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Thursday, April 12, 2007

Mother ocean and gratitude


So, I took a great bike ride with Oren the other day. We went and rode along Ocean Beach I often look to the water and long to go in. But I know better. It's not time yet. I have a healthy respect for the ocean -- especially this one, where the tides can grab you with great force and pull you under before you know what's happening. I tell people the closest I ever came to dying was at Ocean Beach. I had just gotten my wetsuit, a gift from my girlfriend, and was getting used to the idea that I could go into the Ocean in Northern California. Having grown up in Southern California, I lived to go to the beach. But even Newport, with waves that often hit 8 and 10 feet, was nothing compared to the much colder and much fiercer Pacific of the Northern California Coast. Anyhow, I was an avid bodysurfer then. Didn't really like boogie boarding. Didn't like having something tied to me. Didn't like to have something between me and the water. There's something very zen about body surfing. It's just you and the wave. Hell,I didn't even like the wetsuit, but with temperatures hovering in the 40s, it was necessary. But there's a reason you don't see many body surfers here. It's too hard. So I ventured in the water. This was maybe ten years ago.

It was a cold San Francisco morning. Summer and foggy. Like that's unusual. There was a fisherman on the beach and I could see a few surfers off in the distance, little black dots set against the steel of the sky and ocean. Within a few feet of entering the water, I knew I had misjudged. I was in over my head. The waves, albeit smallish (only a few feet) were crashing every few seconds, forming beautiful tubes that felt like lead blankets dropped recklessly from above. I was ducking every one. But the pull under the water was just as strong. Like someone was grabbing my legs and trying to wrench them toward the deeper water. I was getting tired. Fast. My breath was hard and I felt my lungs expand and hurt like they used to as a kid playing backyard baseball on a smoggy LA day. I looked out for the surfers and the fisherman. They were too far away. They probably didn't even know I was in the water. And I knew right then I had made a bad mistake. I had been too cocky, too naive. I didn't know this ocean. Not like I know it now. I didn't know about the millions of gallons that poured from the mouth of the Golden Gate Bridge just around the bend, or the underwater mountainous terrain. And yes, I didn't know my own skill level. The thing about surfing (and I include bodyboarding and bodysurfing in this) is that you have to know your limits. You have to know with realistic precision, just how good you are; just how much you can take. Yes, you want to challenge yourself. It's part of the fun. But if you misjudge yourself or the ocean, you can pay a price. And the price I could pay was my own death. Yeah, maybe I'm all drama (as my friend Teena likes to say). But I'm telling you, this is how people drown. This is how people die. They struggle. They fight. They get tired. They think they can win. They act on instinct and fear. But the ocean is too big, too fierce, too relentless. It always wins. It's not personal. The ocean just does what it does. And if you fight it, you lose. You get tired. A wave comes that you can't fight and it pulls you under. Or out. Sounds like some kind of bad cliche, I know. But that's the way it is. People die at Ocean Beach. I wrote about one summer where seven people died, making it the deadliest beach in the world. It's lessons like this that make me love the ocean. It's taught me a lot. At this moment, it was teaching me humility. And it was forcing me to be sane in the middle of my insanity. CALM DOWN, I told myself. It was a matter of life and death. Be calm. STOP FIGHTING. So I did. I did the ragdoll thing that I had learned to do as a kid at Newport and Santa Monica beaches. When the wave has you under, go limp. Don't fight. Surfers call it going Zen. Let myself be tossed by the waves. I knew if I could bring my head up to gulp some air I'd be OK. I was afraid. I tried to slow my heart down. Slow my breath.

And I kept thinking one thought: I don't want to die.

I had always thought that in the moment before death, should you know what is happening, you would think big thoughts. Profound thoughts about all the things you wished you'd done and all the things you wished you hadn't. You'd think about your parents and your kids and your lovers and friends. Maybe you'd think about your pets or places you loved. Whatever was important to you. But I realized in that moment, that if I died right then and there, I'd die thinking this: I don't want to die. Sometimes it takes facing death to make you realize how much you want to live. When I'm down I sometimes return to that moment. There was no part of me, not one little iota of me, that wanted to die, that wanted to end it. I have an intense and strong will to live -- and to live well. Sometimes I hide it. But I know it's there.

Obviously, I made it out. And yes, to those of you who know I'm prone to a little bit of drama, I probably wasn't in as much danger as I thought I was. But that doesn't matter.

I was talking to a friend the other night. I've fought with depression some during my life. Sometimes it seems like this demon hovering over my shoulder, this dark presence that threatens to swallow me when times get rough. So far it hasn't. But you know, I haven't always been sure I could escape it. If there was ever time to fall into a depression, it could have happened this time. This surgery. Maybe that's why this ocean story is hitting me. I hadn't planned on writing about this but sometimes the words come out and I figure out why later. Now I think I know why. This surgery has been a lot like that experience. Bigger than me. And threatening. And scary. But the difference is that this time when I was panicking under the water, I wasn't alone. I've had all of you out there pulling me out, pulling me through. I know this sounds sappy. I'm not usually so corny (despite my name). But it's true. When I first started this blog, I had the faintest of ideas that it would become popular -- maybe a few thousand, maybe more. Maybe strangers would come and read it because they were interested in knee replacement surgeries. But as it's gone on, I've seen that my readers are exactly who they should be; people who know me; people who care. And that feels like it should be. I'm still in it. I'm still wet and cold and scared (to use the ocean analogy). But I feel like I'm finally climbing out of the water, breathless and shaking, but realizing that I'm going to make it. That I'm full of life and happy to be here. And I'm going to get through this.

Anyhow, this is not at all what I set out to write. I was going to talk about how I've stayed in bed the last 24 hours with some kind of stomach thing -- maybe even a reaction to the water and bike ride the other day. But I realize this was what I needed to say. Maybe it's a little more personal, a little rougher, than I usually get. But so be it. I'll get to the other stuff later.

PS I took this picture years ago of a small rock at the beach

Tuesday, April 10, 2007

she's alive....


It's really been a long time and I do have so much to say. . . I might even go over some old posts that I wrote but didn't post because I didn't have time to check them over for typos. And so the story is that the manipulation went really, really well. Before I haven't done, I was spending too about 90° -- maybe pushing to 100° or so. That's not very much. Lie on your back and bend your knee to a right angle. That's about all I had. It's not enough to bike or anything like that. But I have to say that my physical therapist, June, from UCSF was really skeptical. She seen people come out of manipulations a lot worse than they went in. Anyhow, I know I've written about this but it helps to start from that point. Because that's the point where everything changed. So when I went into UCSF, they gave me a spinal to numb things out below my waist. And the doctor came in and basically bent my leg. He got it bent about 130°. Then for the next three days I stayed in the hospital. They kept me on an epidural so I was getting a constant dose of medication that was basically taking away the majority of the pain in my knee. They were also heavily medicating me. So the best part about being in the hospital was that I had three days of not being in pain. I was so happy. It's funny because I was worried that I had been taking too much medication. What I realized is that I have not been taking enough. I've been taking it enough just to take the edge off. But I was still in serious pain so I really couldn't push past anything. I'm still taking medication. I'm still hurting but not as much. And I can definitely see the light at the end of the tunnel. But I'm jumping ahead of myself.

Well, not really. Going to UCSF was amazing. It made me appreciate being in a good hospital. And it made me realize how bad the care was at the previous hospital. It wasn't that they were terrible there. But they left me there for days without basically much medical attention. You read all about me having to beg for my pain medication so I'm not going to go through that again. My only criticism of UCSF is that I kept saying that I think I had a bladder infection (they catheterize you after this procedure) and they kept saying that I didn't. I went home that first day and ran a fever of 102°. I had a bladder infection. But that's a small thing. (Yes I took the whole course of antibiotics and I'm fine). Anyhow, ever since the hospital, my knee has been much much better. In fact, I'm able to bend so much that our main concern right now straightening. The other day I was able to bend to almost 140° in physical therapy. That's almost as much as my other knee. And here's the really big news: I'm riding my bike. As in -- outside. I did a 10 mile ride on Friday and a 7 mile ride on Sunday. I'm not going to win any races. I go very, very slowly. But it's pretty amazing that I can do it. In fact, it hurts less to ride my bike than it does to walk. The only problem I'm having now it is I'm getting some numbness and tingling in my hands so I have to readjust my bicycle. My physical therapist said this is a common problem that I can avert by keeping my hands straight. But she also said that bicycling is probably going to be my sport of choice.

My next doctor's appointment is at the end of the month and I expect that I'll be going back to work soon after. So basically, I'm working on riding my bike, getting in shape, and straightening my leg. And soon I will completely be able to wean myself off the pain medication although right now I really need still. I wake up several times a night still in a lot of pain. My knee is still warm to the touch but it's not as hot as it once was.

I will promise to post more soon. But I just wanted to catch up those of you who are still reading my blog. Which I appreciate. Right now, Kali is biting my ankle so I better go feed her. (My cat).

PS These are blossoms from the tree in front of my house. Spring is here!