Some Bad People and Some Nice Ones

My ride from the Golden Gate Bridge to as far as Carmel was wonderful. I was extremely happy to be wandering the roads of the world again. The three day ride tired me out so I decided to take a couple of days off to rest before heading to Big Sur which is a long tough grade but worth every pump of the pedal.

I camped in Veteran's Memorial Park. My first day of rest I made the mistake of walking further than I am capable of walking. I really can not walk very far at all. Just walking to the bathroom a few times a day uses up all my walking abilities. When I exceed my walking limit, my pain starts to skyrocket upward very quickly. The more I walk the higher the pain ends up going. It is crazy because riding my bike does not harm me the same way as walking does. Normally when I have just barely gone past my max walking distance I will get the pain but a good night's sleep will relieve it for the most part. This time I went too far and the next morning my pain was still so high I could barely waddle to the bathroom from my tent. I took some narcotics and rode down the hill to the Peet's Coffee to do my internet and try to get past the pain. Instead the pain continued to climb to a very high and dangerous level. I took 60 milligrams more of morphine and waited an hour. The pain was still climbing so I took another 60 milligrams of morphine. This might sound like a lot to the medical pros out there but remember I have been taking morphine for about twenty years now and my tolerance is high. My pain leveled off in the next hour so I rode my bike back up the 700' hill to my camp. I was tired from the climb and heavily medicated when I entered the camp. I checked in and paid my 6 bucks for the campsite then went to my tent to rest. I had to use the rest room and got up with great difficulty and struggled to walk over to the bathroom. I wanted to charge my phone a bit since it was almost dead and there was electricity in the bathroom. I hung out in the front of the bathroom trying to ease my pain with some simple stretching and the like. I felt better and wanted to eat something so I carefully and gingerly walked to my tent. That is when I discovered my wallet was missing. I tried to retrace my steps but did not find it. There were only about six other campers around. I then tore my tent apart bit by bit to make sure it was not lost in the tent. I had either dropped it when I used the toilet or maybe when I put it in my pocket I did not push it all the way in because I was a bit clumsy from the drugs, or maybe it was in my tent and someone went in while I was obviously going to be in the bathroom for a while. Whichever thing happened I don't really know and never will. I did know that everything I had for ID and my credit and debit cards were all gone along with a few hundred dollars in cash. One of the six people in camp had my wallet but I did not know which one. In retrospect I think it was the overly helpful one that helped me look for my missing wallet. I will never know. I was disabled and broke in agonizing pain with no ID two hundred plus miles away from anywhere I could replace my ID or cards etc.

I went to bed that night in agony from the pain but also disappointed that I would have to take a break from my trip to recover from this loss. I had to return to the Bay Area and restore my ID and money access. To get there I first of all was given my six bucks back by the camp director. Then I packed my bike up and rode to Monterey. I sold some of my Cliff Bars and a few other small items to some other bikers I met. I took that money and bought a bus ticket to San Jose and then got a free ticket to Fremont Bart Station from the driver of that bus. I then spent five bucks taking BART to Oakland and rode my bike the rest of the way to Karen's where I will be staying for a few days.

So some bad people took my stuff and some good people helped me out. I just wish I could catch the bad one or bad ones. I like to get even not angry. But such is life good and bad. I will be back on the road soon enough.

A Bit of Respite

Well for over a week now my pain level has been very low. I have actually regained a bit of a life. Over the last week I have gone out and been social, even so far as to have a couple of dates finally. I can laugh and play. My mind is much sharper again and my wit has returned to some extent. Some of my friends asked me what came over me to make me so much more fun all of a sudden. Being social, laughing and enjoying people are all things that I am incapable of doing when my pain is high and controlling my entire mind/body experience. Being social, even basic small stuff is next to impossible with high pain. Very few people seem to understand this. I try to go through the motions of being social even when my pain is high but I come out stiff and cold as well as dull and boring. I try to be social all the time even when I have high pain. I pretend that the pain is not there and don't talk about it or anything but I can not hide the fact that my brain is elsewhere making me appear to be cold and aloof.

It has been almost two years since my last respite like this. For two very long years I have been focused on nothing but surviving my pain warped life on an hour to hour and sometimes minute to minute scale. I still have limited mobility due to nerve damage and loss of motor control in my leg but the pain is way more controlling than the loss of mobility. I could have a good life even out of a wheelchair but the acute pain sucks life right out of me. Later today I am going river tubing with some friends. I would not be able to do that with high pain. The high heat here in Bakersfield has a lot to do with my feeling better all of a sudden. It has been over a hundred degrees everyday for going on two weeks now. When it is this hot my pain melts away.

But one day the pain will return...probably very suddenly too. When it returns is when I am most at risk of losing this battle. All I can hope for is for this respite to last long enough to rebuild some small reservoir of hope that will keep me going until the next respite. Meanwhile I am going to go for the gusto and live life like it should be led, enjoying myself. I hope you are enjoying life too. PURAVIDA

Some like it hot

So for more than a year I have had constant relentless high pain and almost eighteen years of pain problems. I left the San Francisco Bay Area to go to Bakersfield Ca to warm up to try to get a handle on my pain which tends to go up in cold weather and down in hot weather. It worked. The temperature here in Bakersfield has been about 104 degrees lately. My pain has gone down by the day until now where I am almost pain free. The first respite in over a year. I love it. There is no complaining on my part of how hot it is. Everyday I hear people complaining about the heat and all I can do is smile at them as I drip in sweat. I would much rather be hot and sweating than be in pain. Pain is very destructive to the human brain. Heat and sweat are just irritating not destructive.

I am very thankful for the respite but I dread the return of the pain. My mood these days is very high but when the pain returns I will crash big time. I dread that day. No amount of drugs will protect me from the return of the pain and the resulting crash. All I can do is wait and enjoy my days right now. When the pain returns I will lose it big time. There is nothing I can do to protect myself from the crash. It is like a light switch, when the pain returns my mood plummets. Period. No question about it. I may or may not survive the crash. I wish I could control the response but it is so strong that there is nothing I can do to prevent the inevitable crash. Does that mean I am weak? Am I helpless? Well I am not helpless or weak but the truth is that the pain is more in control of me than I am and I am aware of that fact. Knowledge is power in most cases but here in this situation the wave of response to the pain returning is actually out of my control. I am trying to avert disaster by acknowledging the situation but through many years of experience I now know that I am just a puppet on a string. I know other people have experienced this type of fault but not many people will actually admit the helplessness of the situation. I am not a fatalist in any manner. I seriously try to protect myself with positive thinking and all sorts of other methods but it is all a fallacy. I will lose the battle not because I am weak but because the response to pain has rewired my brain and that is merely the way it is. You people out there that are judging me as you read this have never experienced the devastation of chronic pain. Twenty years of the brain rewiring itself is just flat out impossible to fight. Maybe if I could get a long enough respite I might be able to build up some defenses but I am not counting on that. What happens happens and that is just the way it goes sometimes. Such is life. Enjoy it while you are still able to.

New Tim Dorsey book

I just read Tim Dorsey's new book "Electric Barracuda" and I loved it like all of Tim's books. This one as usual, followed Serge the serial killer and had a lot of funny and some surprising twists in it. Keep em coming Tim.

I am still not going to be writing for some time. In two weeks I will get a report on the state of my health after a mess of tests I have had done. I feel lousy and am unable to write like this. I have had high chronic pain for about twenty years now but recently it has just broken me down and I am having trouble getting back going again. I am not sure why and not sure when I will feel up to writing some more.

If you are new here just start reading the archives from April 2010 and read them in the order they were written as they follow each other. Enjoy the reading and pics and feel free to email me with questions or comments. The number one question I get is, "Is this all true?" Well the answer is mostly yes it is true but I did salt a couple of white lies into the blog on purpose just for my own personal reasons. The couple of inaccuracies do not change anything of importance. See if you can guess where they are and send me a note if you think you know. I will tell you if you get it correct. And yes, I was lucky to survive. Enjoy life while you still can. PURAVIDA

Buenos Aires to San Francisco

After my trips to Iguazu Falls and Patagonia I settled back into my apartment in Recoleta and hung out around town. I had friends come over for dinner or we went out for dinner if we could stay awake late enough to eat at typical Argentina dinner time of 11pm or later. I went to some Tango restaurant/clubs. They are pretty popular with the locals and the tourists. They always had lessons early in the evening for those who wanted to learn to tango. I was too mobility impaired to get into the physical demands of serious tango dancing so I just watched. I like the tango music and the drama on the faces of the dancers. Some of them were really talented and got a serious workout while they were dancing. Lots of hours of practice showed and some of these dancers danced every day for hours on end.

I was having some fun. There was only one problem, my health. I got some dental work done that took me a few visits. The quality was good and the price was cheap for the dental work. The dental work slowed me down for a day or two here and there. It was not my biggest problem though as the dental work would pass and be over with. I was having pain issues though, especially early in the morning and at night when I tried to sleep. I was getting worse by the day and it was becoming intolerable. I was less and less able to walk around town to do my daily rounds. I needed to take taxis more often to get here and there. Then I just lost my mobility completely one morning. I had nobody to take care of me so I struggled along on my own. Sometimes it sure pays to have some family around and I had none here. My friends were casual fair weather friends and I did not want to ask them for help. I took my morphine and rested. It is very important not to just wallow in the pain. I had to get up and try to walk even if it was difficult or I would never be able to dig my way out of this downward spiral of pain and depression. The depression follows the pain without fail. For a few weeks I tried to manage but finally I just gave up and decided to go back home to the states. I talked to my land lady and she agreed to let me out of my lease without a penalty because I was feeling so bad. I actually found somebody t take over my apartment so she was out nothing. I booked a flight back to San Francisco and spent the next few days trying to get my stuff packed for the trip. I hired a taxi driver to come up to my apartment and carry my things all the way to the airline check in counter. He was very nice and I paid him well for his effort.

I made it to the front of the line and started to check in. The woman on the other side of the counter looked at me for a minute then she walked away for a minute and came back to tell me that I wasn't going to be allowed to fly because I looked to unhealthy for the long flight back to San Francisco. I tried to argue with her but it was to no avail and she called security. I talked to them but without a doctors release I was not going to be allowed to fly. I asked them to help me get out to the taxi stand which they did and I called my taxi driver friend again. He quickly came and got me. I had him take me to the hospital where I thought I would be able to get a quick doctor's release and maybe still get on my flight that day.

The hospital was very good to me. They got me in to see a doctor right away. I explained my situation to him and he examined me. I thought he would give me my release but instead he refused to write me one. I tried to argue but he was adamant in not giving me one. He sent me for imaging and set up a multi-specialty group of doctors to come and look at the images and to check me out together. They were very nice and very thorough in their exam. Their conclusion was not what I wanted to hear. They wanted to do surgery on me. I argued against the surgery and they relented but told me I had to take a bunch of anti-inflammatories and muscle relaxers until I was in less pain before they would let me fly. I had no choice but to comply. For three weeks I was at the hospital every day and I was in a hotel across the street at night. I slowly improved enough so that I did not look as obviously in pain as I did at the airport and the doctor wrote my release to fly. The bill for the hospital was under $300 and the hotel which was associated with the hospital was about $200.

I rebooked my flight and went to check in. This time they were telling me that my ticket had expired and I had to buy a new one. I argued with them again but got nowhere. I took a taxi down to the airline's main office in downtown and demanded that they let me fly on my original ticket because it was them that forced me to delay the flight. They agreed but then tried to charge me change fees of several hundred dollars. I got really pissed off and was making a big scene for all the other passengers trying to do business in the office until they relented and allowed me to fly with no fees or anything. I went back to the airport and was finally able to check in. The woman checking me in seemed to be doing it against her better judgment but she had no choice.

The flight was long but I survived it. I got bumped up to the front of the cabin at the last minute. The extra leg room was a real lifesaver for me. I caused no problems on the flight and made it back to San Francisco where I had a friend pick me up. My experiment of living in Argentina was over for good. I had fun but it is not where I would want to retire for the rest of my life. It is too far away from my family and except for a short trout fishing season the fishing was not good enough for my taste. I needed to look closer to San Francisco for a place to retire where I would have access to my family and long time friends. I slowly improved healthwise while hanging around my family and friends in the Eastbay of San Francisco.