The Mountain Isn't Coming To Schlake

I started this because I went to to the doctors office about a cyst, and after the blood tests they felt that I didn't have two months. I had more blood tests. My lack of progress has receeded quite a bit. I still feel amazingly better (for instance, I've had a minor couch recently, but I'm not bedridden and deathly ill as in previous years), but my numbers are bad. Something like spontaneous pancreas failure bad. I shall have to work harder, and eat better. Dr. Borchers has chastised me in the past about my love of chocolate chip cookies. I guess, though, that I should never give him the chance to do that again. Last night, instead of going out to eat because I'm lazy, I stayed home and ate cooked greens (though with a bit more bacon and bacon grease than I know I should have) and a soup of beets, beet greens, chicken broth, and egg noodles. Today I'm probably still in deep trouble despite my wonderful meal last night, but at least I have frightening fluorescent orange urine. My breakfast today, rather than a burrito purchased in the Hispanic Food Triangle, I'm eating green leafy vegetables. For lunch I have carrots and a cucumber. Hopefully I can be strong.

An Update Is Needed

I haven't posted because I've had little good news to share. News is still bad, but it is sharable news.

My third-grade nurse (who had to remove a pencil eraser from my right ear) felt that seeing a physical therapist about my ankle would help. My surgeon didn't send me because he thought I'd recover on my own through my activities. Overall, however, the problems and pains have been problematic in my own eyes.

When I had my appointment today Kelby was surprised at how much mobility I had in my ankle. I still get the feeling that I'm much more recovered than the average fat and lazy person would be, despite how fat and lazy I am. I think my ankle is in terrible shape, but I measure it against my right ankle, which is in great shape. But given his reaction to my condition, my surgeon was probably pretty correct about how well I'd do on my own. I'm just not happy enough with my own progress.

Long pointless meandering story short: I have physical therapy now, twice a week, and he's going to be aggressive with me. I like that. Today I had to do multiple exercises to exhaustion. The one felt like exhaustion would never come, but when it came it was fast and painful. In yoga I do standing poses on one foot to strengthen my ankle. In PT I stand on one foot and trhow things against a wall then catch them again. I think PT is harrder. In yoga I have to be still.

The actual referral to PT lists "wants to run" as my reason for needing PT. Over a year ago I was on tack to go running with Dr. Borchers, but my surgery killed that idea.

Walking Sometimes Happens

I've gone on a few walks since I last updated. Nothing major. Nothing as long as what I've posted about. More often short walks about a mile long. The walks haven't been bad, but for the past three weeks I've been doing therapeutic yoga, where therapeutic means torturous. Of course, since I judge the success of an activity by how badly it messes my ankle up afterwards, the yoga is a clear winner for helping me. I'm definitely making a lot of progress from the yoga at the expense of being crippled after the sessions. The last session on Sunday hurt my right foot too, so I've been limping on both of them. (It was a massive toe cramp.)

I feel like I'm on the cusp of being all fixed. Stair don't quite work out like they did before this happened, but they work out pretty well compared to how they have been working out these past few months. Walking sometimes happens naturally and fluidly. I did a little left-footed warrior-3 in yoga. (I flailed around like a tentacle covered Lovecraftian windmill though.)

Jogging!

Tonight I went out for about 1/2 a mile walking. I did two warm up jogs of maybe a handful of yards each. Then, about the 1/4 mile point, I jogged for 100 steps. It isn't far I know, but I'm certain my ankle will tell me it was a terrible idea tomorrow. I'm also certain that my ankle will improve a lot by next week because of the pain I caused it.

No pain baby, no gain, no pain no gain.

Walking: harder

It is harder to walk tonight than it was last night. I obviously did some good on that last long walk, but I need to wait before I try again.

Not Walking

I need to go to Wal*Mart. I know I can walk that far, but I just walked last night and it was hard to walk today. I don't think I should taunt the ankle by being so hard on it twice in a row. So I think I'll bicycle there.

Walking: hard

Well, the walk paid off in pain. I can barely walk today. There isn't any swelling this morning though, which is good.

A Longer Walk

I took a longer walk tonight than the last one I posted about. Not much longer though. It went much better for me than the last walk. My ankle hurts now though, but there is almost no swelling.

.275 decamiles!

I walked .275 decamiles tonight. Around the middle I really thought I was about to collapse because my left leg just wasn't able to hold me up. But it got better. I did rest some though, at El Camino, a little more than half way through my trip. We'll see if I can walk tomorrow now.

Walked

I walked 11 decimiles tonight in a single burst of walking. It's a three-month record for me!

It started out painful, but as I approached 1/2 a mile I felt warmed up and my foot didn't hurt much. As I neared 3/4 of a mile my foot was hurting again, so I abandoned plans to walk further and headed for home. Overall, I'm happy.

Stitches: Out

I go back in four weeks for another check up, but as of now my stitches are out. And I have athlete's foot on that foot. I was also told to stop jumping. Jumping isn't normal so I shouldn't be doing that. He expects me to have full mobility back in about eight weeks.

Ankle Strength: You Don't Notice It Until You Are Missing It

Stairs are dangerous for me. I've spent some time trying to go down them on both feet very slowly, and I think my problems are entirely in ankle strength. I seem to have the range of motion to step down, but no physical strength to do so. I can't lift my own body weight onto the ball of my left foot. I can't even stand on my left food. Jumping is right out. All of these things seem related to ankle strength.

Showering: Allowed

I'm down to adhesive bandages on my leg. I'm told I can shower as long as I don't soap or scrub the wound, and I dry it carefully before rebandaging it. In nine days the stitches come out.

I have basically no inversion or exversion of the ankle. My dorsal flex and extend seems poor to me. The docotor didn't care about the first two, and didn't seem concerned about the last two.

Walking

I had my surgery. It went well. I was awake for all of it, though a little loopy. Now I'm trying to learn to walk again. It hurts. My ankle feels very strange when I twist my foot back and forth. I'm missing quite a bit of range of motion. The last time the doctor checked it, a little over two weeks ago, he said I wouldn't need physical therapy. Hopefully I still won't when he checks it again on Tuesday. Hopefully I'll be allowed to shower soon.

Surgery!

Tomorrow morning I have surgery again. It will be back to the crutches for me I'm told. But my ankle will be free moving, which means I'm close to walking again.

Microbes

The NY Times has an interesting article: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/13/science/13micro.html

If you've paid attention to medical science then you've probably noticed that it mostly operates on fear and ignorance. My mom once asked me why doctors wouldn't tell her about herbal remedies. My answer was that Christianity had demonized the witches, and medicine has continued to carry that torch. Years back I saw a scientific paper on detecting pregnancy. Some amazingly smart "scientist" had discovered what everyone has known for thousands of years (the Greeks were the first to writ it down). But now that a paper had been written on it, it was actually real.

So anyway. The what-if question. What if diabetes is just a problem with intestinal fauna just like that woman in the article had?

Back To My Old Weight

I weighed myself recently. The big metal boot and the Teva added some extra weight to me, but I don't think I'm looking for pound-accuracy. I'm back up to just under my pre-Death-By-Mountain weight. In the past couple of weeks I'd noticed I'd gotten bigger. It's been seven weeks of a broken ankle, and so that isn't too surprising. Hopefully I can send it back down in a few weeks when I'm allowed to walk again.

More on my ankle

One bit of good news is the physical therapy. Lots of people have been telling me to make sure I do my physical therapy because if I don't I'll never recover that lost movement. When one person told me I had a long and painful PT ahead of me I brazenly said that no, I didn't, it would be easy. He told me that was a good attitude.

Yesterday the doctor had me show him my range of movement in my ankle. After which he said that there was no reason to send me to physical therapy. I don't have as much movement in the left ankle as I do in the right, but I have quite a bit. And once those screws come out I expect it will be even better.

They are making me get a physical for this surgery. I asked why I didn't need a physical for the last surgery, and they told me I had had one because I wouldn't have had the surgery without it. They were insistent that I had one, and that I couldn't have had surgery without one. And I'm very positive I didn't have one, because I'd remember it.

I'll probably be awake for the next surgery. It is pretty minor. It has to happen in the OR though, it is too involved for an office visit.

That was a really long appointment.

My calf has shrunk. My leg is really dry and flaky.

The next surgery is two weeks from today. After that, I should be able to walk without the giant metal boot anymore.

In a little less than eight hours I'll be at the doctor again. I've been out of the cast for about three weeks. It has been seven weeks since the surgery. It is my sincerest hope that the giant metal boot will come off today (and stay off). I hope to be able to shower soon. I hope to be able to start physical therapy. Going on long walks isn't very viable now because of how badly the boot rubs on me. Bicycle riding will be easier with out it as well. I hope to have the second surgery soon. The sooner the better.

Four Mile Bicycle Ride

I started riding a normal bicycle yesterday. It wasn't so good at first, but it got better. Today I went out for a "long" ride. I headed to Macey Center, then to Wal*Mart, then home. By the time I got to Macey my arms were hurting badly. I'm sure I'll regain that conditioning pretty quickly. I tried to ride without hands to alleviate it, but I haven't done that in a month and a half, and I was using a squirrely bicycle, so I gave up on riding that way pretty quickly. I made it about four miles at least (1/2 mile form my house to the plaza plus 1 mile from the plaza to the gym makes 3 miles overall round trip, plus the extra distance to Macey and I took a longer way home, so I had to be getting up near 4 miles). This will be easier without the boot.

Weight: Gained

I've gained weight recently. Considering how "well" (poorly?) I've eaten in the past week, I guess I expected this. I need to get back on track.

I rode a two wheeled bicycle today. The first 400 meters were great. The next 400 meters weren't so great, but it wasn't painful. My ankle just felt weird. I stopped for breakfast then. The 800 meters back home felt just fine. I'll need to go out and ride more not that I can.

I can't really pedal fast because the giant boot is in the way, and my foot isn't straight on my leg anymore, but I can pedal.

Slowly recovering

In about a week I visit the doctor again. I'm hoping that my next surgery will follow shortly thereafter because once I have the surgery I can start trying to regain my range of motion in my ankle.

(Almost) One Year

[I wrote this because my computers clock was off (a GMT versus MST problem) and so daily image archive viewer showed me the wrong day; it's actually tomorrow.]

It has been one year since my first Death By Mountain hike. Not a great year. I was very motivated right up until the surgery. Then I was bedridden for months, then I was unmotivated. As of today, I still have a broken ankle and I'm not allowed to walk or even drive.

I get around town in a recumbent hand pedaled tricycle that I borrowed from Warren. I get my cast off on Tuesday. Hand trikes are hard to ride because I'm weak in the arms.

My first post-accident yoga class is Tuesday as well. We will see how that goes in a giant plastic boot.

Overall I'm better off than I was a year ago. My change in diet rid me of illness, seasonal allergies, skin infections, and much of my happiness. I miss eating fried potatoes and chocolate as my primary diet. But, I used to be bed-ridden from illness for a week at a time several times a year, and it hasn't happened once since making the change. I used to devastated by allergies when the junipers bloomed, but this year my eyes itched a little. I used to have recurring problems with flesh eating bacteria on my bicycle seat and legs, and they have gone away, and I used to have infections on my fingernails, and they have gone away too (except when I binge on sugar).

Uphill and Downhill

Up until I broke my ankle my primary method of transportation was to ride my bicycle. With my broken ankle I'm not medically allowed to even drive, so for a little while I had to get rides everywhere. I still get rides, but I borrowed a recumbent tricycle with hand-cranks so that I'm not totally dependant on other people. The most amazing thing I've learned is how "hilly" Socorro is. I've learned this because it doesn't take much of a hill to suddenly make hand-cycling very hard.

In other news, I had a terrible reaction going on under my cast, but I assumed the pain and discomfort was a normal part of having had surgery after a broken ankle. I had started to get hives though, and they didn't go away with diphenhydramine. I went in to the clinic, and they gave me a cortizone related shot. It hurt a lot for the rest of the day. Serious pain, and I wasn't able to sleep either. But now, my ankle has about as much discomfort as it did before I broke it. I get those hives from Juniper, but a single diphenhydramine cures them for an entire year, and juniper season is long gone. I'm worried it is the staples, or the screws. I have the staples until the 22nd. Some of the screws have to be removed or I'll never be able to walk again, but not all of them are coming out. I'm kind of creeped out by the idea of metal inside my leg and I would really like it all out. But I suspect that the surgery to get that all back out would be just as major as it was to put them in, and that's a lot of trouble to go to.

Failure

I was very gung-ho to get back to this, but with a broken ankle it's all ground to a stop again.

Surgery Today!

I have surgery today. The little bone has torn free of its ligaments and needs to be bolted to the big bone. It also needs a plate bolted onto it and four screws in addition to the big bolt.

Summary of weekend

I slept in a bed last night. The night of rest has given me a lot of confidence and strength on the crutches. But on to the summary.

Friday night me, Lewis, and Brad arrived at Turkey Creek. There was someone camped where I usually camp, and after a short search no other camp sights showed promise. So we headed across the three river crossings. The deepest was barely three feet, which is quite a bit better than the Forest Service had warned us about on their website. We made good time up the canyon and were about 300 meters from the hot springs when I fell in a hole in the stream that was full of slippery algae. I twisted side to side several times trying to hold my balance with me trekking poles. One pole broke and then I spun around and pitched over face first. Then I couldn't walk. In the morning I still couldn't walk, so I wrote out a note with all the info I knew SAR would need and sent Lewis out. He found a forest ranger and handed over the note. The forest ranger said it was the best first contact he'd ever seen because all the info he needed was there. I didn't expect any SAR to arrive until midnight, but a team showed up before dark. They had just had a rescue in the area and were all there and packed, so it was a fast roll out for them. They stabilized my leg, put some ice on it, and we hunkered down for another night out. Sunday morning it was quickly established that I couldn't walk even with the crutch. So I crawled. Mostly on my stomach. When the stream was deep enough I floating and crawled down it. Sometimes when the ground was stable I hopped on on foot holding onto Lewis and using the crutch they had brought up. Eventually I reached the mule team. I was put onto a mule, and thankfully not tied to it, and led out to incident base.

Death By Mountain: Failed

I didn't die out there. I did have to crawl for six hours to the mule rescue team because they couldn't reach me. Not allowed to walk, drive, or bicycle in the meantime. Showering seems too hard so I'm staying dirty.

My Pack

2x Nalgene 2.24kg
2x bigger Nalgene 3.30kg
Fresh cherries 1.08kg
Pair of Leki trekking poles .37kg
tp .14kg
toothbrush and ziplock bags 0.04kg
headlamp .23kg
Tell All by Chuck Palanhiuk .33kg
sunscreen .15kg
silnylon full of food 2.29kg
Gila map .10kg
Waterproof digital camera with spare battery .18kg
2 pack towels 0.06kg
rain jacket and rain pants .78kg
hammock .59kg
water filter .43kg
silnylon tarp .21kg
stakes and rope .11kg
junk bag .99kg
bivy .56kg
smartwool long unerwear .36kg
sleeping bag in silnylong bag .76kg
backpack with gps attached 1.68kg

16.7kg total. About 37 pounds. Of which 5.5kg is water.

Packed?

My pack weighs 8.8 kg. I'm using a 35 liter Gregory pack, and it seems quite empty. It has no water in it yet.

The pack I used to use for this was near 150 liters, and it weighed about 4kg when it was empty. When full, I often carried about 27kg of stuff.

Packing

Packing for tomorrow's departure.

I bought food, somewhat along my traditional diet, and somewhat along my updated diet.

• 450.8 grams of almond M&Ms, 2420 kcal
  
• 544.3 grams of dark chocoalte M&Ms, 2730 kcal
  
• 85 grams of smoked salmon, 120 kcal
  
• 296 grams of pink salmon, 280 kcal
  
• 283 grams of 100% whole grain Wheat Thins, 1260 kcal
  
• 326 grams of turkish apricots, 720 kcal
  
• 340 grams of unsalted roasted peanuts, 2040 kcal
  
• 425 grams of golden raisins, 1430 kcal
  

In addition, I have some almonds and some Tasty-Bite lentils I was planning to take in addition to what I just bought. On the other hand, I see that I just bought exactly 11000 kcal of food. I need to eat Friday night (probably at a restaurant), Saturday, and about half of Sunday. Now, I do know that I used to eat 5000 kcal per day, but I don't think I do anymore. So I should probably cut back on what food I have here. It adds up to 2750.1 grams plus the packaging. I can probably cut back quite a bit on what I bought to take with me.

Yoga: hard

I realized today that despite what Brian said, I think my yoga is supposed to hurt me. It's what I asked for. I'm not going in to relax, or to meditate. We do that, but I'm going in with specific goals, and those goals involve pushing myself.

Today for instance we continue pushing against my hips and hamstrings. We also wore out my abdomen. We did a bridge variant that trapped me upwards and left me physically unable to lower myself to the ground to get out of it. Kind of bizarre really.

I think my feet will be ready to hike 8km on Saturday morning.

Yesterday's Walk

Yesterday I headed out to hike around North Baldy. According to my GPS I made it 154 meters into my hike before I turned back. It was warm and sunny where I parked my car. I went up the grassy hill, and down into shaded woods on the other size. And snow, I should mention the snow. And I learned just how poorly Vibram Five Fingers do in the snow. If it had been perfectly flat I could have hiked, but I was on the side of a hill, and all I could do was slide off. I turned back pretty quickly.

I went over to the Timber Peak trail which I've never hiked. I have mountain biked it, but that is a little different. My hike there was short too, only about 800 meters before I turned back. But it was enough to give me a good feel for trail hiking in the Five Fingers. So far I'd only walked on roads and a track and around buildings. My goal is to be up to doing 8km on Saturday. It should be quite doable.

Sleeping Bags and Turkey Creek

My first good sleeping bag was a The North Face Cat's Meow that I purchased to ride across country with. The best testimonial for it was when I woke up in late November in Ilinois feeling a little damp. Looking around, I saw that baseball park I was in had flooded, and the raised platform I was sleeping on was underwater about two inches. I moved my sleeping bag out of the water and spent the rest of the night drying it out while sleeping in it on a picnic tale under an awning. That sleeping bag served me very well for many years.

Next I bought a Wiggy's. It's an absolutely bulletproof bag and it was well suited to Search and Rescue work. When I took back up outdooring last year I decided to buy a new Wiggy's. Not because anything was wrong with my original, but because I wanted a lighter weight bag that wasn't quite as warm. They had a good sale on their double bags though, so I ended up with two Wiggy's that are 0F and 40F and which mate into a -40C bag. But in the long run, I'm still mostly in the SAR mentality with them. I decided over the past week that I was going to give down a try again. My experiences with down were all from Search and Rescue in the years before I bought my own sleeping bag. The team had many military issue down bags which were warm, but heavy, leaky, and susceptible to water. I shopped around on the internet on Thursday, but I didn't quite feel comfortable buying anything. I shopped around at REI on Friday, but I wasn't happy with what I saw. But having looked at some bags in person I went back to shopping around on the internet today, and I settled on a very popular Marmot 40F bag. Campmor (http://www.campmor.com) had a good price, and only $20 for next day air, so I expect to have it on Wednesday. I am going to Turkey Creek on Friday, and it would be nice to have a tiny little down bag that weighs nearly nothing.

My Turkey Creek plan involves leaving town on Friday afternoon after work and driving to the end of the road in the Gila. I'll camp the night, then hike in to the Turkey Creek in the morning. I'm going to try and pack light. Lighter than I did back in August when I last did this. My Vibram Five Fingers will play a big part in this. I will have no need to take boots, and no need to take sandals. That cuts a lot of weight out right from the start. A lightweight down sleeping bag will save me a couple of pounds. I'm debating skipping the water filter and just using the chemical tablets. I probably won't take a change of clothes so that will save weight. Although I don't need socks, they are nice to wear in the sleeping bag. But I doubt it will be cold enough so I should skip the socks too. Food will be ready to eat so I won't need a stove. I should be able to pack lightly.

The Gila Ranger District has a warning in red letters that the river is very high, cold, and swift. I'd already guessed that a couple of weeks ago without checking their website. I've done it before, I can do it again. According to the Gila's online water tracking website, the gauge height is over five feet right now. Not as high as it was several days ago, but still quite high.

It should be fun.

No walking

Today was graduation. I spent my morning standing up and walking around. I spent my afternoon walking around, sitting down, and eating. It is difficult to say if it was a productive day or not, but I tried. Tomorrow I need to walk for sure.

Vibram Five Fingers and Yoga

Today I walked around a bit at REI. I've definitely decided that the left shoe has a defect, but REI didn't have a replacement for it in stock. I'm also strongly suspecting that I'm wearing a size too large. REI didn't have a size smaller to try on, so it's still just a suspicion. I discovered the Vibram offers $10 2nd day air and sells them for the same price as REI, so I ordered a slightly smaller pair just to see. It's cheaper than driving to REI to try them on, though I'm sure REI has a much more generous return policy.

I don't hurt from yesterdays yoga at all. I'm quite shocked.

Yoga

I didn't walk today, but I did do some hard yoga. Hard, at least, for me. Even the bridge defeated me with how long we had to hold it. And then we had to do it again. I expect to be sore tomorrow.

Blister

There is a rather large blister on the ball of my right foot. What minor discomfort I felt there never made me think it was a blister forming.

Four km

I did about, or at least, four km around town. I don't know exactly because my Garmin keeps turning itself off. I wish I knew how to make it stay on.
I discovered a road within about 100 yards of my house that I don't think I had ever noticed before. It looked short, so I didn't walk down it. I discovered a bridge/culvert being installed near my house as well. I saw the old "Delta House", and noticed that the balcony has been repaired and would be safe to stand on. I saw a family that lacked most vestiges of humanity, so I avoided them by walking the other way.

Administratia

The mailing list and calendar never worked out, so I'm going to dispose of them. Given the way the world has gone, it looks like Facebook is the only viable method of communication left. I haven't even gotten used to people who only text with their phone and refuse to answer it, and now I'm faced with people who only send facebook mail and never use actual email...and they only use Facebook on their phone.

Gaming: Cancelled

So after I eat something I think I'll go for a walk again. Just around town I suspect. I don't think I need to drive anywhere this evening.

A Walk

No one wanted to come to my house to watch movies, so I went on a walk instead. I did one mile on the track. Over all, I'm pleased. I was wearing my Five Fingers, and this was a whole mile in one go. The first mile I had walked in them was done in two half mile increments with a long rest in between. My feet felt better at the end of the walk than they did at the start. Since I go barefoot a lot already there seems to be no reason for me to worry about the problems other people have had with them. My feet and calves seem to be more than strong enough to take this. The weird aches and pains I had the first day were just on the first day and haven't come back.

Lately Death Is Not By Mountain

My commitment, as you might have noticed, has been rather poor (by which I mean non-existant) for many months now. The recovery from surgery hasn't been fun. I stopped wishing I had died on the table within about a month of surgery, and was mostly better within two months of it. But the strange feelings haven't gone away. Walking makes it feel weird. Sometimes walking even makes it feel a little sore. But I'm not so bad off that I shouldn't be walking. I should be. I should be out and about in the world again.

On the other hand, I still have benefits from the improvement in my diet and the exercise I still get (yoga and bicycling). Before that fateful trip to the doctor I had had frequent and crushing illnesses. At the slightest hint of being sick I knew I'd crash and it would soon send me to bed for days at a time. Since improving my diet and exercise that hasn't happened. I can't quite claim I haven't been sick since this all started, but what illnesses I've had were merely annoying. My season allergies have gone away too. While people around me have been miserable from the juniper, I haven't. Normally the juniper makes me miss work at it's peak, and requires lots of drugs to keep myself sane and functioning. This year, my eyes felt a little irritated a couple of times, and when I've been outside in it I get a minor runny nose.

My conclusion: diet and exercise have tremendously improved my life. I do miss eating fried potatoes and chocolate as my main diet, but I can live without them I've found. Getting beef and pasta out of my diet has also shown me that neither seem to agree with my body well. Bionature organic pasta, in specific, is quite bad for me, which is sad because I like the taste of it.

In new news, I got a hold of some Vibram Five Fingers. They are the knock off of the Vivo Barefoot I've coveted for quite a while. The Vivo has proven impossible to get, and the Vibram has proven to be almost as impossible. But I have giant feet, and when I went to REI on Saturday I was certain they would be able to help me. After looking at my feet, the sales rep did admit that with my feet they probably did shoes for me. They didn't have many, but I left wearing a pair. I had a blister forming on my left foot by the time I was done shopping at REI, but once home I've been slapping athletic tape onto it and it is coming along nicely.

Turkey Creek needs to be visited again. Graduation is this weekend, and I'm not in good walking shape for it, so it won't be immediately. The 22nd or the 29th seem like good times to attempt it. It is only about 4.5 miles in and out, so I could probably hike it without any preparation (assuming I get to spend the night in the middle) but building up to it would probably be best. I really kind of like the idea of the five fingers as it will greatly simplify the three river crossings and the dozen or more stream crossings. Often by the end of the trek I've given up on dry feet and I'm just wading down the middle in my boots to avoid recreating the "wax on wax off" scene with my footwear.

This website MUST live again! I need to pick myself up, deal with the discomfort, and press on with my goal of going into the mountains.

Strawberry Peak Tracklog

From 2010-01-03

So there is my hike. A bit of the hike is missing around the base of the mountain, but I followed my trail pretty closely so you can't see it on the log.

Feeling Sick Is Also Feeling Better

I feel sick. I know it happened on the mountain. Hiking in the sun was warm, and comfortable. Anytime I stopped the wind felt cold. Hiking in the shade was cold, and stopping in the shade was worse. As it got cooler in the evening I kept a windproof jacket on, and it regulated heat well, but in the end, I felt a cough that day, and I had it yesterday, and today I'm very tired (skipped work tired) and I have junk in my throat and more of a cough.

But the notable thing is how ill I feel. Prior to my get-healthy kick, illness only came in one flavor: crushing. At the smallest hint of feeling bad I knew I was doomed. I'd plummet over the edge into being bedridden and incapable of much of anything and I lived in a state of total misery. It always knocked me out for several days, and often as much as a week, no matter what. I haven't really been sick since I started to take care of myself. Aside from the surgery, I missed a day of work because I felt a little bad, but that was it; I just felt a little bad. I feel worse now than I did then, but I'm only laying in bed because I want to get better; not because I'm too ill to get out of it.

It's nice to feel this way. I used to get very ill pretty often.

The Failure Needs To Stop!

Between diagnosis and my surgery I was gung ho. After surgery I was crippled with pain. But now I'm not in constant pain anymore, but neither am I gung ho.

Friday I lifted weights. It had been a long time for that. I managed to pull something in the back of my left thigh. A great return to weightlifting!

Sunday, yesterday as I post this, was an attempted climb up Strawberry Peak. I don't have the GPS offloaded yet. I have a few pictures. I didn't make it all the way up. I turned back pretty close to the summit, really, but I was getting tired and it didn't seem worth it.

Today was yoga. The yoga was hard because of how sore I was from yesterday. Even just sitting and trying to raise my arms up over my head required painful grimacing and some grunting noises.

I need to force myself back into shape, and I need to get up that mountain again sometime soon to redeem myself!

I need to post pictures from it, and from my snowshoeing trip that I last posted here about.

I need to post here more often as well, to self motivate into staying active and improving my health.