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Reflex is a dangerous thing

I had a great day yesterday, coaxing myself into being studiously lazy. This, I thought over and over, will be good for my arm. So I did my little therapy and didn’t overdo it otherwise.

It is easy to overdo it, actually. Even the smallest general exertion can wear me down right now. I suppose that is the surgery and everything that comes with it. Or maybe I just pound the ground when I walk and my shoulder is tired of absorbing things. It feels like there’s a giant water balloon in there. If I fell in a pool right now I’d sink left shoulder first, I’m certain. Between that and being transfixed by the swelling and self conscious about caring for it have entirely changed my self-perception.

I talked with some of the little kids in my family on the phone today. Yes, I’m OK. No, I’m not in the hospital. Yes, I had surgery. Yeah, that hurt a bit. The helmet kept me from having truly horrendous, medical problems and I am very lucky, so wear your helmet, kiddos. This is my role to the next generation in the family, serving as a cautionary tale.

They asked me if I’d come ride with them at their house when I could. Of course I will. But for now I have to take it easy and rest and do everything one-handed and so on.

And then I was making myself a little grape snack later in the evening. I rinsed off the beautiful green treats and dropped them in a mug. I overfilled the mug and the last three grapes rolled off the mound, onto the counter and ultimately the floor. Naturally I reached out to try to catch them. Of course my left hand was the closest. And this produced the most remarkable pain in my shoulder and collarbone, the site of my Monday surgical procedure.

I spent the next few seconds yelling, and the next few moments remembering to breathe. Finally I had to look at the incision. Did I tear it? No. Did I break something? I don’t think so, there’s titanium in there now, after all, but still, this sensation … Did it hurt?

For four hours.

So, no, I’m not going to write about this every day. I’ll deliberately find other things to write about because I know you don’t care that much. But it is important to remember: don’t do that. Sometimes you have to allow yourself to lose a little produce. Moving without thinking can be a remarkably painful thing.

At least I can sleep in my bed again. Did that for the first time since I wrecked. And I slept about six hours last night, which might also be the best rest I’ve had in a week. Between that and already feeling improvements, morale is definitely high.

We walked around outside for a few minutes today talking about trees and shade and wondering why our elm sheds so much. If ever you need kindling, we can set you up. How there’s any tree left up in the canopy is a mystery.

Brian stopped by for a few minutes, on the way from here to there. He did not want to see my incision — not that I blame him — but we of course discussed the recovery since he was there two weeks ago for the injury.

Also this evening we visited the little vegetable store this that is tacked onto one of the plant nurseries in town. I took a lot of quick pictures there to post later on the Tumblr blog. I finished uploading the discarding fishing lures I found on the pier at Orange Beach there today, so it needs new content.

So be sure to surf over to my Tumblr and check that out. And if those pictures don’t captivate you, there’s always Twitter.

More, as they say, tomorrow!

collarbone / cycling / iPhone / photo / Tuesday / Tumblr / Twitter — Comments Off
17
Jul 12

Fall risk: a warning, a memento

I woke up at 6:26 this morning. I know this because at 6:30 it was time for another dose of Lortab. My lovely bride had woken up punctually every four hours to give me the good stuff. We ignored the Ibuprofen dosages during the overnight, because that would have meant waking up every two hours. And one of us, we figured, should get some sleep.

Clearly my collarbone and greater shoulder area were ready for their next painkiller before the clock said I should be. But that’s OK. I had the chance to open the blinds and watch the sun play on the tangerine bonsai tree that Kelly sent us.

I considered the fate of my medical bracelets.

The white one, with the names and hospital UPC codes, is coming off. So is the red one, which warns the medical staff of allergies. The yellow one though … considering how I got here … well it seems appropriate.

The nurse told me yesterday that everyone that gets sedation gets the yellow bracelet. I think I’ll put it on my bike when I can finally hit the road again and wear it with pride.

The surgeon was right: I’m hurting today, but I feel a bit better today than I have since I broke my collarbone. I’m taking painkillers precisely on schedule, don’t get me wrong, but the post-operation pain is less and different than the post-accident pain.

The downside to this injury, I’m guessing, is that it becomes a very boring recovery. You sit and don’t overtax yourself. You rest a lot. You don’t hold things in your hand before rehab. You try not to wear on the nerves of the people around you. So I’m resolved to celebrate every highlight.

We got a Harry & David box, a thoughtful gift from dear friends. (A night we don’t have to cook!)

I received the kindest Get Well email from someone I don’t even know:

Regardless of your topic you are a joy to read. Thus, having learned of your recent accident, I want you to know that I’m thinking of you.

Please feel better soon . . . very, very soon . . .

Wasn’t that thoughtful?

I moved from the arm chair … to the sofa! I’ve been in the chair, even sleeping in it, for a week. (A great half hour of variety!)

I stood up for about 20 minutes. And then my arm insisted I sit down. (More variety!)

The Yankee got me an awesome Get Well gift, a CycleOps indoor trainer. (I can ride while hurt!)

She wouldn’t let me use it today, though.

The final highlight, just like at 6:26 this morning: more Lortab.

Back on Twitter today. Returning to Tumblr tomorrow.

adventures / Auburn / cycling / iPhone / memories / photo / Tumblr / Twitter / Wednesday — Comments Off
27
Jun 12

Picture filler

Just working on work things today, writing a bit. Forgive me if there isn’t much here.

Here are some leftover pictures from the Art Walk held downtown a few weeks ago. You’ll remember, if you follow that link, that one full block of Magnolia turned into a road of kids young and old writing in the street.

There’s a crosswalk in the middle, and a couple of young adults claimed that area as their own. They were insistent that you see their art in the right order. This was very important, in the way that art must be explained. So I am sharing the crosswalk art in the proper order.

Nice sentiment, as far as it goes:

Rode 30 miles this evening, up and out through the neighborhood and over the side of one of the big hills, marveling at my dead legs. Then down the hill, reveling in gravity, and turned around to go back up the hill, looking for my legs.

I circled part of the bypass, and then up one of the false flats, past the airport, over the interstate and back into our part of town.

The local cycling club has a time trial course nearby, a road we ride frequently. But now I’m trying to ride the entire thing with time in mind. Today was the second attempt at that, which was not as good as the first. Mostly I’m slow, but also I found myself concentrating so much on breathing I messed up the math involved in timing myself. So I gave in a bit early, feeling defeated when my previous time clicked by just before I made it to the finish of the time trial. I’m just riding against myself here, so there’s no real shame in exhaustion and bad math.

Mostly, though, this ride was not as good as my first attempt because I’m slow.

RIding at a tongue wagging, eye bulging, rib ragged way has a lot upside, the best being that you seem to breathe so much better afterward. After, that is, you can breathe again. And so I doubled up on the course, back down half the time trial course, over that same hill from earlier and sped through a subdivision, chasing an SUV in a sprint I wish I had in that time trial — sometimes the great challenge is putting it all together at the right time, that’s why I keep coming back to this I guess. Finally into some nice downhills. That’s a great end to the route, helping satisfy my last goal of any ride: make it back into the house without sounding like I’m hypoxic.

Such a simple thing, two wheels and respiration. Everything in between needs improvement, though.

But there’s always that next ride. Always the chance to have a great kick up a hill. Always that voice in the back of the helmet: smile when it hurts. Especially when you’re in the middle of the road.

Thanks for stopping by. Come back tomorrow for … something. In the meantime, check out the Tumblr page, where a new picture landed today. And the Twitter account, which had a lot of good reading today. And none of it was filler.

Auburn / cycling / journalism / links / LOMO / photo / Tuesday / Tumblr / Twitter — Comments Off
19
Jun 12

I wrote at the library today

I am to the point in this little section of a paper I’m writing that I’m now rewriting it over and over. This is a fine part of the process, but it can be overdone. The trick is knowing when to take the meat off the grill, he said in a metaphor that makes no sense. But I’ve been through these two pages … oh … several times. It doesn’t always seem like progress. But it isn’t exactly treading water, either.

And so the writing goes on.

Some anonymous person from The Birmingham News wrote a nice little obituary for some of those colleagues who recently learned they were losing their jobs. No one wants to see people out of work. Only the misguided would revel in the diminished stature of newspapers. (I think the future is bright for journalism online, but I value what newspapers bring to the civic conversation as well.)

Journalists, of course, take this recent news a bit more personally, because it is a lot closer to home. People in our line of work passionately believe in what they do and the importance it carries. And in addition to that zeal there are the other real concerns about paying the bills. These notions transcend industry, though. Newspapers, unfortunately, never cover job closings well enough — there’s always the perfunctory facts and the obligatory quote about the sad decision and then a few other facts before wrapping up, but there are dozens, or hundreds of stories among all of those people now out of work — but they at least try when it has to do with their own.

Here’s a nod over at Weld to some of those hard-working people in the news business. There are a lot of smart and canny people at those papers. I hope they all land on their feet soon.

Harvey Updyke, alleged Toomer’s Corner tree poisoner, is finally getting his day in court. Today was the beginning of the jury selection. And, during a lunch break, a writer from The Auburn Plainsman approached him:

Before his trial began and before his jury was even selected, Updyke convicted himself by admitting to poisoning one of Auburn’s most iconic landmarks.

Updyke also said his lawyer, Everett Wess, would probably drop him if he found out he was speaking about the case.

Why he decided to admit his guilt may remain unknown. However, Updyke had seemingly already resigned himself his fate.

“They’re going to find me guilty… it’s a done deal,” Updyke said. “I don’t think I’m going to get a fair trial.”

He didn’t convict himself. Judges and juries do that sort of thing. And he’s been saying much the same thing on the air and to reporters for the better part of 18 months. But it does demonstrate a bit of scattered thought at play. Why would you do this, Harvey, just outside the courtroom?

Also, the story misses on the age of the trees by about 60 years. Facts are tricky things, a statement I’ll now say over and over until it becomes annoying. But it is an interesting read. Good for the student-journalist who struck up the conversation. Wonder why none of the rest of the reporters did.

I’ve read elsewhere that after he spoke Updyke asked the reporter to not publish his comments, but of course he did. He did the right thing there.

We walked under the trees Friday night. Sadly they don’t look well at all.

We walked down the street today to watch the local bike club’s time trial. Met a nice older gentleman who does his riding at 3:15 in the morning. Met one of The Yankee’s grad students. Watched all the riders push through the finish line.

This is a route I ride regularly. So I guess we know what we’ll be doing soon.

Something new today on Tumblr and on the almost dead LOMO blog. (I should probably kill that one off. Also, check out the happenings on Twitter.

Auburn / football / journalism / photo / Tuesday / Twitter — Comments Off
12
Jun 12

Just current events

If I may wrap my head around the journalism of our big shooting story — and this is my site, so I say that I can — I’ll recall something I said to The Yankee on Sunday. She was driving as we headed home from our rafting excursion. I was reading aloud the emerging news on the Saturday night shooting.

“They might stumble at first, but The Plainsman staff will do a great job of covering this story.”

I said that with pride, knowing they might struggle a bit because they are, after all, students. But I know what they are capable of because I was a part of that staff once. And it has been a great paper for decades. And I was right. They did a great job covering the story. You can see their continuing coverage here.

If you are interested in how the sausage is made Dr. John Carvalho wrote a piece for The War Eagle Reader on the subject.

Covering that first big story is always hard, but they’ve done very well so far. I’m proud for them. Shame they had to have a story like this, but it shows their promise, demonstrates their hard work and will, hopefully, give them confidence to go with the sudden attention they are receiving.

(Update: WHNT-19, the Huntsville, Ala. CBS affiliate did a story on The Plainsman’s newsgathering. See it here.

There was another press conference today, though there was not much new to say. The suspect is still at large. Desmonte Leonard, authorities believe, was at the house they targeted last night. The thought is that he was able to move on before the Montgomery police, Auburn police, FBI, state troopers, U.S. Marshals and four other agencies arrived on the scene.

The only other news was that the reward for information leading to his arrest now sits at $30,000. And law enforcement is openly telling the public they’re tired of being misled. They’re offering Class C felonies to anyone who gets in the way.

I dislike that that this has become a football story. It is hard not to, though. Two former players were killed. One, Ladarious Phillips, was transferring to Jacksonville State (The heartbreaking version of his story is that his new coach, Jack Crowe, had expected him at JSU much early this summer. He was, apparently, having a tough time making that change, though, and so the wrong-place-at-the-wrong-time motif has even greater significance. Phillips everybody loved. He was 290 pounds and could do a backflip flat-footed with a big smile. The stories people tell of him in his hometown of nearby Roanoke, Ala., about being a father figure to young children, even when he apparently didn’t have one around himself, are sad and uplifting and heartbreaking. The other, Ed Christian, retired because of a back injury. He was still a student, though, a Georgia boy who, by all accounts I’ve read, also had a fine reputation.

Another current player, Eric Mack, was injured, but is expected to make a complete recovery. Whether he’ll play football again, Auburn coach Gene Chizik said, is right now immaterial.

But there were others, too, not affiliated with the football program. DeMario Pitts was a local boy, and he is dead at 20, leaving behind a son and daughter. Xavier D. Moss was killed at 19. John Robertson is in critical condition at a Birmingham hospital. The 20-year-old was shot in the head.

This is clearly beyond the scope of a football program, or an athletic department or even a university.

But, still, Chizik stood before the media today. Still shaken, exhausted and determined, he stood before this sign and said he wasn’t thinking about football at all. He was thinking about his players, and those families:

I noticed that sign in the spring, when I had the pleasure of hearing a presentation of a much happier sort in that same meeting room. But that sign means something even more profound this week than when it is normally read by football players thinking of Xs and Os.

And so this is a football story, though it shouldn’t be. But maybe it had to be, because that’s one of the things we do best. So let’s make this a football story, and Chizik the reluctant healer.

While no coach wants this kind of added work in their job, I’m sure most would do quiet well in these terrible circumstances. But Gene Chizik will be great. I think he’s a pretty good coach, but I’ve long thought he was a better man.

Oh, and the other big news: The Advance layoff meetings start today. In Huntsville, Birmingham and Mobile newspaper staffers are going into one-on-one meetings and being told whether they’ll have a future with the new company. Scary times for all those people.

I have friends in those newsrooms and have read the bylines or seen the efforts of others’ anonymous work for years, decades. No one wants to be a situation like this personally, but the future is here, says the company, and they’re changing for their future. Tough for everyone. Some 400 people are said to lose their jobs.

Later: Desmonte Leonard is in custody. He turned himself in to the U.S. Marshals in Montgomery this evening. Apparently he’d been negotiating with them for a good part of the day. Happily he’s been arrested without anyone else being hurt. And now the legal process can begin.

I mentioned this on Twitter, and I don’t want to overstate the point or anything, but we were at Mellow Mushroom when the news of his arrest was announced. You could fellow the atmosphere in the room change just a bit. Now, maybe, all of those families can begin to copy a tiny bit with their grief.