Physical Therapy

Therapy has been a long, slow slog. I haven't been getting better as fast as I hoped (it's never that quick) or as well as the doctor had hoped. In fact, I went back to see Dr. Z. this weekend she was surprised I wasn't progressing a little quicker. I explained that they had me move laterally in PT and it proved to be overdoing it, the lateral movement re-inflaming the bursitis. Ice helped, but she wasn't sure there wasn't other things at work, so she ordered an x-ray.

On the x-ray, my Achilles showed to be thicker than average, which may be putting excess stress/pressure on the bursa sac. Also, there is some calcification starting there as well, probably due to being OLD and also a history of athletic endeavor. Swell. She also recommended I continue with PT and also get a gait analysis.

So, off to gait analysis at Drayer Physical Therapy I went. I met with Kris, the PT there who took videos of me walking. The command is to "walk naturally" which is funny because how else would you walk, except that now someone is videotaping you walk, which makes you walk unnaturally because walking naturally is what you do when no one is looking. It's all so complicated. It turns out that I am VERY flatfooted, which is causing a roll inward of my foot to push off properly, and this is putting pretty intense pressure on my Achilles. The Rx is to get orthotics, inserts that will close the gap between my foot and the ground to create a more natural and efficient footstrike. I am just glad he didn't recommend those big, ugly Herman Munster shoes.

Adrift by Steven Callahan

What would you do if you were sailing the South Atlantic and your boat went down in a storm? Would you be able to keep your wits about you for the time you were able to free your life raft? Board your now sinking boat to grab supplies? How quickly could you act? What would you do when you realized the nearest land, your best chance of survival, was more than two-and-a-half months away.

Adrift: 76 Days Lost at Sea is the true story of Steven Callahan, an experienced sailor and sailboat builder who faces exactly this situation. This book is a classic of seafaring and survival, an epic tale of one man's struggle against the sea, against his mind, against the innumerable obstacles a situation like this presents. It is a story of resourcefulness, courage, resilience, and borderline madness.

Callahan gains many insights into himself on the journey, not the least of which is his relationship with the nature that surrounds him, including the doradoes ("my doggies") who come to torture him by bumping him in his sleep yet sustain him, the harrowing ramming of sharks, and the triggerfish (the butlers) who come along at just the right times to provide another meal. There are storms which threaten to capsize him yet bring much-needed water. A sun which bakes him through but never completely dries anything.

Further, he is constantly tinkering with the raft to keep it afloat, messing with the water still to make sure it keeps producing the meager supply that keeps him (barely) alive. Some of this description gets a little far into the minutiae, and I wish his publisher had read these sections with a more critical eye (to be fair, Callahan also offers drawings of his fixes, which puts them into perspective). However, his ingenuity and resourcefulness are something to behold.

When I was first diagnosed with cancer, I read a lot of books about survival and the courage it takes to face what seem like indomitable odds. There are other books in the survival genre I liked more, but this book certainly belongs alongside those other favorites. Adrift will appeal to sailors and non-sailors alike, transcending its subject matter to talk about the endurance of a man, about our drive to live. Callahan tells his story with such humanity and sometimes humorous insight it's impossible not to laugh. He can then turn it just as quickly as the weather, making you shift in your seat and pull your toes in for safety. Adrift makes for a brisk read, but it will stay with you for a long time.

Overheard....

So I am at the orthodontist (signing my life savings over to them, bunch of bloodthirsty leeches) with Li'l Fish when this lady starts talking with her friend about how much she hates their family dentist. She's going on and on about it, in a fairly loud voice, then closes with: "And then he's giving me a hard time because [son] his teeth are rotting from the Gatorade he drinks. But, he really LIKES his sports drinks. Stupid Dentist."

Um. Yeah. It's the dentist who's stupid.

Once a Runner by John L. Parker

Once a Runner is the story of Quenton Cassady, a mile runner in college during the Vietnam War era. It was originally self-published by Parker, and copies were sold out in that initial run. Since then, they have been traded and passed along from one generation of runners to the next, achieving cult status along the way. It was just republished and is gaining, again, the acclaim it deserves as, perhaps, "The best novel ever written about running" as Runner's World called it.

The book reads like a race itself. It is well paced, interspersed with college hijinks, the seriousness of the era, and the back and forth of brothers in sports. It tells of Quenton's chase for a sub-4-minute mile, his obsessive training and the singular focus it takes to achieve one's goals.

To the non-runner, this book might seem arcane, with it's explanantions of training schedules and race strategies. To the runner, it might seem archaic, the brutality of his schedule in light of modern training techniques and things we now understand. Those caveats aside, it's a story worth reading, and I ended up cheering for Quenton just like when I ran track, cheering for his heart and his daring and his courage, for his willingness to accept any standard of greatness other than the one he defined for himself.

Grace...

I heard something that made me think, today. In church, they were talking about how the world has so much more and that the world is simply better at things than Christianity. If you want music, the world's is better, if you want art or writing, the world's is better. The world is even better at taking care of people and funding projects for people in need...

The only thing that Christians can offer, and do better than what the world can, is grace, the grace that was extended to us by God. We can become, in the words of my friend Vern, a conduit for God's grace. How much better might the world be if we focused on the extension of that grace to other people? How much better might my world be if I did that?

I love this video, Jessye Norman singing at the end of a four-hour rock concert in tribute to the 70th birthday of Nelson Mandela. The crowd of nearly 80,000 people is screaming for more Dire Straits when Jessye comes out. In an interview with Bill Moyers, she said as she sang the song, it was as if the crowd remembered why they were there.



May you have grace in your life, and bring grace to the lives of others...

Ankle...

I've been struggling with pretty bad ankle pain for several months now. It would occasionally get a bit better, but never went away entirely, and then it would come back worse. Well, I finally manned-up and went to the doctor. That whole thing about men and doctors...I'm not sure what that is. Hobbling to the bathroom in the morning I could barely walk, so it was time.

It turned out to be achilles bursitis, which is an inflammation of the bursa sac at the back of the heel. There is a small sac of fluid that enables the tendon to slide easily over the bone, but it occasionally becomes inflamed in athletes.

So, it's a month of Physical Therapy and treatments and then, hopefully, I will be able to get back to working out. And running. Because i am getting fat and lazy.

A Soldier of the Great War by Mark Helprin

I spent a lot of time reading this book, often putting it down for extended periods. It's not that it was an excessively difficult book to read, but more that it was so incredibly dense, rich like an Italian chocolate espresso cake with buttercream icing. As such, it was also excessively beautiful, the prose of Helprin's style reading more like poetry than a story.

Alessandro Giuliani is at the end of his life, taking a trolley car to visit relatives in Italy. Through a series of events, he winds up walking with a young man who works at a local propeller manufacturer, recounting his life. He tells of his youth, in the house of his father and mother, who gave him a life of old world love. I love that he is aware, even in his youth, that he is living an idyllic and beautiful life. His family is beautfully drawn, and I am reminded of the best that family has to offer, the warmth and charm of a family painted in detailed brush strokes of golds, greens and earthy tones.

Alessandro goes to school to study aesthetics, which encourages him to see beauty in the things he experiences, the world in which he lives. Shortly after, he enlists in the Italian navy to fight in what are the beginnings of the Great War, World War I. He travels throughout the war, on a sinking ship, on a secret suicide mission, in the hell of prison facing execution, into the high mountains and even to the palaces of royalty. There are dark forces that shadow him and his comrades, and angels that flit hopefully around him, offering both protection and the briefest glimpses of beauty. The ability Alessandro has to see that beauty leaves him, though, as it is torn from his soul, as the idealism of his youth is destroyed, the friends he cherishes are lost, and the family he loves disappears.

In the end, stripped of everything, it is Alessandro's basic humanity, his insistence on continuing to look for beauty, and to see it, that moves me. The book is at once a vast and epic poem, an adventurous tale of a young man, and a love story, told with deft skill by a master storyteller. Read this book.

Don't Be THAT Guy...

You might remember my advice to turn off your cell phones in meetings. The same holds forth for cellular devices in church, movie theaters and any other place where the squawk of your phone is going to cause heads to turn, brows to knit and fists to clench in that snow-capped knuckle look that is so popular these days.

I really need to add this, though, because someone didn't get the advice. Not exactly, anyway. So here is the necessary follow up to that previous post. Ready? Don't be the guy that forgets to turn off his cell phone at the presentation ESPECIALLY if you're the guy GIVING the presentation.

I didn't think it needed to be said. I was wrong. Don't be THAT guy.

Cool Website...

I am not even quite sure how I found this website, but it takes a unique perspective on the products it sells by animating them in an integrated way. It's what might happen if the makers of Mouse Trap teamed up with Rube Goldberg to create a European e-commerce site. It takes a while to load the site, but again, I think it's worth it. CLICK HERE to take a look.

I Don't Care Who You Are...

....this is just plain funny.



Good find by Len.

The Year in Pictures

Every year, The Boston Globe features a review of the year, based on photographs that defined the year. You can see this year's by CLICKING HERE. Note: It's three separate parts.

This one hit me hard:


I liked this one:


One of the things that I realized this year was just how much strife there is in the world, and how incredibly blessed we are to be so far removed, relatively speaking, from it.

Back At It

So, I am trying to get back into shape. There are several liabilities, not the least of which seems too be a lingering Achilles tendinitis problem. This getting older thing is absolutely the worst. In a fair world, I am convinced, we'd all be able to go Benjamin Button and take our accumulated wisdom into our youthful, vigorous years. Youth is wasted on the young, they say.

By way of inspiration, I watched this video (I missed the 2009 version, so I'll look forward to Hulu getting that one up, too)...

TWINS!

My brother and his wife are having TWINS! I am so stoked for them...and, I get to be "The Fun Uncle" now...

Thanksgiving: Two Perspectives

This year has been a rough-and-tumble one for the country, the region and for a lot of us. I wanted to take a moment to make sure I wished you and your family a very Happy Thanksgiving. I am reminded equally of two great Americans with distinctly insightful looks at this uniquely American holiday.

Theodore Roosevelt offered a humbling reminder to show our gratitude, not just say it, when he said, "Let us remember that, as much has been given us, much will be expected from us, and that true homage comes from the heart as well as from the lips, and shows itself in deeds."

Of equal importance was the observation of Kevin James, who put it perhaps more succinctly when he said, "Thanksgiving, man; Not a good day to be my pants."

Whether you're focused on gathering close to friends and family or simply getting some prime turkey, I hope you and yours have a safe and wonderful Thanksgiving. And, thank you.

So Cool....

Liu Bolin is the invisible man. He's an artsit who paints himself to become invisible. To wit:



You can find even more by CLICKING HERE. There are some amazing examples...

Amazing Story...

In 1986, Mkele Mbembe was on holiday in Kenya after graduating from Northwestern University. On a hike through the bush, he came across a young bull elephant standing with one leg raised in the air. The elephant seemed distressed, so Mbembe approached it very carefully.

He got down on one knee and inspected the elephant's foot and found a large piece of wood deeply embedded in it. As carefully and as gently as he could, Mbembe worked the wood out with his hunting knife, after which the elephant gingerly put down its foot. The elephant turned to face the man, and with a rather curious look on its face, stared at him for several tense moments.

Mbembe stood frozen, thinking of nothing else but being trampled. Eventually the elephant trumpeted loudly, turned, and walked away. Mbembe never forgot that elephant or the events of that day.

Twenty years later, Mbembe was walking through the Chicago Zoo with his teenaged son. As they approached the elephant enclosure, one of the creatures turned and walked over to near where Mbembe and his son Tapu were standing. The large bull elephant stared at Mbembe, lifted its front foot off the ground, then put it down. The elephant did that several times then trumpeted loudly, all the while staring at the man.

Remembering the encounter in 1986, Mbembe couldn't help wondering if this was the same elephant. Mbembe summoned up his courage, climbed over the railing and made his way into the enclosure. He walked right up to the elephant and stared back in wonder. The elephant trumpeted again, wrapped its trunk around one of Mbembe' s legs and slammed him against the railing, killing him instantly.

Probably wasn't the same elephant.

Car Buying by the Numbers...

11-07-96 - Purchase date my Honda Acccord. Since then...

4 - Doors on the car, which put a small dent in my soul, at the time
5 - Speed manual transmission, it's saving grace at the time..and it's black
0 - Accidents, large or small
0 - Major mechanical malfunctions
0 - Tickets (lucky, I am sure)
1 - Little Fish who came home from the hospital as a newborn
1 - Parades the car has been in (I inadvertantly turned onto a parade route and was quickly escorted off...still, it counts)
2 - Clutches
3 - Homes in which I have lived
5 - Jobs
8 - Pets (doesn't include fish)
13 - States visited
63 - Approximate number of oil changes
252,132 - Miles driven (picture taken as I turned it over a quarter of a million)

10 - Number of times that would be driving around the entire Earth (over the poles)
11-07-09 Date of sale, 13 years to the day

1 - week I have owned The Replacement, a 2006 Infiniti G35 Coupe. Some big, durable shoes it needs to fill, but we're off to a good start...

Bike for Collin

Know anyone that needs a 54cm road bike. You're not going to find a better buy that THIS ONE. You might remember Collin, who was a big part oof the inspiration for this year's team Fish LiveSTRONG ride. He continues to fight cancer and the fine folks of Teh Lounje at RoadBike Review built a bike and are auctioning it off as a fundraiser. Click above to see the auction. Go Collin!

Veteran's Day

I make a point to touch base This from my friend Eric, who is currently serving in the Air Force, every year at this time. This was his reply:

...today I had the good fortune to meet some real heroes.

I spoke at a small town Veterans Day celebration today in St Peters, MO. I was amazed at the hundreds of vets whose hands I shook. They had served from World War 2 to the present. The one vet that was most unforgettable was an elderly gentleman that was tottering away from the event at the end; he was by himself and I just wanted to make sure I shook his hand and said thank you and good-bye.

When I walked over to him to tell him goodbye, he slowly looked up at me (he couldn’t have been much over 5 feet tall), deliberately eyed my rack of ribbons and then said: “I bet I’ve got one you don’t.” I smiled, laughed, and said “I’m sure you do”. Then I took a guess. “Is it from the Korean War?”—although he clearly looked old enough to have served in WW2, I didn’t want to insult him by over-estimating his age. He answered by taking a trembling hand and slowly reaching inside his jacket and into his shirt pocket. Then, he haltingly pulled out two ribbons I had never seen in my life. I took one and turned it over in my hand so I could read its front. I nearly hit the floor when I realized it was for landing on Omaha Beach during Operation Overlord. At first I was struck dumb. Then all I could think to do was say how honored I was to speak with him and simply say “thank you” to this living legend—a man who had survived D-Day.

Not knowing how to speak intelligently to a man that had already awed me so much, I simply said “it must have taken tremendous courage to step off that landing craft and into bad-guy country”. He looked at me and deadpanned, “I didn’t have much choice, the people in the back were pushing.” (It wasn’t until later that I thought, why were the guys in back pushing? If I was in back I’d be saying “no hurry, you guys take your time up there; I’m fine back here).

He then went on to say:

I wasn’t one of the first ones in, so we’d heard some chatter on the radio about how bad it was. We’d heard people were getting mowed down and some were even drowning as soon as they stepped off their landing craft. I’ve never liked water, so I was more worried about drowning than anything else. I was really pretty scared of drowning. As it turned out, that wasn’t a problem, when the front of our landing craft came down the bodies were piled so deep I was able to walk on them all the way to the beach.

In my lifetime, I have had a number of heroes. This man, stooped, trembling, and moving slowly, now towers above them all.

Join me in thanking this giant by taking full advantage of all the rights that he and other veterans have defended. Vote in every election; write letters to the editor of your local paper; volunteer your time for a worthy cause; fulfill your jury duty; be a volunteer fire fighter; mentor a child; represent your country well while abroad; live your life, and be a good American. By doing all these things, veterans will be proud to know their sacrifices were not in vain. This is the thanks Americans can give. Live your lives well, as productive citizens should.

Quoted with permission.

All Saints Day -- Reflections and Meditations

I went for a hike to the top of a local mountain with my daughter and our dog today. It's All Saint's Day, the day we remember the departed saints who have gone before us into eternal rest. I had a great time getting up to the top, hiking and talking with my daughter in our easy, casual style.

Church was good, and I spent time in prayer and thought for a departed friend who lost her fight with cancer this year. I miss you, Terri.

I also got out for a bike ride, my first in almost two months. Again, I spent a lot of time thinking about friends who have passed into their rest. I had someone ask me about the meditative nature of my workouts, and this is an example. My mind focuses on the things that I don't get to think about in the hectic nature of my general week.

I also spent time this weekend in discussion about how we, as men, have a tendency to hang on to our sins, our garbage. We believe they offer more than the incredible power of our Lord. Of course, it's a lie, but we like to hang onto that garbage. I was reminded of this scene from The Mission. To set it up, DeNiro has been persecuting the Guarani, a tribe of local natives, enslaving them. He meets Jeremy Irons, a priest, and his heart begins to soften, but he recognizes he needs to do penance...he needs to hang on to his "stuff", in this case the armor and weapons that are a symbol of his old self, a little longer. Watch this, and recognize the freedom God offers us in forgiveness, and let's let go of our stuff"....