A night on the slopes

Last night I attended ski night with my youngest son and the middle school ski club. I'm so proud of him and how well he's doing. When I was at ORMS this is the same way I learned how to ski and when the opportunity came up for him this year he decided that he'd like to try it out. Now I haven't pushed skiing on my kids in the past as I was leery of getting them involved in an activity that I really didn't have a way to fund. With the ability to have him go up with the middle school he is able to go up, learn and if he decides to continue with it we'll work to make that happen. Anyhow, the school has buses that go up every Friday afternoon, yesterday I took the day off so that I could go with him.
Now as I said I learned in Middle school too and honestly I haven't skied much over the years. The last time I skied with January 1990 when a girl friend of mine and a few friends went up to Gunstock. Well 19 years and a few back surgeries later I was more than a bit nervous about getting back on the slopes. Now King Pine is a nice little mountain. Great for kids and families. After getting my gear on Brian and I headed for the chair lift. Brian offered to go up the bunny slope with me so I could get my ski legs back but I said, "Hell, No!" If I'm going to fall I want it to be up top. So we headed for the chair lift and away we went. Long story short. I didn't fall once. We got about 3 hours of skiing in and it was GREAT! I had forgotten the thrill of flying down the mountain. The fear of almost pushing yourself a little too far. Oh it was fun. I know that my body will hurt in another day or so but it was well worth it. Especially since Brian and I were able to spend some nice time together, just father and son and share a good time on the slopes. I look forward to the next trip and hopefully we can get my other boys up there too. Heidi???

A Letter to Sheri about back pain

First I'm not a doctor and I don't play one on TV. This is simply my opinion based on my own experience.
First a little background so that I don't come off as preachy.
I've had 2 back surgeries, the first was a discectomy. The second was a spinal fusion.
For the first I had a herniated disc at L4, L5. This occurred due to a fall I took. Immediately after the fall I pushed myself to get up and try to work as normal. The fall took place on a Saturday, by the following Friday I was in so much pain that I had to crawl to the toilet. When I could no longer crawl I had to have the EMT's come to carry me out of the house to the hospital where I spent a few days on Morphine. After recovering from the pain to the point where I could have physical therapy I was able to get myself to the point where I was pretty much pain free. When the pain returned I opted for surgery. The discectomy surgery wasn't that bad. Recovery was pretty easy and the pain was almost immediately gone. A year later it returned. Apparently I re-herniated the same disc. I didn't know you could do that but apparently you can. Again after a long physical therapy rehab I was able to resume normal life. I had some loss of motion in my left leg but that returned with continued exercise, mainly walking. It was about 9 months after this rehab stint that I stepped out of my car after my long daily commute that I felt that twinge, and yes a day later I could barely stand. Bring on the second surgery. The doctors told me that since I've re-herniated the same location on multiple occasions the chances of another discectomy fixing the problem were slim. They suggested that I needed to sure up the weak area by fusing the area with a double surgery including a discectomy and a Spinal Fusion. Seeing as each time I had hurt my back I ended up losing many days from work I elected to have the surgery even though it would cost me 10 weeks on my back.
The surgery went well. The recovery was HELL! The pain immediately upon waking from the surgery was the worst pain I've ever had. Weeks went by and the back pain, as I knew it, was gone. Physical therapy was great and after a few short months I was back in the gym and working out. Hell in less than a year I was doing 600 lbs. leg presses without even a twinge. (I probably still can if I could get my ass in gear)
Anyhow, the back pain that put me on my knees, crawling to the toilet, was gone after each surgery, but it was replaced with a new pain. First, I have had recurrences of the pain that puts me on my knees since my last surgery, but now I know how to deal with it and I know what it isn't. Second, since my last surgery, I've been in pain every day. My last surgery was in October 2001, you do the math. Now the pain I have every day IS different from the pain that takes your legs away, but I would caution you not to have surgery due to this new pain. This new pain is from the fact that when you have back surgery they have to peel away the muscle from your spine to get to the spine and that muscle never really attaches itself quite the same way it was before. Also, for spinal fusion, they need to take bone from your pelvic bone that they then use to help fuse your vertebrae together. This bone is chiseled out of you from a second incision. This location probably is more troublesome to me than the actual spine incision. And finally to top it all off I still have time when the good old pain comes back and I can barely stand. Now don't give up hope! Had I known then what I know now I would not have had my surgeries. Sadly when you're in so much pain that you can't tie your own shoes or wipe your own ass you don't really care what will stop the pain. Please, please take your time and relax. You need to understand what is causing the pain in order to learn how to cope with it. Now I can't tell you that you will never be in pain again. But I can tell you that you can manage the pain and for much of your life you won't even know you have it. Don't worry; I'm not going to tell you the pain is all in your head. It's not, it's real and it hurts. However, the cure for your pain starts in your head and by using your head, or your mind, along with exercise and/or physical therapy you can beat this pain. I'm going to stop typing now and recommend you read some books that helped me. Read and walk. Learn how your body reacts to stresses and how you can work to teach your body not to cause you as much pain. If you are currently in so much pain that you can't walk please know that I have been there and I know what it's like. But also know that from the other side of surgery you won't be in any better position to deal with the pain that will probably return. You will just have some nice scars. Read the books, get physical therapy, walk, walk, walk, exercise, relax, stretch, relax some more. It's a job but it's worth it.

Recommended reading:
To Be or Not To Be... Pain-Free: The Mindbody Syndrome by Marc D. Sopher
Healing Back Pain: The Mind-Body Connection (Paperback) by John E. Sarno
any other book by Dr. Sarno.

So long to summer.

Well another summer has flown by. This summer was actully very busy for me and my family. My kid sister finally got married. What a great wedding. I took my boys camping up in the woods of Maine. We went white water rafting, fishing and saw some Moose. We spent a couple of days with my father. The boys got to ride horses and learn how to care for them as well. I think it was one of our best vacations. Work has been nice and busy which helped to speed the time along. I got a promotion a few weeks ago and I look forward to getting things up and running in the new position just as soon as I can clear a few things from my current plate load. My kids are all doing well. The Olympics were a great inspiration for my boys, who are now both looking forward to the fall/winter swim season. Way to go Michael Phelps! Football has started again and both of my younger boys are both back into the full swing of practices. Autum is pretty much here. The nights are cool and dry and the days are sunny and breezy. I love Autum. I finally finished stacking all of my wood for the season. I do have 2 more cord on order but I have what I need for this seasons heating. I hope it arrives before the snow flies as I'd like to get it stacked and ready for next year. Man the cost for cord wood really shot up as did the demand. I'm trying to get a head start on next year. Thankfully we've done a great job this summer with oil. We'll see what the winter holds.
Well, enjoy the last weekend of summer and enjoy the wonderful weather. Unless of course you're on the gulf coast and evacuating from Gustav.

All Wet

As a kid I was on the swim team. I love the water. My kids love the water. And all of them, at one time or another, have been on the swim team too. Currently my youngest is the only Stevens still on the team. Each season the team has a fund raiser. This season we swam to raise money for Heifer International. We had a family swim and encouraged all of the swimmers and their families to swim laps for money. So this past Sunday I joined my son and the rest of the swimmers in the pool. It's been a while since I did any laps. It felt good. I swam fairly constant for an hour. I even raced a friend of mine who had also been on the team when we were kids. I think I edged him out but who knows. My butterfly isn't what it used to be but everything else felt pretty darn good. Yes, I've been a bit sore since Sunday but it's a good muscle sore. While I don't see myself joining the masters anytime soon. It's not out of the realm of possibilities. Besides the swim I've also been trying to get on the treadmill more often. Since my bad BP grade I've only been to the dungeon once. I've been busy ok!? geeze I'll get back soon but I am trying to shed my musclehead mentality and get back to a whole body workout. Well ,back to work.

166/98

So I was doing my forth set of inclined dumbbell presses. The weight wasn't too much, nice concentration and contraction. I felt good. I was adjusting my shoulder blades on the bench when I got a sudden wave of pain and heat washing over me from the base of my skull to the front of my head. I calmly put my weights down and took some long deep breaths. I wasn't in a lot of pain but the suddeness of the headache that set is was amazing. I could feel my heart beating in my temples. Needless to say I brought my workout to an early end. I went up stairs and layed down with an icepack on the back of my head. After a few hours the pain was down to a mild headache. My wife asked if I thought my blood pressure was up. I hadn't really concidered it. My son needed a couple of folders for school so I went up to the local Rite-Aid with him to get them and while I was there I decided to sit at one of those BP machines. 144/95. hmm. The next day I awoke with a bad headache again. Now, I have been fighting off whatever cold/flu has been going around the house so whether this was a normal Migraine or Sinus headache I wasn't sure, but I knew I needed to travel later in the week so I took a day to sleep. I called the doctor to pacify my wife and they couldn't see me until the next day at 4:15pm. So I woke now on Tuesday, went to work, left early, feeling relatively crappy and went to vistit the Nurse. I think I scared her with my story as she took my BP and recorded me at 142/94. She got my doctor who took my BP and clocked me in at a lovely 166/98. Man!!! So, I'm now on a low dosage of BP medication , which she says she'll probably increase before she decreases, and I've been instructed to stop all supliments and lose 20 lbs. I told my Doctor that I've been exercising and was very suprised by this. I told her about my blog and she said to keep working out and to keep fighting father time. "It's a losing battle" I'll use these last words of hers as motivation. I'll lose the weight. I'll lower my BP and I'll increase the lean muscle mass. (some how) So here's to the newest challenge.

The Dungeon

It's not much but it's mine. The only thing I'm missing now is a chin up bar. I've got my eyes open for one that I can attach to the overhead beams.
It's a tight squeeze but if I'm careful I don't bump my head too often.

Rebuilding

I got my first set of weights from my parents for Christmas when I was 10 or 11. I got a straight bar with about 20 lbs of weights on it. I also got a chin up bar that went in the door frame of my bedroom. I think I stubbed my toe on the weights and hit my head on the bar in my door frame more than I used them, but as with many young boys my desire grow up big and strong was there. Jump ahead to freshman year in high school before I did anything closer to serious lifting. A few friends and I started working out with some of the seniors behind the school with a mishmash of barbells and old benches. We eventually got permission to clean out a storage closet in the gym and set up 'The Weight Room' . I remember after one workout being afraid that my arms would never fully straighten out again. The next day I had what we called the 'Coco-crispy cripples', where your arms were so sore that you couldn't hold the spoon to eat your coco-crispies. Today the same High School has a state of the art weight room with real equipment. Boy kids today are spoiled. (lol) Anyhohw, on again off again with the lifting through high school and college and I was struggling my senior year in college to get above 200 lbs. So now 20 years later I'm squatting what I used to curl and I'm pushing to get down to 200 lbs. Now I'm rebuilding. My schedule doesn't allow for much gym time so I've been building my own gym. A few years ago I got a bench and some dumbbells, followed shortly there after by a BowFlex treadmill. A year later I bought a basic Smith Machine, a heavy bag and a stand. My wife is very supportive as I take to the basement in the evenings to workout. For my 40th bday she suprised me with a set of BowFlex SelectTech dumbbells. These things are great! They give me a decent amount of weight without taking up a lot of space and since I'm sharing my home gym with my oil tank, furnace, and the rest of the junk in my basement I don't have a lot of space to spare. So while it might not be Golds, a few nights a week I sneak off to my dungeon weight room and rebuild. I like the results so far. Let's hope I can keep it up.