sport. I went into the second season feeling fairly invincible. But hung it up after assessing the risks following the fatality during my warm up heat. I was on the track. I had already crashed my bike five times. My body was beat up to the limit. It was time to stop. I wrote an article for Road Racing magazine. It was never published. 

The article contained a lot about risk analysis. Analysis is actually my profession. I thought I had done a fairly good job. As much road racing that goes at both amateur and professional levels in the two sanctioning bodies, WERA  and AMA, there's only about one fatality per year in the United States…At least back in the '90s. It turns out it's actually safer to race motorcycles than it is to ride motorcycles on the street.  That shouldn't come as a big surprise. Tracks are much safer because the surfaces are clean and if you leave the track you're not going to hit concrete or steel. Also everybody's going in the same direction…and there are no trucks crossing your path. In theory, the racers, are better trained motorcycle riders as well.

On the street it's a free-for-all, and it drives me crazy to watch amateurs ride their bikes on the streets and highways, splitting lanes, with their girlfriends clinging onto them from behind. Or vice versa…no judgment there. At least in Virginia everyone's wearing a helmet. 

Back to racing in the rain, that's something the amateurs on the road do seem to avoid. Most of them are fair weather riders, and in particular those with racing bikes. 

In the epic journey Pirzig takes with his son across the big skies of Montana, in his masterwork, “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance” rain does not enter his calculus. In his quest we have a collision of Western and Eastern philosophies searching for a quality that can't be defined. Science gives us math to provide an empirical answer to a measurement of something. It's a construct created entirely by humans. We humans just made it up. I'm always amused by my scientific friends who think there's an answer to life's questions somewhere hidden in the math.  It's clever and it's useful but I've never found meaning in it. 

Art, on the other hand, is strictly in the eye of the beholder. Or is it? I haven't met many people who have said that a sunrise or sunset isn't beautiful. Or  looked out across a vista of mountains and reported back that they had a shitty view. Most people can find beauty in the cuteness of young animals as well as other natural things such as flowers and even insects. It certainly is not an empirical thing that we are calculating. We may call it subjective, but this tendency is seemingly universal. Young animals even draw the attention of animals not even in their species. Perhaps this quality is embedded in our human DNA.

Enzo implores us to manifest that which is in front of us. My friend Trump (not POTUS) has it whittled down too a more simple rule, look up from your text messaging, and deal with what's in the windshield. Since he's qualified to fly fast at 100 AGL I tend to believe he knows how to handle what's in the windshield.

All of this is harder in the rain. Rain takes all of the objectivity out of everything we do. Rain is subjective and turns a simple road surface into a random sheet of friction. Oil comes out of the concrete when rain appears. You're now riding on a sheet of ice. Ice is random but can be controlled with blades or in the case of motorcycle racing on the ice, large spikes in  both  tires for traction. Eliminating the randomness of having no friction is the goal. Yet even with spikes you slide on the ice. Same thing with a dirt road. Same thing when you're watching cars in a four-wheel drift. You're sliding but you're controlling the slide. You have to know where you're going in that slide. You have to manifest what's in front of you, as you enter a random event. This is no longer objective. This is subjective and it is a form of art. 

The quality of art can no longer be calculated. It has to be felt. It has to be felt in the bones, it has to be felt from input coming in from all senses. Experience is the only way to gain the awareness necessary for the art to emerge. 

I am sliding into a turn and there is rain on the track. There is no artist assisting my treatment and recovery. I cannot manifest anything before me because it is unknown. I'm alone with very little experience, as all of us are, guiding our own health care. The system has nothing in place but process. The process can treat us but it can't diagnose. If you're inside the checklist for a process that exists…you have a better chance of a good outcome, but that will come with very little humanity behind it. If you're off the reservation, as I am, careening towards the hay bails in some random slide, I need a House. I need a doctor to care enough to intervene and put their experienced art form into the game. A doctor who knows how to race in the rain. I need one of those.

 

The Pelican Brief

Grantham: "Do you want to talk about the brief"
Shaw: "Everyone I've told about the brief is dead"
Grantham: "I'll taked my chances"

― The Pelican Brief

A short bit of history regarding orthopedic surgery. It is becoming more and more clear that surgery is in my future and it might come through the services of an orthopedic spinal surgeon rather than a neurosurgeon.  It seems like the neurosurgery ship sailed last week while in Attica when I was turned down by that loser three times. At least come see me yourself, examine me, and tell me what you think personally, before you make a decision…dick.

I have some experience here, since a very similar situation with surgery arrived for me in 2013 when I got hit hard on the soccer field.  Rarely do I want to hit someone on the soccer field after a hard tackle, but after a particularly hard intentional impact on the field, I might be ready to take a motherfucker out. It takes a lot to give me to see red on the pitch which means typically when I do…I'm probably not getting up off the field to take that motherfucker out. I've probably been debilitated.   It happened once to my knee.  The asshole (We will call him Cristo) took me down from behind after I made an amazing turn on the ball, beating him, and clearly embarrassing him in front of his friends.  It's a mathematical certainty in soccer that if you beat someone with an ego, their response will be directly proportional to the ratio of their perceived skill level to the skill level of the individual who beat them.  Cristo believes he's the best player on the field. So imagine if he gets beat by an old guy.  You can imagine what his response might be.  What his response will be.  Its a mathematical certainty. And I was younger than I am today.

You don't have to believe me just check the record. Christo has more red cards then the Bellagio has stacked in an uncountable blackjack shoe. Hijack may try to count them but that's way too many goddamn cards to count…even for him.

Anyway Christo took my legs out and I came up swinging. Then just as fast, I fell straight to the ground writhing in pain. He had given my knee more of a knock than it had ever received.  I could no longer walk. Wow… that's a bit of drama license right there, with some foreshadowing. 

That knee injury happened in 2007 and ended my playing career for about a year. The second time I got hit  hard enough to see red happened in 2013.  I didn't hit the ground, but I immediately went to the bench. The impact came from the side, when this asshole played through my left shoulder, snapping my neck from left to right. I was pretty sure my neck was broken.  Playing on our team at that time was a close friend who is also a Doctor of Chiropractic medicine. This kid also played soccer for the University of Tennessee so he was/is an incredible athlete.   He saw what happened and when I got off the field he immediately examined me and determined that my neck was not broken…But I was in a lot of distress. After that night I wasn't playing for a while.  Thus begin my deep journey into true spine and neck injury and the potential fixes thereof.

The pain in my neck and upper cervical region…the spine being divided into four regions, cervical, thoracic, lumbar, and sacrum…what's up the no joke variety.  You've all had a kink in the neck that does not permit you to turn your head left or right, however this kink was accompanied with the pain of a pinched nerve. A few days after the hit while trying to endure the pain I woke up In the middle of the night with that nonlinear nerve pain that told me I'm going to the hospital or I'm jumping off the roof. 

This time when I arrived at the emergency room I could point to a specific moment in time where an injury occurred. They were more accepting of my pain and definitely tried to do something about it. My descriptions of the pain I don't remember completely but I'm pretty sure I use the phrase I'm jumping off the roof level of pain. Not whatever triggered the idiots and the current story to provide no shits for care whatsoever.  I definitely asked for an MRI and as I recall I did receive a small bit of pushback from the emergency room doctor.  Trust I believe overcame the doctors reticence. He believed me. He scheduled the MRI fairly quickly and I was being wheeled through the underground passageways to the room for the procedure.  Ahead of the procedure though I still remember when the narcotics hit my system.  I would have to check the medical record but I'm fairly certain IV delivered Dilaudid was the ticket and I remember neck pain fading away.  

My discharge from the emergency room the next day was complete with a recommendation for follow-ups with a neurosurgeon and a pain management clinic. Both of which I scheduled very quickly.  The pain management clinic came first within just a day or two and I was in to an office experiencing my first guided epidural.  Basically you're getting an injection of painkiller directly into you your spinal canal at the level of what they believe to be the injured disc or nerve or vertebrae. The complexity of the spinal column can not be appropriately represented in pictures and standing plastic skeletons. These are dry representations of what is a very wet human environment.  Everything in a spinal column is contained within a sack of spinal fluid. The nerves, the discs, and of course the spinal cord itself--the second most intriguing piece of evolutionary bio-engineering apart from the brain itself. What is this highway of nervous function? Is it an electrical wire? Is it a chemical pathway? Recent research into such things as the Vagus nerve has resulted in a whole new field of medicine that treats the central nervous system not unlike a computer's internet protocol based ethernet. Messages are actually sent with discrete protocol from organs in the body to be interpreted along the way along the way by other nodes.  These messages can be recorded, copied, and played back within your body on the same network.  In this manner signals from the Vagus nerve can signal your body to make certain adjustments. These observations have kicked off an entire wave of vagal nerve stimulators (VNS) that are available for a slight charge at the end of this presentation. 

Yes unfortunately the science is new yet the internet has already picked up on companies providing the hardware to do Vagus  Nerve Stimulation that has already reached for and received FDA approval.  I only bring it up as an example of future technology that could have vast implications in neuroscience. Let the buyer beware at this point in its development.

So I found myself driving into one of the medical centers in Northern Virginia for my first guided cortisone epidural.  The price for such pain relief at this point in 2013 was about $1,500 a session.  Nothing really different from any other doctor's office I had ever been to…a bunch of strangers sitting in a waiting room, in various and questionable levels of human suffering, trying not to make eye contact. COVID changed all that when we could wear surgical masks in those waiting rooms and hide most of our feelings.  

A guided epidural requires the doctor to insert a needle at the level of the offending pain inside of the spinal column. This means he's penetrating the sac of fluid that surrounds all of this mechanical and biological and electrical and chemical mystery. His needle is guided not so much to get to the right spot but to keep from hitting the spinal cord itself which would be a disaster.  There's a Goldilocks feel to it…You got to get it just right. The cortisone he will inject will surround the disc but it will go up and down in the sac as well as it flows out as a liquid would.  They include with this procedure an initial injection of lanacane, which is a pain deadening medication that works immediately. If they hit the spot there is a potential for the pain to be remediated almost magically. The cortisone steroid itself could still take 24 to 72 hours to have its therapeutic effect. 

Apart from the very strange feeling of a hypodermic syringe penetrating your neck region, I could feel the needle going in, this is not for the light hearted. When the needle penetrated my spinal column, Katy Perry's boyfriend had nothing on the fireworks that were going off in my neck.  

The difference however is that it was enveloping the exact region where the pain existed. The doctor said “a little pinch” what thefuck…which is a strange thing to say given the needle had already penetrated…and in went to lanacane. It was A

immediate pain relief as he pressed the medication into the canal. The cortisone followed,  the needles were extracted, and I was pain-free. This ladies and gentlemen is the miracle of modern medicine and of course the science of pain relief.  It works. Here's my check for $1,500 bucks. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

I was given the basics of aftercare and told the procedure should last for 4 to 6 months. Given the pain I had been in for 4 to 6 months sounded like a lifetime. Unfortunately in about 2 weeks I woke up in the middle of night and it was almost an exact repeat of the previous night in the emergency room…without the MRI. But they did give me intravenous Dilaudid and sent me free in the morning to head for my neurosurgeon and potentially the pain management clinic. I called my neurosurgeon’s office in the morning and was able to skip an appointment with him and I was heading straight to the $1,500 clinic for another injection of pain relief.  

Same procedure with the needle but this time a little less immediate effect, and unfortunately even with the cortisone within a week the pain had returned and I was back in the neurosurgeon's office with the previously reported left hand hook over my head indicating surgery. And in particular spinal fusion at the C5/C6 level. Now comes the rest of the story. 

Because I had gone to see the orthopedic surgeon about the cure for the pain, orthopedic surgeons are guys who like to do surgery. It's their bag. I can't fault them for it, it's like an auto mechanic who likes to work on a car, let's open it up and get in there.  What I didn't know is that orthopedic surgeons also have a side hustle. In many cases they own a secondary company that is in the business of buying the orthopedic parts that they actually install in our bodies.  Not going to go into the legal reasons for doing this because they have their own legal risks and ramifications of installing a foreign objects into human bodies with their own hands that have to be mitigated through all kinds of legal channels including threats to their livelihood through malpractice and the like. All of that leading to our healthcare costs to us and I'm very uncertain outlook for American healthcare in general. 

Nothing crazy about that in a capitalist society and everybody should be owning a company pushing the throttle up to take full advantage of profit, their own blood sweat and tears, to make a better life for themselves and their family.  I don't like it when exploitation begins to occur. I don't like taking advantage of people and I certainly the test taking advantage of vulnerable people. Even the best of us get the nasty taste of our own vulnerability when we can easily get duped into a social engineering scheme and stupidly give up personal information about ourselves before we realize we're telling someone we don't know just a little bit of information that they can use to begin their work with penetrating or bank account.  If I can be duped on the phone by a phony call from the electric company anybody out there can be duped on the phone…it was my greatest fear when my mother and father were still alive because they would take incessant calls. My dad, a great dick in his own right when talking to these assholes, was good about it until he started down that long path towards dementia. In this vulnerable state why wouldn't he give the friendly man his credit card number. Why wouldn't he give his nephew who is in jail and talking to him on the phone his credit card number. These low life scumbags they take advantage of the vulnerable deserve a special place in hell. 

But look, I'm about to launch into the seedy underbelly of the orthopedic medical industry, whereby arguably the top of the heap humans, who are some of the most agile and highly trained  professionals in the world can still succumb to graft, fraud, corruption, an exploitation.  I don't know how many ethics classes they take in medical school…but for some of these doctors they didn't take enough. 

Yes, my neurosurgeon approved a single fusion at the C5 and C6 and scheduled me for surgery, And that surgery would be done within a few days. I began the process of setting up pre-surgical appointments in the necessary things to do to be in place on the day I was to be cut. I also began seeking their second opinions which directly resulted in another surgeon explaining to me the need to fuse both my C5/C6 and C6/7 with some very sophisticated and new articulating hardware. 

This all sounded great until I was talking with another individual in his office about financing the surgery. Wait a minute, what about insurance? Oh insurance doesn't pay for this procedure…For this double spinal fusion I was looking at a price in about the $30K range.  Easily reachable, just like buying a car. And that's exactly what it felt like…I felt like I was about to be bumped up to see the manager after I was asked about the undercoating and top coat seal for the paint. 

I had my wits about me although pretty sure I was living in pain and probably on some oral narcotics during these appointments. But I knew I had more second opinions from other doctors to check in on. Including two of the more appealing ones which were orthoscopic surgery to just remove the offending parts of the herniated disc and of course traction itself. My soccer friend was screaming at me to come into his office to get traction before doing any of the surgery. 

Through a friend of a friend who was always willing to do favors I  got in contact with a neurosurgeon from out of town. We will call him Deepthroat. We talked on the phone. In a much older, highly experienced, and raspy voice he talked me through what he perceived as the corruption rampant in the field of orthopedic surgery.  If there's a surgical device to be implanted somebody has to make that implant. Somebody also has to put that implant into a human body. You can't just make an artificial knee without having a surgeon willing to insert that artificial knee into a patient. You can't sell anything without a sales force. The orthopedic surgeons become that salesforce for these orthopedic devices of every shape and size…

I'm just not talking about the device itself…the mastery of modern mechanical engineering representing the movement of a shoulder or knee, I'm also talking about all the stainless steel rods pins and screws and special purpose tools to make it all work.  There are a lot of companies out there that build the specialized equipment. There's every competition…and no real standards. Even something as simple as getting an implant in your jaw for a crown to hold your beautiful New smile comes with a screw by a certain manufacturer with a certain fit.  You have to have the exact screw you have to have the exact hardware or your tooth isn't going in. Deeper in the body it's all the same mess. Show up with the wrong tool and the wrong screw, You might as well be at the mechanic shop removing your spark plugs with an air hammer. 

So in order to create a salesforce of actual orthopedic surgeons who are vested in the business of buying and selling orthopedic hardware to insert in human bodies, surgeons are given a piece of the action. They can actually own the company that buys the hardware from these manufacturers and then sell that hardware back to themselves for the actual surgery.  

I once lived across the street from and orthopedic surgeon. I just figured he did well because don't surgeons do well? And really nice cars, but also a yacht, then what really got my attention was the King Air aircraft that he also owned.  Once you push into that league there is more going on profit wise then anything you can do with your bare hands. You can work 24 hours a day 7 days a week at a really high rate, the highest you can think of, But you're never going to be able to afford an aircraft without figuring out another way to garner income.  Do you have to have a piece of something bigger. 

As Deepthroat continued to talk to me he gave me some links to some lawsuits that were happening around the country. Good people, thankfully, have already discovered some nefarious shit going down, and along with help from the Justice Department, we're going after some of the most unethical of the unethical in this underworld. 

It's unimportant for me to name names and places to reveal what I'm trying to reveal about this. Companies that were party to these lawsuits had medical doctors involved and we're working out of various medical schools to recruit new doctors into into this highly questionable trade. 

Growing more more curious about my neighbor I did some research into his past. When I discovered that he attended the medical school implicated in some of these lawsuits my blood ran cold. I felt exactly like Sandra Bullock in the pelican brief when she realized the depth of the corruption she had just penetrated and realized her life was in jeopardy.  I shut down the computer, pulled the plug, and sat there staring at a black screen. I'm pretty sure I even looked out the window for any strange dark cars sitting at the end of the street. 

I wrote all this up in my typical fashion years ago with the intent to post it on the internet in my normal blog site.  I didn't do that. Instead I put everything in a folder that's still on my computer marked “The Pelican Brief”.  Now I find myself back in the same business of requiring medical care from the same profession. I am going to tread softly and deliberately into this area for my own benefit but I will keep my eyes open. Everyone should keep their eyes open.

Glorious

“The stories you are about to heard are true
the names have been changed to protect the innocent”

― Dragnet

We’ve been decades into the movement of alternative medicine.  I can’t trace it personally to earlier than the 60’s, but then, a lot of movements started in the 60’s, so isn’t that as good as any?  Yet, we know it’s much earlier since the actual field of Osteopathic Medicine exists.  Manual manipulations were known very early and practiced in the United States since before the Civil War.  Medical schools, however, that allowed full practice of these Doctors of Osteopathic Medicine, DO’s, did not hit mainstream until the 50’s.  There are at least 40 medical schools in the US that bestow a medical degree on these students, in a profession that prides themselves on “whole body” medicine.  That has always made the most damndest sense to me.  We know everything is connected.  We know.  Why does mainstream medicine seem to shun alternatives that seemingly make a whole lot of sense? It's all connected.

We have allowed conventional medicine to deny the kind of connection that would enable such things as these the whole body connections? Eastern medicine. South American medicine. Strange Brew.  Anything alternative.  100% some of it is pure quackery…But we know for sure that some of it really works…And really works well. 

We could look to Critical Race Theory to describe the rise of Western Medicine for us…which would arrive at the dominance of the capitalist, corporate CEO and educated MBA who is in charge. (by percentage, most likely a white male in the United States and Europe). This, of course, would be misleading and incorrect.  Western institutions were not designed by conspiracy rather they are based on the certain philosophies of Plato and Aristotle that would have us break things into components and organize things into a hierarchical fashion.  No different from the rise of any western institution trying to make sense of an ever increasingly complex world. Pirzig splits the difference between subjective and objective reality quite well.  Where do you draw the line?  As an engineer, I struggle to find a better way to do it then the ways in which we've been taught in our western schools.  At some point you have to make spreadsheet , choose a ruler, and draw a line.  You need a standard of measurement.  Then you can decompose your structure and build upon it. It’s not rocket science, but with it, you can indeed build rockets.  And apparently rocket ships and starships and self-driving cars…and ultimately the artificial intelligence that will bend our human run at greatness. That said we should look forward to the glide towards other human knowledge as it joins the AI machine.  By default all AI is skewed toward Western information which is predominant in the machine. In theory we've already added the songs of every bird to this cacophony of information. Once we understand what they are saying…maybe they will straighten us out for us. 

If you’ve been following my odyssey closely you will reasonably discover that moving between pillars of medicine are completely obtuse in the sense that connections between medical boundaries have long been established and are basically inviolate. The same first principles have applied in medicine as they have in the western sciences. I am in a rehabilitation facility for rehabilitation using the practice of Physical Therapy.  I am not permitted to be rehabilitated by any other field of medicine.  There is no chiropractic care at Folsom.  There is no cold therapy.  I would like an icy plunge…it would probably be horrifyingly painful…what if, the cold plunge, just contracted the L45 disc sufficiently to leave the nerve root alone, rather than relying on the truck full of steroids I’ve been dumping in my body.  Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate the medical effects of steroids.  I will not be riding the Tour de France anytime soon, so bring on the doping.  Why wouldn’t you?  If the Olympic committee shows up at Folsom to test my blood or urine, I would let them, and then ask them how I get to the full therapeutic effect of these substances.   But, here at Folsom, we also don’t have access to the latest peptides and exosomes, and we certainly don’t get fetal stem cell treatment here.  

There are so many other, other than mainstream, healing practices out there, none of which are available to me while on the inside.  On the outside, however, the sky is the limit depending on my wallet, not necessarily the largess of my health insurance company.  But first things first.  What the fuck is wrong with me?  We haven’t even had a diagnosis yet.  This is perhaps solidified by the absent neurosurgeon who decided not making making a decision was preferred over making a decision.  There's merit to ultra conservative.  Particularly when cutting into the nervous system. I'm not an idiot although I play one on TV. 

I'm relying on his expertise, his coup d’oeil,  his Napoleon's Glance. A lifetime of knowledge and experience both good and bad.  Cutting and drilling into a human nervous system with first hand, his own, knowledge of both good and unfortunately some really bad outcomes. Neurosurgeons have to be some of the most stoic humans on Earth to live with their own superpowers.  So conservative care, put this off until we know, makes more sense to me, then the seemingly high stakes rush I am in to find a mechanical/surgical answer to this painful proposition I found myself in with the profound inability to walk.  

Lack of an inability to fund the alternative is a price that is now being paid in human at several levels, principally mine.  Sure family and friends worry and suffer with me.  I thank you all for that -- as well as the popcorn, white Monster, and Twix bars that keep showing up as contraband.  Someone please slip in a hacksaw or nail file to me via Instacart if you are ordering today. 

To be sure I'm dragging all of you into my drama as I write.  It wasn't intentional, but now back by popular demand.   At some point you will get bored and move on. I assure you I will recover. There are many in this hospital with me that will not be so lucky. Imposter syndrome overtakes me several times a day, I feel silly, I just want you to stand up and walk away.  It's incredible to try. I have my body reveal it's weakness to my very eyes over and over again. It is humbling.  There but for the grace of God go I.  I got caught speeding, In God's house. I have been weighed and measured, and found wanting. I’ll footnote that one, But I'll save that reference for my book not for the blog. (A Knight's Tale). Still I want to fix to my medical condition. I don't want to be paying to the unknown gods of medicine for an alternative cure. I want a cure. But not a cure for wellness…fucking eels.

Major breakthrough yesterday. Is everyone cheering? I walked for the first time. It did not come as a result of physical therapy. It came as a result of dirty knowledge into how the body works. My first PT in the morning was very open and critical about the lack of alternative types of therapy here in the office. She told me she was unable to talk about some of the things she knew. They were, of course, fairly standard methods of manual manipulation. I cannot get manual manipulation here at Folsom…that has to be an outpatient procedure only, and only when I'm outpatient. When I had the C5/C6 flare up in my cervical spine 10 years ago it was traction from a chiropractor that allowed me to avoid surgery.  And avoid it I did.  I resumed playing soccer and all the other activities that continue to follow in the category of back abuse. 

We followed all the PT as prescribed for the day. But upon leaving, she jumped up on one of the tables, lay flat, and basically told me to watch her hips. She said try this if you can. She demonstrated what is referred to as posterior pelvis tilt. It's essentially a thrusting motion forward with your pelvis…requires a pretty strong core to hold it there…not unlike the thrust required from many of you filthy bastards who seek the glorious nature of things missing. I'm not naming names Matt, John, William. William admits to his lack of core strength thus his requirement for practice.

Later in the day…while practicing standard PT in a Zero-G suit, I was essentially hanging from the ceiling in a harness. I was enduring the pain, not really,  and trying to release the pinch in my L4/L5 through my method of simply bending over at my torso. The steps were painful as each time I weighted my left foot, I got a reminder. The feedback is brutal. The feedback is self critiquing. 

The PT wanted me to walk up some steps. Slightly hanging, and with my hands on both hand rails, hunched over at the waist, I stepped up towards victory. As I brought my second foot up, you can almost sense what's coming next. I was freed to performed an almost perfect posterior pelvic tilt. I put my my left foot down and stepped up with no pain whatsoever. What the fuck just happened? 

What happened was I opened up my L4 and L5 even more then I had been with the torso bend alone. I mechanically manipulated my own back into a pain-free setting. Seemingly a secret we are not allowed to discuss at Folsom.  Holding this position however is not for the meek. It requires a strong core. Oddly, this is something PT can do.  Help me build a strong core. Why can't we do both? Why can't we do both? 

Now, having performed in this manner, the PT working with me was keen to add this to our repertoire. She's working for me to go home though. She wants this repertoire for me so I'm able to exist in my current state, from home. We did some flat walking. To put weight on my left leg requires me to have a firm grip on both sides of the walker, a bend forward in my torso, and the application of the posterior pelvic tilt. We’ve all seen it before.  It is the gait of a 90-year-old man moving with his walker across the parking lot. Ladies and gentlemen…I give you the same gait, in the presence of a 60-year-old man, with a shitty back.

Holding that position is not for the faint of heart…But it gives me hope that I'm not going home in a wheelchair. That's said, there's no way I show up at the office using  a walker moving slower than a box turtle crossing the interstate. I'd rather be in a wheelchair zipping in and out of  passageways as I've been learning to do with the wheelchair I love down here at the institute. 

What's more important is that I mechanically manipulated my back out of pain. This is what a chiropractor would do…probably in the first two minutes of entering his office. It took me two weeks to find this position in ordinary medical care. Perhaps it's the volumes of steroids I am taking that allowed the impingement to shrink to a point where the manipulation was even tolerable. But the manipulation clearly is mechanical and clearly releases the pain. Does this require surgery to fix? 

That is one answer I can at least now seek. The name and address of the PT that led me to this solution has been withheld.  Cue Dragnet.

Bring Me to Life

“How can you see into my eyes like open doors?
Leading in you down into my core where I’ve become so numb”

― Amy Lee

I had my first dose of Recreational Therapy (RT) behind the wall at Folsom today. Sorry I asked earlier what that type of therapy involved. Sorry I joked that I wanted some of that…someone was listening.

That someone scheduled it when I wasn’t looking. After a particularly hard day with both PT, OT, and having to see a shrink. Can you believe that? I had to see a shrink. And, I called her a shrink. And she said it’s been a long time since someone called her a shrink. And it looked like she was 23 so how long exactly has it been since someone called her a shrink? The head shrinking went well since they didn’t lock me up on the 6th floor in a white jacket with Pigboy. At least not yet. For today, at least, that conversation will stay behind the fence here at Folsom.

Regardless, I want to talk about RT. Specifically a branch of RT called music therapy. A therapist, playing a guitar, and singing songs with the patient. I don’t sing Karaoke. Why would I want music therapy? I like music…but…I’m not a fan of singing publicly with people unless everyone is screaming at a rock concert. That’s my vibe. Not Kumbaya by a fire pit. Yet here we are. Music therapy, 3 pm.

The therapist with the guitar we will call Kahyla bore a striking resemblance to Tracey Chapman (fore shadowing). With her was a classically trained vocalist serving as an intern from a music conservancy in the Shenandoah Valley. We will call her Maddie. And then there was the patient. Yours truly. I can’t think of anything more awkward than musicians picking me up from my hospital room and taking me to the garden pavilion outside the hospital to sing to me, with me, at me, by me…I had no idea what was about to happen. On our walk out I started to ask questions pertaining to what exactly was about to happen. I quickly deduced, from Kahyla’s discussion, that this was going to be one long tear jerk session. I was meant to emotionally connect to the music and then let it all out… F’ that…I want back in jail. I want no part of an emotional connection such as this…particularly with two complete strangers.

Well we got to the pavilion and sat there for a few moments at a picnic table and I wondered how this was going to start. Was it Row Row Row your boat? They asked me what kind of mood I was in? The only song that has been going on in my mind today is the bitter one by Jelly Roll I’ve taken as my theme song for getting gaslighted at Fairfax Abysmal, aka Attica. Jelly Roll singing, “You ain’t nothin but a LIAR” The most definitive song about gaslighting I could think of…well…the musicians didn’t know it, but Kahyla pulled up her iPhone and it started playing…and we sat there and listened to it. And I got mad. And then it was over, and then I explained exactly what the song meant to me to those young ladies.

Then, she asked what else, and I said…what’s your country music repertoire…and she said old country. That could mean only one thing, Johnny Cash, the Man in Black. She said, what do you want to hear, and I said Folsom Prison Blues, and she’s like, I got Folsom. Then she opens her guitar case and out pops a very glossy black and gold guitar. She starts strumming, and all of a sudden I’m at Folsom Prison and she’s singing, “I hear the train a coming…” Boom chills. Maddie was right there with her on accompaniment with exactly the classically trained voice I would expect. When they finished I was like…let’s keep going with Johnny Cash…within seconds we all fell into a burning ring of fire. We went down down down, and the flames got higher. And we burned burned burned, the ring of fire, the ring of fire…

More chills… and I was beginning to think about the “show me the money” movie Jerry Maguire, but instead of the popular scenes where Cuba Gooding Junior, dancing around and drip-drying on the camera, he was being interviewed by Roy Firestone. Roy was bringing up all the things in his life that might make Cuba cry. And the trick was for him not to cry. And then he cried. I was shaking my finger in a similar manner…not going to cry for you Kahyla…not going to cry. But I was crying inside.

I was still in a folksy music mood Gordon Lightfoot came to mind…but the two very young musicians looked somewhat clueless. But when I said, Jim Croce, it was on. Kahyla started strumming “Time in a Bottle”. Maddie’s voice joined in with her angelic sound. I asked Maddie, what does she sing with her classically trained voice…what else was she singing…any show tunes. Boom hit again. Kahyla started strumming a Les Mis tune and Maddie didn’t miss a note. Do you know what that’s like to have “On My Own” sung right to you from a classically trained vocalist?

After that bit of joy it was time to switch gears. We talked about rock and roll, which I wasn’t into at the moment, but for whatever reason Kahyla said, how about def metal. I said, only when I am driving. But I do like Evanescence, and she said, oh, I played “Bring me to life” on a cruise ship last year. She starts strumming and Maddie starts in, “How can you see into my eyes, like open doors?” And we are rocking, “Wake me up inside, Wake me up inside, Call my name and save me from myself” Add, in the background, the 6 floors of the Folsom medical facility rising as a backdrop in my field of view. Pretty sure the music video for “Bring me to Life” has Amy Lee out on the ledge of the hospital. Can’t think of a more powerful setting for that def metal ditty.

We had time for one more…and since Kahyla looks a bit like Tracy Chapman, off we went. Finishing with “Fast Car” ending the most unique and personal therapy session I have ever experienced. As they wheeled me back into the hospital I can only say it didn’t look the same. Things had shifted. Colors were brighter. There was more light in the hallways. My growing glum perspective on things like being gaslighted last week was being lifted. I didn’t cry…but I wouldn’t discount breaking into tears later tonight. It was a beautiful experience.

Gaslight Central

“I....I let you drive around my mind,
I can't count the times you made me feel like I'm nothin'
Played me like a fool, like a fool…”

― Jelly Roll

The state of the medical industry has hit rock bottom when it's possible to be gaslit by your own health care professional.  Individually speaking, and with all the compassion in the world,  it is possible that the health care professionals that stoop to gas lighting are under a lot of stress.  I’m not saying that health care isn’t high stress and demanding.  It’s probably one of the most stressful and demanding jobs out there. I would never do it.  The problem doesn’t stem from these individuals per se.  It stems from the environment they are forced to work in, brought about by the policies and procedures of the health care administration and of course the health care insurance companies.  For profit health care is what we are talking about.  When we lack the empathy to treat the patient while in pursuit of the bottom-line profit of the industry we have lost the battle.  I’m afraid we lost it long ago.  I don’t want to make excuses for the behavior of these individuals…it’s fucked and they should know better.  But when it’s directed at me, beyond the intended effects of gaslighting, that make you feel crazier than you already do, based on an actual real world situation you've been kept in, more  crazy than you can handle is going to come for you. That's not a threat…That's just what happens.  Buckle up, it's going to get bumpy. 

After careful consideration of my treatment in the Fairfax Abysmal Observational Facility--I’ll now call Attica, the only plausible explanation for the behavior and  treatment of yours truly comes from the trained response of some real assholes.  Specifically, and early on, it was determined that I was, what they call in the vernacular, a text book “drug seeker”.   Yes friends, from the moment the EMT’s were summoned to my house I was immediately stereotyped into both the symptom magnifier and drug seeker motif of annual patient training.. That early evaluation of the situation was passed forward from the EMTs into the hands of those who would take charge of my treatment.  Which of course meant no treatment.  Diagnosis made at my house, clearly meant everything that was about to befall me, was going to be my fault.  I was gaslit laying painfully in my own bed.

That is not to say medical care professionals shouldn't be on the lookout for the so-called “symptom magnifier”. These people exist. If you've ever been to the ER you know these people exist. They're loud.  They moan. They get belligerent. They created ruckus for everyone. They spoil what was supposed to be a good visit to the emergency room. I on the hand was none of these things. I was open, honest, way too transparent, a keen observer of my own condition, and desperately wanting to help with the diagnosis of my own condition. I told the EMT what I thought what's going on. I should have kept my mouth shut.

Nobody goes to the emergency room with sciatica via an ambulance. Sciatica is seemingly understood by the community to be a minor form of leg pain. Painful yes but highly survival. Not a life threatening condition.  The first responders, and rightfully so, should be saving lives.

I'm afraid I don't have the rulebook on what is and what is not a suitable level of pain before a 911 call. To me the inability to walk was the deciding factor. I couldn't crawl to my own car let alone drive. The exacerbating condition is the fact that when I lay motionless and in a very neutral position, zero gravity position, I am free from pain.  Hardly life threatening. The EMT could not get his head around this lack of pain. 

Never discount their treatment when it is offered to you.  In particular, never discount the potential effectiveness of an injection of Toradol regardless if you happen to know that Toradol is only Motrin in IV form.

Most likely related to the emergency room staff in transit from the EMT,  I had not only turned down an injection of Toradol I had turned down the establishment of an IV line to speed any medical attention once I was delivered to the emergency room. As previously mentioned who the fuck wants a guy stabbing you in the arm when your 10 minutes from the hospital?  Haven taken handfuls of Motrin the previous night and morning, I doubt the effectiveness of Torodal.  Also I have received Torodal  injections in the past and at least one in a highly public manner that is one of my best war stories.  Ask me about it sometimes.  The Torodal didn't do dick but it's a great war story.

Dismissing Toradol is straight out of the handbook of drug seeking behavior.   Not only was I on handfuls of Motrin, I also confessed to taking prednisone and gabapentin. Two prescriptions that I received from a Patient First earlier in the year when I was combating the same pain. The twist in this case is that my prescription was out and I  was taking the prescriptions that remained from another member of my household, who had been treating his leg and back pain with the same prescription.  He wouldn't be needing it any more. I'm not going to lie…there is some serious sentimentality tied up in taking his medication. Right or wrong Gunner was still taking care of me. And that really hits if you think about it. The EMT would have no way of thinking about it in that manner. I should have kept my mouth shut.

Rating the pain higher than a 10 means you are exaggerating. 

I've already written an entire Chapter on pain. Medical care professionals who don't realize that there are categories of pain higher than 10 particularly when nerves are involved can suck my dick. I don't say that to be crass…I say that because what this means is that these medical professionals have no practical reality. All they know they've learned in a textbook and have never experienced medical conditions either for themselves or for someone they love that involves pain beyond 10.  What their books and their training manuals tell them is that a patient moving beyond the preset standard of 1 through 10 as a pain indicator is an exaggeration of pain and thus drug seeking  behavior. Fuck you! Obviously pain is very personal to me. Oh, and by the way, it is drug seeking behavior. Please make this pain go away.

The next category of things when speaking to your medical professional in a world where opioids have been villainized is using the wrong words.  You must never refer to your pain as excruciating and specifically you should not refer to your pain as knife like.   I do not know why these words have been outlawed in the textbooks and checklist of the medical professional but they too indicate drug seeking behavior.

I'm pretty sure lacking words in a painful situation is not uncommon.  But we mustn't use words that over exaggerate our condition. Clearly we are not being stabbed with a knife. The pain may be sharp but it is not knife-like because there is no blood.    I'm curious if suggesting your pain is knife-like is like shouting fire in a movie theater? The medical professional in the ER who pines for the day they are moved to the real trauma center, suffers PTSD when someone says knife-like.  And they are reminded they are only there to administer aspirin and gaviscon. 

To refresh on my countdown to purgatory, I broke every one of these rules with the EMT, In my home, trying to be open, honest and transparent. I have no doubt every one of these “exaggerations” were relayed  to the medical team at the ER prior to or after my arrival. I was going nowhere, for treatment,  fast. 

Let the gas lighting games begin…and may the odds be forever in your favor…

Conveying  to the hospital via ambulance definitely gets you through triage and in the door quickly at the ER. But you're still going to meet with a nurse and some other technician. You're also going to meet with the hospital admin to go over a few things. My memory is a little hazy but I'm pretty sure I went through all four things we think but do not say to each team member.  Maybe not the admin person.  Whereas I was not gaslit by the EMT who brought me in, I was clearly prejudiced in advanced. I suggest a new category of gaslighting called gas lighting in absentia.  We don't even have the ability to combat this kind of behavior. We don't know why people think we are crazy…they just begin from that foundation of belief that we are crazy and pick up on it.  It will show up in their mannerisms and in the way they discuss things with us. We may never detect why. Gaslighting is an insidious phenomenon. 

Moving into round two I was actually able to speak to the emergency room doctor in charge of my case.  Her mannerisms toward me having never met her before were belligerent and bull like. Her bedside manner was either her natural condition or she was already predisposed to bully me. I've already talked about her directly in the conversation we had regarding the fact that I had existing medical history involving my C5 and C6 vertebrae and based on the amount of pain I was in I was pushing for an MRI. Recall I was met with the lecture about the importance of MRI to trauma patients and that I would not be getting one. She also added the importance of the hospital and how busy they are…1,000 bed hospital, The third most busiest hospital in the United States. Since I wrote that I've taken the time to discover the true lie in that gas lighting behavior. My importance had little to this doctor at this moment in time. I wish her the plague.  Yes, I just used the internet to determine that the Fairfax Abysmal doesn't even show up in the top 20 largest and busiest hospitals in the US.  Because I'm a compassionate person I will give this doctor the benefit of the doubt that she was not gaslighting me, she was in fact gaslighting herself, trying to make herself feel important so she can wake up in the morning and come to work and abuse more patients.  Whether she was lying to me or lying to herself that doesn't change the fact that she's was a liar.  Plague on her. 

Without a doubt however, her best gaslighting move of all, which was not to provide medical care, was to move me on. I don't need to be in the ER. I am not in life-threatening conditions. Probably my most rapid stay in an emergency room, I was shuffled to the observation unit, known as Attica, within hours of my arrival. Washing her hands of my medical condition perhaps the deepest of the gaslighting. Despite the fact that I could not walk, perhaps she thought it was all psychosomatic, I was whisked away to the observation unit with no explanation. 

Sometime in the night, rolled into the observation unit, disoriented to say the least, I would be placed under the care of the attending. I don't believe I've ever met him. What's important to note is that this attending had just received the patient who could not walk. He seemed at least for a brief time to take that condition seriously. From the observation unit, from all my understanding the place where you are not really going to receive medical care, he scheduled me for a middle of the night MRI.  Later this doctor also scheduled me for the cortisone injection into my L4 L5 on Monday afternoon.  Another compassionate act of medical care, becoming inside the observational unit, not from ER, or from having been formally admitted into the hospital for either diagnosis or care.  Inconsistencies of this nature or the start of what I believe to be the investigation by patient services that I have requested.  I'm either in the hospital or I'm not in the hospital. My status during my week in the observational unit is still clearly unknown. It not only adds to my uncertainty, it adds to my crazy. It seems I was being gaslighted by the institution as a whole, not just by the individuals out to get me. 

By the morning shift however, after the orders had already been written In the night, the attending doctors positions changed into, what would be called, pain management.  I would meet the tormentors who would stay with me until my discharge a week later. 

Each morning I would be asked, how is your pain? This particular question is truly nonsensical if you are tracking my condition. In my preferred position which is zero gravity, had elevated, torso slightly bent, legs up in knees bent, I am pain-free. I have found the position where any stress on the nerve being pinched in  my L45 has been eliminated.  I am a zero on their 1 to 10 scale. However moving slightly off parameters, even just an inch, spikes the pain to a 10.  This happens, and what has been described in the literature, as the biped activity, principally primate, known as walking. I can't walk. Where the fuck is my wheelchair?

It was from these pain control management gurus of medicine that I would request consultation with some type of neurosurgeon who might be able to provide a better understanding of what was going on in my back. These meetings were considered and neurosurgery was notified of my desire to consult. I was told how busy the neurosurgeons are in the building. I would wait. And despite the drill sergeant wanting my DOR, I had nowhere else to go.

After 24 hours following the cortisone epidural into my L45, I was still unable to walk. I was told the epidural could take as many as 72 hours to kick in. On Tuesday afternoon I had my first meeting with neurosurgery. I was not greeted by a neurosurgeon coming to assess my condition. A physician's assistant from the neurosurgeons office was sent. 

This was exactly the same schedule over the next 3 days. I would be met in the early morning by the doctor in charge of my pain management, ask the ridiculous questions about my level of pain, And I would request a consult with the neurosurgeons. Later in the afternoon a physician's assistant would arrive and we go through the whole process again. 

Each time the physician assistant would examine me and literally tell me that surgery was indicated but that they would have to speak to the neurosurgeon himself. Each time the neurosurgeon turn down the procedure.

At the end of the week I met with the third and Final physician's assistant. We had a strong talk about other things that could be causing this problem…But most importantly we talked about Occam's razor…The simplest solution is most likely the cause.  He also, having spoken to his boss, it was unable to break through, The determined, esteemed, an expert opinion of the neurosurgeon I had never met. I was not getting surgery. Conservative care was in my future and that meant rehabilitation. I've spoken above about gaslighting in absentia. When I have 3 different PAs telling me surgery is indicated, And the ghost of a guy I have never met, telling me no, you feel a little bit crazy.

The final day of gas lighting began in much the same way. What is your level of pain? Same. On this day however the observation unit was making strong plans to shift me to Folsom correctional in Mount Vernon. My case was still being handled by the pain doctors. I was told my insurance company was denying my transfer to the rehabilitation center but they were fighting for me. They were fighting for me on my behalf and would request a one-on-one with the benefits from my company.  

Friday morning both doctors came to me with their victory. The insurance company graciously agreed to go with their recommendation of rehabilitation at Folsom correctional. Having no diagnosis or understanding of why I couldn't walk, believing surgery was perhaps my best option, why would I be going into physical therapy to endure pain for multiple weeks that was just going to result in their requirement for surgery anyway. Where was the neurosurgeon in all of this…not a good look. 

When the doctors came to deliver my options to me in the morning, instead of providing me with this information, I was immediately informed that I was not taking my Motrin. I had told the nurses that I didn't want The Motrin and since I was in pain, I was responsible. Subtle gas lighting is hard to detect. When it's in your face, and you're being blamed--and you still have your wits about you--but just barely, it's going to get bumpy.

I did not stop my Motrin. Earlier in the week giving the consultations with neurosurgeons, The doctors pulled me off Motrin in the event surgery was in fact recommended. You don't want to be on Motrin because of its blood thinning capability just before surgery.  I had three consultations with neurosurgery and from my perspective each one had the potential to result in surgery. So on Thursday, I did in fact tell the nurse that I would not take the Motrin based on my surgical consult. 

Another factor in all of this is that the doctor had actually prescribed my ability to take oral Dilaudid upon request. A request that was never fulfilled. Mainly because it was demonstrated to do nothing for the level 10 pain when it's spiked, And I did not want to deal with any mental incapacitation. They did have me on strong muscle relaxants and neurological drugs such as gabapentin…and the levels of those medications were being increased daily. They also were giving me plenty of Tylenol. 

Once the overt gaslighting began, I had no choice but to escalate the level of my concern for my own medical condition. I raised my voice when speaking to the doctor.  Her response, as you might expect, was classic. I was attacking her. I had arrived at gaslight Central. At this point, my sister who was with me in the room, diligently witnessing this affair, and documenting it, began to intervene. 

I was arguing for my pain and she was arguing for my mental health. She witnessed what I've been going through this week and captured it correctly. 

And now in a weak in mental state, I was being attacked and blamed for my own condition. But the physician felt like she was being attacked.  In a moment of clarity, as that particular physician who I would never see again, left through the curtain separating my holding cell from the rest of the ward, I shouted I want my patient advocate and I want my patient advocate now. That request was never fulfilled by the medical staff, I had to deliberately email and call patient services multiple times to finally receive a visit. 

The day was over and it was now Friday, at 5:10 in the afternoon. Six days since I came into the emergency room.  The doctor in charge of my pain management said, “your room at the rehabilitation center is ready. At 5:30 they are going to cancel your room. If they take your room it could be months before you get another room at the rehabilitation center.  You have 20 minutes to decide if you want your room and to be moved to the rehabilitation center”. Or words to that effect.   I responded, “What happens if I do not go”,  The doctor in charge of my pain management would respond, " We will call security”. I have no idea what to do with that piece of information. Unable to walk…laying in an observation unit for an entire week. Being threat through some kind of security. When all I want to do is be out of pain.  Regain some semblance of a human life. And my god man take a shower…I succumbed to my baser wish to breathe fresh air.  I told her I would go to the rehabilitation center.  By sister, among my greatest fans, concurred I needed to be out of that place.  

About an hour later, a medical Uber taxi arrived. And I was transported by gurney to the rehabilitation center near Mount Vernon. Initially my next prison cell as Folsom Correctional, The rehab center, as described elsewhere, has allowed to be far more freedom, privacy, and the ability to remain human.  I may retract the name Folsom at some point. I know they don't torture at American prisons such as Folsom, but physical therapy remains torturous. I reserve the right, to maintain the distinction.

In a hospital setting being threatened with security at the end of a very very long and both physically and mentally demanding week…looking back I have no words to describe the complete insensitivity and dehumanization of a medical care professional making a threat to call security. In her heart I guess I believe I'm a drug addict. That is how she treated me the entire week and explains it complete lack of interest in my medical care or any attempt at a diagnosis.   In hindsight I should have played that hand. Had my friends been closer…I would have called some of them to task. I've had at least four offers for them to respond in some capacity.  God bless them, And they're super fitness.

Where does something like her threat to me even originate. Not from compassion, not from understanding, but most likely fear.  Untrained and unwilling to unfold a problem that presented before them, they gaslighted me. I was made the victim, and she took a cowards path towards the door. Except it was me they were throwing out into the unknown.  100% the rehabilitation center is a better place for me…But it is not the right place because nobody knows what's wrong.  Rehab is not diagnosis…moving forward, however will try to turn the rehabilitation center into my personal diagnostic lab. God willing and with the help of real people who care.

PS. My roommate at Folsom went home safely  today, he never fell down and I never had the save him. I wish him well. We continued to wave and each time he saw me his smile got broader and broader.  I never got to talk to him, but I got to listen in to his health care decisions, and menu options, because of the interpreter machine they dialed into every morning.  My roommate was fluent in Mandarin. My point here however, Is that his bed is now available. That actually translates into more sleep for me because his alarm is not going off every 5 minutes.  But what it really means is that I would have only had to wait about a week for another bed to open if this facility was actually full. Not the 3 months I was threatened with by the gas lighter in chief.  (Upon personal observation this week there were many more rooms available)  My primary caregiver at the observation center was able to both exaggerate and lie naturally through her teeth to a patient under her care… two of the biggest weapons contained in the arsenal the gas lighter uses to beat down the sanity patients, the most vulnerable in the room. This is so disgusting it should make everyone nauseous. She is an enemy of both medical care and humanity. And evaluation of her fitness to remain in her position should be a direct outcome of the investigation I've started through the patient services action at Fairfax Abysmal and the Stalag of Attica she leads.

Chicken Soup

““I am of certain convinced that the greatest heroes
are those who do their duty in the daily grind of domestic affairs
whilst the world whirls as a maddening dreidel.

― Florence Nightingale

For Kaitlan and Elizabeth…

It's hard to screw up chicken soup. If that's on the menu at a hospital I highly recommend the choice.  I pulled an ace today when I ordered the chicken soup and the chicken tenders.  Maybe this is already known in the culinary business, but I think dipping the chicken tenders in the chicken soup is a pure stroke and genius.  I don’t want the credit.  I mean it's not like I accidentally mixed peanut butter and chocolate together…it's more like stumbling upon a food that's too wet with  food that's too dry and coming out with one that's  just right. Kind of like when Goldilock’s burned her mouth on Papa Bear's porridge. She figured it out and then it was all just right…

That gives me a good idea for dessert.  I've been ordering the knock off Blue Bell ice cream called Blue Bunny in the vanilla cup.  I've got some contraband Twix bars that showed up during a smuggling operation when a friend visited.  I'm thinking about dipping those Twix into the softened ice cream…it's hard to get cold ice cream at a hospital. The cup is always pretty soft and melted by the time it arrives.  That sounds a lot closer to a winning combination which I will now call my Goldilocks search for suitable hospital food.  I've got one more, it involves a  chicken breast, a side of rice, and a small side salad.  You get the idea. Just right.  Maybe I'll write a hospital cookbook while I'm here.  I'm fantasizing about these little wins.  I'm still pissing in a bottle. Little wins help.

At least here at the rehabilitation center everyone takes their job seriously…since I got here the sheets on my bed have been changed every single day.  If that's a hospital protocol somebody needs to tell Fairfax Abysmal.  The bedding in that cell was never changed.  Six days in that same bed and it was getting ripe.   How do I know?  I never left that observation cell until I was rolled out on a gurney to be moved to the rehab experimentation center.  

Another major victory for the rehab center is I’ve that I've had my second shower.  Having  gone 10 days without one and now having had 2 in a row is something to write home about…so here you go.  I think I'll go for a third shower tomorrow.  My OT, we will call her Elizabeth, doesn't seem to mind.  In fact showers are in their job jar…they're called activities for daily living or ADLs. I keep having to look that one up. My dyslexia makes me wanna see Latter-Day Saints in that acronym.  Apart from the ridiculously low water pressure my showers have been lovely.  I never got a shower back in Fairfax Abysmal. I washed myself once at that place…in the sink.  I think an OT helped me out.  Those poor slobs must be helping aliens bathe on other planets too.

Back here at Folsom,  the OT’s job the entire hour was to get me into and out of the job safely.  And try not to stare at my pecker in the process.  They have it figured out.  They can do it in a highly successful and private manner.  Never once, would I have to have that embarrassing conversation with  her.  “I’m a grower not a show-er”.  Basically, the way it goes down is that they first make sure you are wearing the very sticky shower slippers.  They can be completely wet but still hold the tile like slicks at the Brickyard.  Then they transfer you…or get you seated on the shower bench in your undies.  They use a lot of towels…they seem to be everywhere.  I think it has to do with not letting any surface have water that might be slippery.  Then the curtain is drawn.  Then you remove your undies.  If you so desire you can place a towel over your manhood. I did not so desire. At this point she sticks her hand behind the curtain to turn on the water.  You are instructed not to get up but rather use the shower hose to do all of your biddings.  She continues to adjust the water until it’s the proper temperature and then she stands outside the stall, on the other side of the curtain, and hopes like hell that you don’t do something stupid. I don’t think it was my imagination, however, that one time when she reached behind the curtain, her head glanced in my direction.  The white’s of her eyes seemed to widen just a little bit.

I’ve been settling into the therapeutic grind of this place.  The rule seems to be three hours of therapy of some sort each day.  I’ve only gotten to do Physical Therapy (PT), that's the piece that’s supposed to cure me with conservative care. And I have to work with the OT on other things beyond just ADL.  Activities for Daily Living, I had to look that up, again. OT is the piece that’s supposed to help me when they kick me out of here and I have to live in a wheelchair the rest of my life.  In a perfect world, I guess, I would be cured by the PT and wouldn’t have to live with the OT. In a way they are diametrically opposed professions.  I’m surprised fights don’t break out in the therapy rooms. Note to self, try to instigate fight in break room between OT and PT.   

Another type of correctional activity is Speech Therapy (ST) which I don’t have to take.  And that one is the one where they make sure you can eat your food or drink your drink without aspiration. Aspiration is the act of sucking your food or drink back into your lungs. It's not hoping your food or drimk wins a gold medal.   It involves thickening agents and other strange magic.   I’ve  also discovered that they have yet another correctional opportunity called.  Recreational Health Therapy (RT).  I am a little disappointed that I haven’t been invited into that one.  I'm still trying to figure out what they do there.  I wouldn’t mind a little recreational health going on while on the inside. 

PT, however, is what this place does.  The PTs are the fighter pilots of the rehabilitation center.  If you are going to get better, you are going to push the limits of what your human body can currently achieve and its the PT's that run that show. 

Philosophies differ, and we all know there are thousands of unconventional methods out there they claim to be the ticket to rehabilitation.  But my PT is in charge of my program.  My PT, we will call her Kaitlin, has been beating me up for a few days in a row now.  She's dedicated to her profession.  No Florence Nightingale situations are developing with her.  I hate her.  Her job is to hurt me.  This is what will make you better…if you can get better.

In my case however, we already know it hurts, because pain is the reason I can’t walk.  If it didn't hurt to walk I would walk. So there's some irony in watching myself dip into pain as I try to walk.   I’ll keep trying but it’s pretty clear to me my pain stems from a mechanical issue.  We can't will that mechanical issue to fix itself.  If it heals itself, that’s one thing, but here at Folsom are not engaged in a mechanical fix.  We are engaged in a, “Let’s see if we can walk today”.  Kind of a fix.  Well, no.  I can't walk today.  OK, let’s get up a little slower, and then put a little more pain on it here, and maybe tomorrow you will do slightly better.  And we progress from there.  I’m not saying I don’t have a positive attitude about  all this and don’t want to get better.  I do.  Everyone knows that if you go into your recovery with a positive attitude you will achieve a much better outcome. It’s stupid not to be positive about it.  So I smile.  I say good morning.  And then we dive into more pain.    

I think Kaitlin has a good handle on the business because she seems disappointed when I say I don't think the PT is going to be successful. But she counters with, it thats true, she will build a case for the mechanical fix, ie surgery to prove it.  To date she is the only one who has shown definitive weakness in my Great Toe--the one that went to the market.  This is the smoking gun to say the pinched nerve is at the L45.  She's already found it. We are done here.  But she's also focused on getting me up and walking the old fashion way.  In order to do that she has to take considerable weight off of my fat frame…which weighs in at about 198 lbs.  Given my height, that puts my BMI at a 27.  I read that staring at a chart on the wall today--but I digress.  

Kaitlin is involved with doing the calculations so that she can put me in a harness and into the Zero-G machine.  A device that rides on a track above the therapy center floor and lets you walk around at less than your own body weight. Normally this would sound fun if I could bounce around at my moon weight. But they don't let you do that.  My problem isn’t one of weight, it’s one of alignment.  If my body is in perfect alignment then the nerve in my L45 is not pinched.  If I'm out of alignment, and the nerve is pinched, it’s game over. Today, however, was a special day.  Today is the day I’m supposed to be at maximum effect from the mega dose of Decatron steroid I am on.  I, of course, didn’t walk.  Couldn’t even stand. What I can report is that my body is loose.  All the joints feel as if I am some sort of large puppet on a multitude of strings.  Nothing should be tugging additionally at places they shouldn’t.  If today was maximum effect, I think think tomorrow things will start going in the wrong direction. Kaitlin will be sad.  But I'll be one step closer to the surgery that I need.

After therapy and a visit from a good friend who brought Rockland’s for lunch but more importantly is heading out to South Carolina next weekend to try out for the US Soccer Association's Men's over 40 World Cup Team…I shit you not--another Superman…I've taken my recovery into my own hands. 

I scheduled an appointment to get a second surgical opinion. If you're inside a health system they hate the second opinion. Basically I'm going to have to pay for some of this out of my own pocket including the trip in the Uber medical transportation van.  It's just like an Uber but the round trip cost you $356 bucks. Someone figured out how to strap a wheelchair into the back of a minivan-- genius.  

So at the appointed hour I was picked up by the service and driven across town. The destination was to meet with a physician's assistant working for an osteopathic spinal surgeon for the stars. I met with her…her job was to teach me everything I needed to know in order to speak to the surgeon. ”They are very busy” is what she said.  I wouldn't be able to speak with the actual surgeon until mid-September. What the ever living fuck? That was a complete waste of time. I've now officially met with four PAs and not a single surgeon with regard to my back condition. I literally haven't even talked with one. I've got another appointment tomorrow. I am meeting with a real surgeon. I'll let you know how that goes. 

When I came out from that appointment I discovered that the $356 bucks for the round trip Uber doesn't include him waiting for me. I had to call the service and was told 45 minutes for their return. That wouldn't be so bad except this is the first time I've been in public in the wheelchair. And I was by myself…and I was alone in big, strange city…I love chair.  When I made it back too the rehabilitation center, after an episode of road rage and a police escort, details available upon request.  The staff at rehabilitation island were particularly horrified. I don't think they're going to let me off my leash as much tomorrow.

I am looking forward to tomorrow…as I count down my checklist there's not much more that can threaten me.  Given the preponderance of all practical evidence I am caught up in a system that doesn’t seem to know shit from Shinola.  They are at least running out of Shinola.

“So here we are”, as I have said. 

“So it goes”, as Vonnegut has said.   “Borne back ceaselessly into the past”, as Fitzgerald has said.

“Control yourself, take only what you need from it”, as Instagram is now saying.

They are all correct…

Kings Canyon...for a Day

“...the mountains are my life. Without them I am nothing.
They are perhaps the only reality I know. They are my guru.
If I am to learn anything in life, I will learn it there.”

—Randy Morgenson, qoute from his journals

The mountains are not my life.  Sorry Randy.  But if you have the opportunity to walk a few miles, or 6, or 8 into his house, KIngs Canyon and Sequoia National Parks, it's possible to get an inkling about what Randy was talking about.  For 27 seasons Randy Morgenson performed the duties of a back country ranger for the National Park Service.  He grew up in Yosemite and learned photography from Anzel Adams.  His outlook on being a naturalist perhaps the most unknown yet most prolific of them all.   What does this have to do with my back pain?   Well I did walk a few miles in Randy’s shows…just a few short weeks ago.  I flew to Fresno for a meeting, and took a quick jaunt up to Kings Canyon and Sequoia National Park to commune with, what I thought, would be the Giant Sequoias and Coastal Red Woods of the region .  And yes I did, the Giant forest was tremendous and I got to see first hand, the grandeur of both the General Sherman and General Grant Sequoias.   Did not see Sassquatch…but was looking extensively.   Beyond the trees and what came as an unexpected surprise was hiking to the top or Moro Rock, a pure granite out cropping and then hiking in a valley from Logepole into the top of the crease where the waterfalls are making their way down from the melt off on the higher peaks, one of which is named for Morgenson.   I made the whole trip, didn’t fuck myself up, and no one had to medevac me off the mountain top. My hiking buddy, letting me know he wasn't going to fireman carry me out of the valley so I better keep my shit  together.  What I witnessed was the grandeur of one single valley and one amazing peak to rival any of the soaring granite in Yosemite.   I had no idea.

I was tired but the hike isn’t what get’s you, it’s the coast to coast flights in seerage with your legs folded up your ass that really wears out your back. I've had the opportunity to fly West this summer multiple times. I love to travel. I love the destinations because we're doing really good stuff. I do the right things. I sit in the aisle, I get up, I walk around but it still takes a toll on your back. 

After the trip to Fresno I was back again quickly for a week in Las Vegas. This was a business trip too requiring multiple lectures and a lot of standing. The convention itself you're probably on your feet 10 to 14 hours. By Friday my back was crushed again. 

But to really understand what's going on my back requires looking over the lifetime of abuse. In the '90s when I was racing motorcycles for fun, my short two seasons of racing resulted in over five crashes. One of them high side if you know what that means. Not wanting to go to the hospital because I was running a company and if you've ever seen the movie, “Along Came Poly” you know you can't get life Insurance if you're a base jumping, alligator wrestling, volcano luging, guy named  Van Loo. So you just take your medical care off the grid. In this case I was seeing an osteopath who was putting me back together. Doubtful anyone remembers the days in the Pentagon when I could barely walk and would hobble in and take my place at my Silicone Graphics Computer to play my trade.  I was in my twenties.  

I continued to play soccer when I hung up the motorcycle racing but back then we didn't have the artificial fields and if you've ever fallen on a Virginia grass field it's no picnic. Not much grass.  I had lower back problems and upper back problems…every few years I'd go to my guy he'd give me a pack of prednisone make a few adjustments and I was back on the field. 

That is until about 2012 when I took a hit from the side which snapped my neck violently. The victim in this crash was my C5 and C6 vertebrae, crushing the soft disc in between. On this trip to the ER doctor the said not going shy on opioids and I was immediately given the juice in the form of intravenous Dilaudid. The pain I was feeling evaporated immediately. Also the MRI was much more liberal. Being stuck in the tube with Dilaudid makes that adventure far more palatable. I even opened my eyes a time or two…but that was a stupid mistake and I closed them quickly.  

The MRI was conclusive that I had hurt those discs and was immediately referred to a  neurosurgeon.  Even back then he was not going to jump right in.  So it was off to the pain doctor to get the standard cortisone epidural.  Sure enough I was out of pain immediately but it was nothing to write home about because the epidural wore off within 2 weeks and I was back for more. The second injection lasted only 4 days and I was back in pain. I walked into my doctor’s office with my left hand hooked above my head.  This is the standard call out for “I need my surgery and I need it now”. The doctor had me on the books within the week. I did want a second opinion and a third opinion and the fourth opinion…so I want to a very elite orthopedic spinal surgery to recommend that I get my C56 but he also my C67. The top one would be a new articulating joint  so I could maintain my mobility.  I thought it weird that I met with their financing director first. Another doctor wanted to go in the opposite direction and simply use orthoscopic to trim around the offending discs to reduce the herniations. Yet another doctor only wanted me to go into traction. 

Just like now you don't want to jump at the surgery willy-nilly…It is important to try the most conservative care first, so I went into traction. After two servings of traction I was out of pain. What kind of an industry is this where the medical opinions I received run the gamut from conservative traction to multi-level spinal fusion?  With absolutely no handle on which medical advice to take we have yet another scathing review of how far the medical industry has taken us down the toilet. 

So currently  I'm willing to give this rehabilitation and conservative PT a try.  The surgeon at the hands of all this wants me to give this a try for 4 weeks before we take another look at surgery. I don't know why he thinks I want to hang around in pain for 4 weeks, learning about life in a wheelchair, just so his conscience can be clear about something that makes no sense. He seems Incompetent at best malicious at worst. I have never talked to this guy making these decisions about my medical care.  Not a good look.

So a lifetime of abuse of my back has led to me  paying an osteopath out of pocket to put me back together, looking for other solutions to back pain such as inversion machines, and just good back hygiene such as never reach into the backseat of your car from the front seat to retrieve your briefcase. There are many pearls of wisdom when it comes to protecting your back. The classic book by Sarno also on the list of things to do.

Fast forward to the summer of 2024, and I'm heading out on a 7-hour drive to give a 3-hour lecture.  I can feel my back was a little tight and the smart thing to do would have been to go back in the house and get inverted on my table and maybe buy a little time back on the drive. When I got to my destination my back was really tweaking.

Pushing myself out of the car I knew something was different. I stood up with pain no longer in my back. It was shooting down my leg.  I didn't know it at the time but I was having my first bout with sciatica.

Throughout the next year I continued to travel extensively and continued to deal with this new lower back issue.  I was always able to get myself into relief by pushing into a position, stretching my back, and taking a step forward. Always good and off I went. When the pain was particularly uncomfortable I would take a handful of Motrin and Sally Forth.  I would visit my old friend the osteopath he had the standard treatment available which included a kind adjustment,  prednisone, In the good kind of NSAID called diclofenac or voltaren, the creme you can buy over the counter.  If you take oral Diclofenac it's  a clever type of Motrin that doesn't tear your stomach up as much.  Switching to Motrin,  however, I became wedded to Pepcid to calm the burning in my stomach. The 400 mg of Motrin just didn't get the job done so I was pushing back up to 800 mg.  But we used to call Vitamin-M back when I had a young man's stomach.

Snow came early in the valleys and mountain passes of the Sierra Nevada and Christmas came early in the Rockies. I found myself yet again back out west on business. This time in the High desert of Nevada.  It was here II would fight my first battle with pneumonia. Laying in a remote bed In a particular remote area of the country I took a deep breath out and heard the snap, crackle, and pot of having breakfast cereal in my lungs. Oh great I thought, I really did it the time.  Not wanting to be an emergency evac victim out of the middle of nowhere, a stunt I would no doubt hear about for the rest of my life, I choose to hang in for the next 14-hour day.  And then the next one, And then the next one. After that I fled the state on the next flight out, landing about 1600 local just in time to drive up to Urgent Care to have a look see at what was happening inside my lungs. This time I was handed not just another round of prednisone, I was giving antibiotics, and a fat inhaler of albuterol to clear up the infection in my lungs. Having read the book by Sarno about the proper way to care for your back, I had discovered some of the psychosomatic nature of back injury and put forth to running  to keep everything aligned and in adjustment.  This was no longer possible in the middle of December when you're flat on your back with pneumonia.  So of course sciatica returned for me.  It was Christmas week 2024.  

Eventually my lungs cleared up and I was able to get back to you running and trying to care for the growing pain in my lower leg. 

This time I would visit my primary care MD and have him him put in the prescriptions for prednisone and the new medication gabapentin. As it turns out prednisone and gabapentin are also two very good medications when you are taking care of an elderly German Shepherd Dog with back pain issues.  And by the way the prescription strength of the two medications were precisely the same as the ones my primary provider had written. 25 mg prednisone, 100 mg gabapentin. Coincidence? I think not. 

Rolling into the spring I was back in the pink, feeling strong and ready to rebuild what I had been losing. Playing soccer became my number one priority. Getting back to the field provides both fun, exercise, and the necessary cocktail of energy when you're in the zone and flooded with endorphins.  

Complete happiness was always just one Sunday morning away. I also added a weekday game in the over 50 league.  Havi gone over 60 years old in December shortly before experiencing my first bout with pneumonia, I had pushed 10 years past entry into the over 50 league, I was no longer a ringer.  

Wanting to get back to your former player status but having taken one on the chin through the winter and summer months I was 40 lb above my target weight for maximum performance on the field. Flooded with advertisements for next gen GLP-1 products on the internet I eventually succumbed to the vanity of losing weight with a simple injection.  Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the GLP-1 revolution. After being cleared by the online GLP-1 army of Internet medical doctors, I received the product and it went to work. Oh did it work. Weight drop seemed like it came overnight. The side effects of the first generation product, was just  a brief misstep in history. 

The new side effects were brilliant. Enhanced memory, appetite suppressant, and a boost of Vitamin K12, mixed in with the compounding. I was shedding weight and within 6 weeks had lost 25 lb without even breaking a sweat. I found myself hating carbohydrates and craving chicken with a green leafy substrate I wasn't familiar with. 

The effects were  physical but they were also mental.  I had discovered the Fountain of youth.  I committed to playing more soccer and pretending I had reversed the hands of time.  I was clearly in my 20s again.  Three more trips out west were shaping up and I was ready to go.  My health had returned over the spring and summer and I was as strong as ox.  Not really, but I pretended. The first trip I have already described, and it involved actual hiking in the mountains in Kings Canyon in Sequoia National Forest. The second trip put me back in Vegas for a convention and the lecture circuit.  My lectures tend to take 4 hours on my feet these days. My first lecture, which was on Tuesday, I stood for four and a half hours before I told the audience I was done and walked out headed for the bar. On Wednesday, I stoud about 4 hours as well, before tapping out and telling the gathered listeners that I was once again headed to the bar.  It was of course Vegas, And what happens in Vegas should, of course stay there.  

The following day was the convention, but I set up other meetings requiring me to drive places and meet people. I made it back for the convention and decided to change out of my sensible foot gear, the hiking boots I had worn in the mountain passes of California and high deserts of Nevada into sandals more familiar in the Berkeley regions of California.  Standing at a convention in Birkenstocks my back would pay the price.  After drinks that night I was back in my hotel wondering if this time I had screwed the pooch.  

At about 3:00 a.m. I knew I was going home and adjusted my ticket on my mobile app to leave the following afternoon.  The return flight in steerage to the east coast, made easier by an available asile seat. I was back in my own bed by 9:00 p.m. I rested up and was looking forward to playing soccer on Sunday morning having originally decided that week that I had planned to stay in Vegas and would missing that Sunday morning game. Happiness was on my mind.

As I stepped out onto the putch Sunday morning I noticed I was nursing a slight tightness in my left Achilles tendon. But that's insufficient for me too abandon the game that I love.  When I stepped off the field and hour and a half later I was feeling every day of my 60 years along with the rush of every endorphin the human body can produce.  “I am, I am, I am, Superman and I can do anything.”  REM, circa my 20’s.  Assholes. 

But my day was not over, I needed to spring over to the office, for a quick check in on things, since I had been gone back and forth to the West Coast literally the past two previous weeks.  After that I promised one of my best friends from the '90s that I would help him begin his move to a foreign land. That move required shifting around many large boxes and the movement of two large beds including headboards footboards and mattresses.  Remember that REM song? Not true. 

By the evening I was crushed, My back was sore,but I was alive.  The normal work week would follow and I continued with my normal vibe of stretching, pushing myself into comfortable back positions, and pretending I was indeed, Superman.  My fatal mistake did not occur until Friday. 

During the week fortune was bestowed on my vanity as I was offered a job to be a bigwig.  The immortal words spoken by the great fighter pilot and and strategic thinker, John Boyd, resonated in my ears. “Do something or be someone”. I gave always chosen to do something, But the offer to be someone was overcoming my lesser brain.

On Friday I did something I've never done in almost a decade of doing something, I put on a suit, tie, belt, and a pair of dress shoes. Match the belt to the shoes. Match the suit color to the shirt and tie in a two to three ratio. Two stripes one solid never three stripes. Etc.   The dress shoes was the mistake.  Wearing a new pair of dress shoes I had never worn before, I walked throughout the day to various meetings and places.  By the evening my back was not only sore, it was tweaked badly.  My  stretching was providing no relief for the pain in my back as well as the leg pain creeping down from the top.  

I figured, in the morning, I would get in a run, and put into adjustment anything that I had knocked out of adjustment that week.  When Saturday morning arrived I couldn't even get out of bed.  Pain had returned to my lower back, and there was no relief in my leg from the stretches I had learned were the best for sciatica.  In particular the number four stretch where you bring your knee up and cross your leg over your other knee.  Eventually that morning I was able to stretch myself upright, the position I would maintain for the rest of the day.  When I sat down on Saturday night to watch a movie, I would never walk again.  At least I haven't ambled about as a member of a biped species, since that evening.  I remain hopeful.

In the morning, it would be time to call, 911. My mountain climbing days and dreams of yor had come to a sudden and very painful end. Had I'd been a member of the Donner party, hiking through the snow-filled passes of the Sierra Nevada mountains,  in the winter of 1846, I would have been first on the menu.