On the rock again - Sunstroke

Climbing club day. The original plan was for Point Perp but it's raining cats, dogs and dolphins at the coast so clubbers have decided to stay local.

I've decided to don the resoled Thunders, at last, and scarper up a wee slab. Something that requires no twisty bendy back work, or gut-busting haulage. Just a nice steady stepladder. Sunstroke is the go - a grade 9 slab of 120m over three short pitches. It has such a benign slope and textured surface that CB and some pals once climbed it solo (unroped), in light rain.

CB and I have a guest with us today, so he gets lumbered with carrying the two ropes up the hill from the carpark and then back down to the base of the crag. Which is just as well, as I'm not yet keen on carrying much weight.

Aptly named "sunstroke" – not the place to be on a sunny day without head-to-toe covering.
That's a climber on the far left, by the way!

I'm feeling confident, despite the odd "boo" from my familiar dragon. I have my dragon-slayer capsules tucked safely in my pack and I'm happy to be out on the rocks with CB again. All the same - getting to the base of the climb coincides with the usual major bowel movement despite my having "evacuated" already this morning. Si-i-i-i-i-i-i-gh.

CB takes the lead and our guest feeds out the rope while I disappear into the scrub to dig my customary hole. I'm "piggy in the middle" of the two boys. My legs feel strong on the first pitch. By the second pitch, to my amazement, I can feel the old dragon tugging at my heels again and my legs start to quiver. "You've GOT to be joking!!" I'm so-o-o-o-o not buying into this ... it just goes to prove my observation that "there be dragons" for me no matter what the grade of climb.

I'm steadily padding up the slab, safe and sound as can be, and breathing into my footwork to steady those ridiculous shakes. Next time there will be magic anti-dragon capsules in my pocket and I'll down one right at the start of the climb.

Anyhow, we have a great day on the rock, without getting sunstroke.

To quote the $Turgeon

The friendly neuro$$$urgeon checks my date of birth three times in the one consultation. "You were doing ... what was it, again?" It appears that scaling cliffs, hanging from ropes a few hundred meters above terra ferma, and doing daily pull-ups from a hang board in the hallway, are not a repertoire he is familiar with in 51 year old women with a back injury. Moreover, few of his patients cycle 17kms to his rooms ... for my part I'm grateful to be one of the oddities.

A handsome sTurgeon...

The diagnosis is one severely herniated disc in my lumbar spine, two bulging discs on either side of it, and some worn out facet joints in the lumbar spine to boot.

The verdict is that I'm either too damaged or not damaged enough for any of the surgical interventions the sTurgeon can offer me at this time. I'm in a kind of medical limbo that relies on Mother Nature to take centre stage and define the new boundaries of my antics. The sTurgeon's knife will be there to catch me when my existence gravitates sufficiently close to those boundaries - which it will, in time, he says - but for now it's a matter of living within my new limits. And the task at hand is figuring out what those invisible limits are without overstepping them so much as to cause further grief to my anatomy.

I'm thinking it would be handy if a neat little buzzer went off to tell me when I'm overstepping the mark.

Blues not Blueys

He'd rather be climbing...

It's Easter. We're not in the Blueys. Climber Boy isn't very thrilled about this at all, but is good-natured enough to not be immensely grouchy. Partly, I'd say, that's because the weather up in the Blueys has been pretty horrible all weekend anyhow. Some of his climber friends have ventured up there all the same, and we may hear of their (mis)adventures on the slippery wet sandstone at some later date.

I'm told that sandstone remains grippy enough even when it's damp. Picking my way up a gnarly old route with rain beating down on my dial wouldn't be my idea of fun no matter what the state of rock.

For my part, the nerve pain is practically all gone, my right leg is regaining its strength, and I've started pushing the envelope a bit on my cycling trips. Yesterday I swapped the Townie cruiser for the 26" Tourer, which is not quite as laid out as the old classic 700C Tourer that I customarily ride but at least not as girlie-upright and sedately snail-paced as the humble Townie. Letting the tyre pressure right down seems to give me just enough cushioning to avoid jarring my back, and so my cruising speed and roaming distance have at least doubled. Which is a mighty good thing.

On choices

My newly resoled Scarpa Thunders have come back from Big John's Retreads in the Blueys. I think about the relatively short journey they've had with me thus far and I'm wondering - where to, henceforth?

Seeing these shoes makes me remember the various outings I've been on with them. Someone once remarked to me that we exchange molecules with the objects with which we expend time and energy, so that we take on some of their characteristics and they, ours.

These shoes "are me", and I, them.

I've been feeling distinctly unmotivated of late. Not least of which because I still have twinges of nerve pain in my foot, and my back crackles and crunches as I move. Healing takes time, even though it appears to be progressing remarkably apace - there is noticeable improvement in my pain, mobility and power, by the day.

When I see my lovely little shoes with their unmarked new soles, ready to step forth anew, I'm spurred on to resuming my climbing adventures. I'm making a conscious choice to remain committed to the cause, build myself up again in as much as I can, resume my journey along that tortuous learning curve.

It occurs to me - perhaps I'm kidding myself. Perhaps my back injury has inexorably changed the course of events and there actually is no choice. Perhaps the decision has been made for me already but not communicated adequately to me by life's events.

Once again - climbing is a metaphor for life. You can survey a route before attempting to climb it, and in so doing you may get some ideas on what moves you might like to make where and what path you might take, but you only really find out what's required and what works when you get there, bit by bit as you go along. As Rumi tells us, "the way appears" as you go along the way.

And so with my healing.

Tourer to Townie, chewing humble pie

I'm officially "back at work" this week, although I doubt that I've covered more than half my requisite hours in productivity. Between late starts and early finishes, with lots of rests in between, I reckon I'm firing in about one-third barrels. Lucky my employer is fairly forgiving.

I am, very thankfully, able to cycle in to work. Not via my usual hilly 12km route on my favourite Touring bike, zipping along at a good clip; rather, tootling gently by on the cruisey Townie via the flat 6km bike path. But hey, who's complaining? I could've been getting chauffeured in and out in my boss's vehicle, since she lives just up the road from me ... now that would've been truly devastating.

I'm getting a whole different view of our society by tootling along the bike path. This is the main cycle thoroughfare into the CBD from the north. Ours is a fairly homogenous town where the biggest employer (thankfully not mine) is the public service, so my fellow cyclists along this route are, for the most part, wearing business attire and riding "comfort" bikes. Many of them are also towing kiddie trailers with one or two tots, on their way to child care and thence the office.

The change in attitude towards me by fellow road and bike path users, depending on my appearance, is quite remarkable. I first noticed this when I started wearing tops of a range of colours - the same sleeveless top in any colour but pink or rose would afford me almost total invisibility on the road; if I donned either the pink or rose top, I'd invariably attract attention to myself either via ogles or call-outs, and even the odd wolf-whistle. Same top exactly, bar the colour. Pink is obviously an advertising banner for "I am woman!!!"

Gemini World Radonneur - my classic old Tourer.

Now I'm discovering quite how far the whole image thing extends. My Tourer is a classic old workhorse and looks for all the world like it means serious cycling business, with its drop handlebars, mudguards, pannier racks and plethora of accessories - lights, cyclo-computer, bidon, bell, etc. It gives its rider a very slung-out posture designed for optimal aerodynamics and hip angles in the optimal power range. I've pedaled this old bike over more than 40,000kms since I bought it about 25 years ago, over a good deal of the Victorian and NSW countryside. It's relegated to day trips and commuting nowadays, as I can no longer push its relatively high gears up mountains and the narrow old frame won't accommodate lower gears. But I love it, and riding it daily to and from work gives me indescribable joy!

At the moment, however, that slung-out position is a big no-no. So a-cruising I will go, all lady-like and such...

Electra Townie 3i - the cruiser.

The Townie was a freebie. CB and I went for an evening walk up the road and spotted it propped against a power pole alongside the road - the customary location in this country for items that are "free to good home". We wheeled it home and gave it a once-over and some TLC with some spanners, allen keys and a dust cloth. The front rim brake needed straightening, the wheels needed truing, the tyres required some pumping up, and the rusty old chain was in desperate need of some lube. We decided it could also do with a lower gear range so we swapped the chain ring for a slightly smaller one, and then Townie bike was good to go.

Townie bike is pink. Candy pink. It has a rear rack and a handlebar basket, and a 3-speed internal hub. Its patented "Flat Foot" long-wheel-base design provides an upright, relaxed riding position that lets you reach the pedals with correct leg extension while riding whilst also letting you plant your feet flat on the ground whenever you want without leaving the saddle.

The humble Townie is perfect for cycling with minimal back strain, which is doctor's orders to me for now. It's slow, it's very "girlie", it's difficult to track in a straight line when taking off from a standstill, and it's my main form of transport for the time being. I'm finding that other road users (be it drivers or cyclists) give me an enormously wide berth when I'm travelling by Townie, and the more I wobble and appear to be an unskilled and slightly out-of-control rider, the more breathing space they give me.

It's wonderful!!

Reinventing myself

This would be not the first time my baseline has been shifted rather drastically, but it's the first time in a few years. I should check up on my numerology ... who knows, there may be some useful pattern emerging.

Sad puppy... ouchies!!!

The MRI shows not 1 but 2 lower back discs have gone walkabout. L5/S1 is a little bit bug-eyed but passable. L4/L5 is a different matter ... on side view, the worst of it looks like a gloop of ice cream running down the side of a cone on a hot summer day. Sadly, however, I can't simply wipe this one back up. The dribble of intervertebral fluid is nuzzling up against my sciatic nerve, which is totally getting the irrits. To its credit, the usually solitary nerve is growing accustomed to its new snuggle mate and is obligingly starting to conduct nervous impulses again, albeit reluctantly and somewhat aberrantly. What has been a largely numb patch of skin over my right foot and big toe, and a small ways up the side of my calf, is slowly "waking back up" and giving me a sensation not unlike a bad burn. Charming. But that's better than no signal, assures me the physio. I'm also able to lift my big toe again just a little, so I'm not doing so much of a duck walk as I have been this past fortnight, or tripping on the cracks in the pavement quite so much. That's definite progress for which I am definitely grateful.

And so starts a battle of the bulge of a different kind. How to get those suckers to suck themselves back in?! The physio recommends assessment by a neuro$$$urgeon, and the GP concur$$$. Just ringing the guy's rooms to book a consultation makes me break out in a sweat, but no need to panic just yet - the soonest he can see me is just over 2 months away. Plenty of time for contemplation, should I need it, and for saving up some pocket money.

Meantime the GP is recommending a new form of painkiller to deal with the neuropathy. Very kind of her, I'm sure, but the sensations - unpleasant and/or uncomfortable as they are - are my only feedback on the state of my anatomy and physiology. How will I know where the new boundaries are if I'm cotton-wooled from the consequences of overstepping them? I appreciate that most people want to leave a GP's rooms with their symptoms alleviated via magic bullet. I'm not most people.

I also appreciate that most people of my age do little more activity than walk from their vehicle to their office chair and back, and then to their lounge chair at home as they settle in front of the TV. I'm not that kind of most people either. What I want to know is which of my 5 bicycles I can ride without worsening my condition, and how far, and over what terrain. Would Pilates help over the yoga that I've done since the mid-80s? When do I need to lie down after standing up at my stand-up desk for a while? Feel-good pills will give me anything but these answers. They'll be going "yes, all good, all happy" while my nerves could be screaming into the silence and slowly dying on me.

I don't think so.

One last question - how does largely numb skin still manage to itch incessantly when it's been been mosquito-bitten?? There's a PhD in that.

Symphony in B flat

Last night's nerve pain is persisting, so I've decided to go ahead with the MRI this week even though the GP wants me to wait a while and see how (and if) things settle. I can push through pain, but given that this is what let to my herniated lumbar disc 14 days ago, methinks probably best to go have a proper look in case the pain is actually flagging something.

An MRI machine is like an oversized hi-tech doughnut of whiz-bangery with a benign-looking plastic outer covering. It uses a magnetic field and radio waves to take pictures inside the body. People who suffer from claustrophobia are well advised to take a chill pill before immersing themselves in its bowels; I'm seeing it as an opportunity for a nice afternoon nap. The attendant radiologist advises me that the entire procedure with take about 15mins.

She also warns me that the oversized doughnut emits sounds akin to a machine gun firing, and obligingly hands me a set of headphones. There's an option to listen to "music" via the headphones, but the radiologist apologetically explains that they have a limited range of stations they're able to receive. And since I don't fancy subjecting myself to 15mins of either advertising or depressingly disastrous world news, I opt for the relative silence afforded by the headphones, such as it is.

The radiologist also hands me a panic button before vacating the room, since this is my only means of communicating with the outside world once the machine starts up. I settle in for my nap, and the bed I'm lying on whirrs its way into the doughnut hole. Unfortunately I'm obliged to hit the panic button as I realise too late that I've suffered a brain fail when stripping down to my underpants and donning the backward-facing gown I've been given: I forgot to take my brassiere off, and as the magnetic rays start to fire, its metal clips dance merrily against my back kinda like angry ants doing an on-the-spot war dance.

The attendant looks irritated when she comes back in and reverses my prostrate form from the guts of the doughnut. I hand her the offending brassiere and settle back down graciously. The doughnut receives me into its hollows once more.

Then starts a most fascinating symphony of rhythmic whirrs, buzzing, clicking and banging. It's such  a fabulous concert that it makes me wish I had a recording of it to share around. I'd call it the Symphony in B flat, as in - be flat or you'll muck up the recording.

Lo and behold, I discover that YouTube audios/videos of MRIs abound!!