Saturday, July 25, 2009

If we can land a man on the moon...

A couple weeks ago, I heard a radio report about the lack of water donations for homeless folks, citing that 2 people had already died of heat related causes. I thought, WTF? and went down to Costco, picked up several cases of water, then headed to the north Glendale library to drop them at a donation center. In the parking lot of the driveway sat one of the stupidest things I have ever seen. See for yourself;


It made me wonder if maybe it was children's reading hour.

Then I realized that the only addition needed to make it perfect would be a bike rack and an extension ladder. The perfect shuttle vehicle...

No. Still stupid.

Friday, July 17, 2009

MTB Complications

I never would have believed it, but it happenedto me so it must be true.

Got in a great ride in Prescott, Granite Basin with some good buddies and had a ball. The trails were in beautiful shape, not too sandy and pretty smooth. We had lunch in Prescott then a leisurely drive back to Phoenix.

Monday morning, I got to work at my usual time feeling great. At 8:30 am almost to the minute, I felt a stabbing pain in my lower right abdomen. It reached the stage of cold sweats, doubled over, ow ow ow ow. Thinking maybe some kind of abdomenal flu or something (I'm no doctor), I went home and moaned the day away on the couch.

No better Tuesday. Went to the doctor and we're thinking appendix, infection, kind of strange, and painful I might add. Prescriptions and go home.

Wednesday, seems a little better, but still pretty bad.

Thursday, Doc says head to the ER. We do xrays and CT scan with some kind of contrast injection. About 30 minutes later the Doc brings in a urologist. He says Kidney stones and progressing kidney failure because the tube is blocked from the kidney to the bladder. Turns out that the contrast agent is hard on the kidneys and one that's in trouble can fail with that stuff in there.

I have to hand it to John C. Lincoln. When they decide an emergency surgery is in order, they don't mess around. About 30 minutes later everything goes dark.

I woke up little while later feeling pretty good, except in the one orifice that can be used to grant access to the bladder and kidneys.

The urologist inserted a laser gun through that orifice and took out the death star with a few proton torpedoes. Then up went a stent to keep everything flowing in the right direction. His final words were something to the effect that I am expected in his office in about 2 weeks when he is going to reach back up there with a grappling hook and yank out the stent. Just thinking about it, I cringe. I really hope he whacks me over the head with a rubber mallet to distract me first.

For those who don't know which orifice I'm referring to, go to Wikipedia and look up Laser Lithotripsy. If you have any imagination at all, you will understand why you don't want to be awake for this one.

Apparently, the jarring from Sunday's ride worked loose to stones, which caused the drama. I'm on the mend now, But If you can prevent this from happening, I highly recommend you do so. Drink lots of water.

All that said, I'm off the bike for 2-3 weeks. Still hoping to race in Flagstaff August 22nd, but I may trail the pack by quite a bit.