Bolt Takes His Victory Lap – iPhones, Ice Packs, and the Hand of God

For the record … January scans grade: B+ (no new tumors in the spine, most tumors in the lungs haven’t changed, some have grown, a few have actually shrunk, very small lesions in my ribs noticed for the first time, but they’ve apparently been there from the beginning and haven’t grown)

And now, for a lengthy digression …

Anyone who’s seen me in shorts the past year knows I don’t leave the house without knee sleeves. You ever see those Copper Fit commercials with Brett Favre? That’s me, except I’m older, shorter, not famous, and not getting paid to wear them. It started back in May of 2020. I was running my standard 2-mile out and back and had a decent time going. There’s a sharp left turn coming into our neighborhood, and as I approached the intersection a kid from the neighborhood was driving up to the stop sign. Jackass Move #1: I accelerated into the turn, wanting to look like a badass, as opposed to the soft, bow-legged, middle-aged hacker that I am. You know, like maybe the kid would drive on thinking “Damn, was that Mr. Graber? He’s a badass!” versus “Damn, was that Mr. Graber? Should I ask him if he needs help?” Anyway, I hit the jets, planted my left foot going into the turn, and felt a POP in my left knee. Jackass Move #2: I kept running. It was less than a half-mile to the finish and even though no one was watching (the kid had driven on), I still wanted a decent time. I finished in a limp-sprint – my time ended up somewhere between okay and sucky. Jackass Move #3: When I got home, I jumped in the pool with young Graber and played one-on-one basketball with him. For those who’ve never played pool basketball with teenagers, it’s really just an excuse to have a full-on MMA match, so yeah … by the time I went to bed that night let’s just say my knee issue was “legit.” Jackass Move #4: in the weeks to follow, I couldn’t really run on flat ground or ride a bike, but I realized I could kinda run uphill. There’s a straight 600-meter hill in front of our house, so I pulled on a knee sleeve and began running it for time. Run up, limp down, run up, limp down, etc.. The hill’s .38 miles long, so I called them 38 Specials – a catchy name, and a good workout, but the knee just got worse (duhhh).

I finally got x-rays and an MRI that August and confirmed what I knew from the beginning: I had a nice 2 cm medial meniscus tear and some pretty solid arthritis under my kneecap. The funny thing is (well, it’s really not that funny), by then I’d stopped running the hill altogether because my chest hurt and two of my ribs were visibly sticking out where they met the sternum. Within a few weeks of meeting with a surgeon about my knee, I found out the cause of my chest pain – the infamous Mountain Dew-bottle-shaped tumor under my sternum. Needless to say, I forgot about my knee.

Fast-forward to about a year ago … I’m doing battle with the Red Devil, walking further and further between chemo cycles and starting to bike. One day I tried running a few steps. Then a few more. Then a mile. My bike rides got longer too. I had the tumor and a few chunks of my lungs cut out in April, and by June, I ran a 5k (albeit a very, very, did I mention, very, slow one). The knee still hurt and I had to nurse it a little, but I was moving again, walking, biking, and running for real. A funny thing happens when you start living in 4-month increments between chest scans. You stop worrying a whole lot about things like knees and hips.

I know by pushing my cardio workouts I am, indeed, prolonging my life. The stronger I become, the better position I’ll be in to withstand future treatment. The more efficient my lungs get, the better I’ll be able to withstand having more of them cut out or zapped with radiation. Plus, there’s this little-known fact: there are still nights when I’m in bed that I can’t breathe all that great. I can’t seem to yawn fully or just get that satisfying feeling you get when you take in a full lungful of air. I first experienced this when I still had the tumor crammed in there between my sternum and my lungs – it’s a little scary to be honest, and it damn near drove me insane before I found out what was going on. Removing the main tumor helped, but the work they did around my phrenic nerves (they’re what keep you breathing) and the fact my sternum has been wired back together means I still get that feeling sometimes. Running and biking – I mean really hammering it – helps. I guess that full expansion you get when you’re really sucking O’s helps keep the upper body mobile and the lungs and central nervous system working together as designed. Bottom line: pushing myself on foot or on a bike is indeed good for me (yes, in case you’re wondering, the doctors all agree and encourage me to push as hard as want).

Then there’s the joy. One of the few fights I can remember getting into with C over the past year was when I made the offhand comment that the happiest moments of my life since being diagnosed are when I’m out running or biking. (Note to you fellas out there: do not say this sort of thing to your wife or kids). Of course, what makes me happiest – the thing I’m most grateful to God for – the whole damn reason I want to keep living, in fact – is my wife and kids. But there have been moments of pure, unadulterated joy that I’ve felt out on the road or track that are just … unique. I really can’t explain it. Makes me feel like a kid again, I suppose. Like truly anything is possible. Let’s just say I have pointed to the sky and thanked God aloud more times in the middle of a run or a ride than I can count.

But there’s a final reason for the workouts – a very powerful reason, indeed. Over time, the act of pushing myself has become both an act of defiance and an act of validation. This sounds a tad ridiculous. Like running and biking is somehow courageous or heroic. Not at all. My “obsession” has been borne of fear, uncertainty, and a deep-rooted compulsion to control my circumstances. Simply put, I’ve come to see the ability to run a mile at such-and-such pace or bike a certain mileage as tangible proof that I’m not going to die anytime soon. But like any drug, you gotta keep upping the dose to get the effects. And I’ve noticed that the closer I get to scans, the stronger hit I need. This is where our story takes a little dark turn …

Back in December, I started going to the track on Saturdays to run 400-meter intervals. It was amazing. Just mainlined joy. I went four weeks in a row. Sure, my knees hurt some, along with my hips and back and everything else, but by early January, I was popping off pretty solid times. Being the complete freak I am, I have a spreadsheet of workouts going back about 10 years – I had a couple of 400s recently that were within 10-15 seconds of my record (well, at least my record after age 40 or so). I was on top of the world. But the 400s weren’t enough. I had to keep upping the ante. I started running 38 Specials again. Then one day I went hiking at Sky Meadows with Mackie and snuck ahead to run the final uphill stretch to the lookout. Somewhere in all this, my right knee (my “good” knee) started acting up. A pinch here, a “damn, that didn’t feel right” there. But I just pulled a knee sleeve onto that one too and kept going …

Then came the coup de grace: I started going down to the barn to run the pacer with Graber. Yeah, that’s right, the pacer – the school fitness test our kids grew up having nightmares about. For the uninitiated, the pacer’s basically a 15- or 20-meter shuttle run. You run back and forth while a cringy song, with timed “beeps,” plays in the background. (Side note: if, for some reason, you want to traumatize your kids, download the song and sneak into their room early in the morning and blast it). The idea is to make it from one end to the other before the next beep. The beeps speed up over time. Therefore, the more tired you get, the faster the beeps become. The pacer’s what we like to call a “maximal” or “failure” test. Your score is simply the number of laps you can complete before puking, dropping to the ground, or both. I hadn’t run the pacer in maybe 4 or 5 years, and my best score back then was 83 (yes, it is sad that I know this). It’s all relative, but for reference, 83 is a damn fine score for a somewhat athletic 5^th grader.

Now, needless to say, the pacer requires repeated cuts and repeated accelerations (every time you turn around). Therefore, logic dictates the pacer should not be run by 52-year-olds with knee injuries … The first time I ran it recently, I just wanted to test things out, see where I was. I committed to 40, then stopped. Five minutes later I ran it again (45). I told Graber I thought I could easily get in the 50s. He said something like, “Uhh, okay Dad” (teen-speak for “you’re an idiot, but it’s a free world, I guess”). Two days later, I went down to the barn by myself and got 60. The following day I ran it again and got 68. I went up to the house and ate dinner. An hour later, sitting in a recliner watching television, I decided to run it again. By now my “good” knee was killing me, but I needed another hit of my drug – another bit of validation. Tangible proof that my lungs were okay. I told Christie I was going to walk up and down the drive a bit, but instead I went out, got a shovel to use as a crutch, and hobbled through the snow down to the barn and ran it again (well, “ran” is probably not the right word). A few days later, with my scans just around the corner, I ran it one more time and got a 72. Within striking distance of my “record” – I was sure if I wasn’t hobbled by my knees, I could have broken it …

As much as I respect the power of words, I have come to accept that some emotions simply defy explanation. One such emotion is the anxiety produced by having scans looming on the horizon. It’s a wholly unique and somewhat all-consuming brand of uncertainty – one that ratchets up as the date closes in. It’s not complicated. Sure, you may feel relatively okay and be able to run this or do that or whatever, but the reality is, you … just … don’t … know. In the weeks leading up to the scans, a war ignites in your brain. Fear, anxiety, and doubt versus hope, confidence, and faith. It’s a relentless, exhausting, bloody war, fought wholly in the recesses of your gray matter. You continue to function, of course. You remind yourself you’re a leader and that there are people counting on you. You “take care of your business.” You go to work, take care of your family, do your thing. You tell yourself to stay cool. You imagine you’re a quarterback responsible for taking your team down the field in the final minute of a big game, an emergency room surgeon, a fighter pilot. You tell yourself you’re made of the right stuff. You tell yourself, no matter what the outcome is, you can take anything. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. Above all, you pray a lot. You pray for mercy and strength. You pray that you’ll be spared this time around.

The day before my first scan, I was driving to work. I was cruising down Snickersville Turnpike (a beautiful back road for those who don’t know this area), and it was a sunny day, but all I could think about was the fact that the following day I was gonna lay in a machine and have pictures of my chest and spine taken and sometime shortly thereafter be told what my future looked like. Let’s just say the aforementioned anxiety was at an all-time high – most assuredly an “11” for all you Spinal Tap fans out there. I kept trying to pray, but I couldn’t hold a single thought for more than a few seconds. I had my phone mounted to my dash, with the MapMyRun app, where all my workouts are logged, open. Yes, I know I’m admitting to a childishly irresponsible act here, trying to glance at the details of various workouts on my phone while driving, but I was desperate. I needed proof I was okay, and all I had was that list of mile times and bike rides to convince myself. But it was no longer enough. Not at that point. I could’ve had a 4-minute mile logged in there, and it wouldn’t have mattered. I glanced down at my knees. They were burnt toast by then. I had one ice pack with Velcro straps on the left one and a bigger pack tied to my right one with a bandana. There would be no run or bike ride, fast or slow, at all, anytime soon. I’d reached a dead end. I was not a hall-of-fame quarterback, or a trauma surgeon, or a fighter pilot. I was, at that moment, a frail, broken, terrified man – humbled with a capital “H”.

I’ve had a few transcendental moments in my life, particularly over the past year-and-a-half. Lightning strikes of peace, comfort, and understanding. Moments where I let go of my irrepressible urge to define, dictate, control my fate. Moments of 100% submission. I had one right there, cruising down Snickersville Turnpike. My mind emptied, and I simply asked God to have mercy on myself and my family. I asked Him to take us in his hands. I asked him to carry us, and I told Him with complete honesty that I was willing to go wherever He wanted to take us. I am not a preacher – in fact, I get more than a little queasy when I find myself talking like one. Plus, I really hate to add to the litany of bad-driving sins (iPhones and ice packs) I’ve already told you about. But I said I’d keep it real here, so I’ve gotta tell it like it happened … I looked over and stared at the empty passenger seat. I mean, I stared at it. It remained empty, of course, but at that moment, God was right there. I actually stuck my open hand out on the center console and imagined – felt – Him taking hold of it. That’s right. Me and God rolling down a back road, heading off into a future no amount of mile times or bike rides could ever reveal.

Over the years, I’ve learned a few things about moments like that. For starters, they don’t exactly stick – not for me, anyway. They don’t mean I get to head off into the unknown immersed in an eternal sense of peace and comfort. In fact, a day after feeling the hand of God, I was alone, sitting in the MRI waiting room at Georgetown, again staring at MapMyRun, trying to convince myself I was okay. That’s alright. These moments are precious to me exactly because of that. They’re few and far between – hence their immense power. They are building blocks of one very imperfect dude’s faith as he makes his way through a very imperfect world.

As for the knees? Well, there were a couple weeks there where I could barely walk, let alone run or pedal a bike. It’s been … a challenge. Running and biking have been more than coping mechanisms for me – they’ve played a role in keeping me alive and have entirely saved my sanity. But losing them, even temporarily, has taught me something too. I think it’s time to take the next step in my development. Yes, I am rehabbing my legs with the hope of running at least short distances again sometime soon. Yes, in the meantime I’ve started lifting light weights again and getting light work in on the heavy bag – two things I haven’t done in over a year because of my chest. And yes, I’ve been able to get back on the bike some the past week or so (I’ve even pointed to the sky and thanked God a few times). In short, I’m still taking immeasurable joy in working out and finding ways to push my body – my life and sanity depend on it, after all. But it’s time to take the next step. When I need strength and courage, I’m gonna have to learn to lean a little more on that feeling I got driving down Snickersville Turnpike and a little less on a digital log of workouts. Thus, I formerly announce I’m saying goodbye to Usain Bolt, who, in previous posts, I’ve stated I would one day smoke in the mile if I saw him on the streets. I accept that I will never catch you, my very tall, very fast, frenemy (who, of course, doesn’t even know I exist). God speed big man. Take your victory lap. Besides, I can always set my sights on Lance Armstrong …

Thanks to all for your prayers and support! Peace out!