Sunday's Adventure

As one of my teammates kids puts it, "1 more sleep" until we start the end of this adventure called America's Most Beautiful Bike Ride. If you are curious about what this ride looks like, Click here to see the Map.  Click here to see the Elevation Map. If you print out the elevation map, you can put that beside the Map and see what mile marker goes with which climb or downhill. FUN STUFF!

I came across this music video on a friend's FaceBook page and just had to include it in this post for remembering the reason that I have trained and will ride with a fabulous team.  

What doesn't kill you makes you stronger.

I am riding in honor of:

Audrey

Byron

Lula

Lyndsay

"M"

"D"
Mike

Randal

Peter

I am riding in memory of:

Phyllis

Isaiah

Dale

Infusion 3: Cactus Butt: The Mike Sessions by Chad Estes

As I'm thinking about this upcoming weekend, I'm remembering that I have it so easy.  I only have to ride my bike 100 miles.  At the end of it, I will be tired, sore, and hungry, but I won't have "Cactus Butt".  Here's what Chad Estes says regarding Mike's 3rd infusion.  To read more by Chad Estes, Please click here.:

Three chemo sessions out of twelve are finished. One quarter of the chemical concoctions have been drunk drip by drip into Mike’s blood stream. Listening to his doctor things are right on target with blood counts, organ functions, and overall expectations. With Mike the side effects seem pretty manageable and he has a great team of professionals, including his family, making sure he is getting the proper rest and diet that he needs.

I’m not sure why I’m at Mike’s side for these sessions, other than I want to be. I can pretend to be important as a caregiver but it would be stretching the truth to make myself seem more important than I am. I am there because it is good, and that is enough.

Cancer wards are worth hanging out in if you want to see the best part of people. I’m consistently amazed that I’ve found no pity in the eyes that greet me in the waiting room and in the elevator. These people are fighting for their lives and fighting hard.

I watched one man gingerly make his way to the nurses’ station where he was greeted by his first name and with a big smile. As he walked over near me he took the doughnut shaped pillow he was holding and positioned it carefully in the chair. He lowered himself ever so lightly onto the cushion with a few grimaces from his backside pain. As soon as he was comfortable his smile returned as did his conversation with those around him. It’s kind of hard to hide what kind of cancer you are fighting when you walk around with your doughnut pillow.

Another man walked into the room from having just completed his blood work and recognized a friend in the room. He communicated his greeting with his facial expressions and lots of hand gestures before he opened his mouth. When he did so his voice was extremely deep and raspy. “Esophageal cancer,” he explained in a voice so low that James Earl Jones would be considered a tenor in comparison. The men’s two wives picked up the conversation at that point, which was probably a pretty normal occurrence anyways.

I watched Mike go through his own discomfort yesterday. As he was getting one of the anti-nausea medications injected into his port his face started twitching and he raised himself up out of the chair, obviously feeling something very uncomfortable. The nurse responded immediately and slowed down the injection which helped the reaction subside. She told us later that the nurses call that reaction to the drug “cactus butt.” She also added that most people only feel it in their derriere and that it was strange that Mike felt it in his cranium.

“It isn’t strange at all”, I announced. “Mike, pull your head out! Quit being such a butthead!”

We all laughed, which I think is what I’m good for. Laughter is supposed to be the best medicine and maybe it cushions the chemicals being injected into his port.

One quarter of the chemo game is in the books.

Julie here.  After Infusion 3 happened, Mike posted this on his FB page:  "
*ow* prickly chemo fingers *ow* hurts *ow* to type *ow* but I just *ow* can't seem to *ow* stop"

Infusion 2: The Mike Sessions, by Chad Estes

I am about 2 weeks behind in sharing Chad's post about Mike.  Here is Infusion 2.  To read more by Chad, please Click here.

Cancers are not ever good, but I guess some can be better to have than others. Where Mike’s chemo treatment is more like an insurance policy to make sure all the margins around his removed tumor are healthy other people are taking chemo to shrink tumors that are still in their body. I looked around the waiting room of people wondering why everyone was there. Each of them has a unique story and is pursuing a journey of recovery as best as they and their doctors can figure out.

Mike looks really good. His color is better; his blood count is better; his wavy hair will probably stay attached to his thick skull. Others in the room don’t look so good and their stories read like Stephen King novels where you pray for your favorite characters to survive.

The story Mike was most interested in yesterday wasn’t his own. While he sat at one end of Boise getting chemicals pumped into him, a sweet child that was named after him was in the hospital across town having an operation on her liver. Her cancer and her treatments make everyone that have heard the details feel heavy. It makes Mike call his own infusions “chemo lite.”

We always laugh when we are together, but there was tension yesterday too. Mike held up the tube running into his body and said that he felt like he was tethered to the chair when all he really wanted to do was get up and go to the other hospital and sit at that family’s side. His ever present smile faded and his bright eyes brimmed with tears feeling not his own suffering but that of Michaella’s. He didn’t have his head bowed or his eyes closed, but I recognized his posture as one of prayer. I didn’t raise my camera to catch the emotion because it felt holy; so we just waited there.

When the drops stopped falling the tether was removed and Mike quickly got himself across town. He was running down the hallway as they were pushing Michaella into her room. She was free of the ventilator and already asking if she could eat. Better yet the surgeons were giddy. They only had to remove 10% of her liver when they had planned on up to 50%. And if the lab results are favorable the two lung surgeries she had scheduled for this week won’t need to happen either.

By the end of the night Mike was spent. He sat in my living room surrounded by his friends drinking up other stories of God’s beauty, and occasionally feeding us a morsel of truth to chew on.

It was a good day of communion, infused with grace.

Yesterday (May 7) was round two of chemo for Mike.

Infusion 1, The Mike Sessions by Chad Estes

My friend, Chad Estes, has a wonderful way with words.  He writes about a mutual friend who is going through Chemotherapy. This is only one reason why I ride my bike:

My friend, whom I’ll call “Mike,” started chemotherapy today.

It is a bit intimidating walking into a building where you know that all the patients are there to get a course of toxic medicine. This stuff is pretty ugly – harsh, killer chemicals that hunt down and destroy even uglier and deadly cancer cells. It is like unleashing a team of mercenaries that care more about destruction that justice. Sometimes they inadvertently, yet without remorse, take out the good guys like hair follicles, appetite and stomach serenity.

You truly don’t want to call in the chemo team to do their business unless the therapy they mean to deploy is absolutely necessary. In Mike’s case he and his wife have decided it is and so today they started out on a new path of their journey.

My job, whatever that seems to be today, is easily put on hold so that I can go to the hospital and sit by Mike’s side as the mercenaries are inserted a drip at a time. It will take five full hours in the hospital, every other week. I plan to be beside him as much as is possible.

I’m not a saint.

This isn’t a sacrifice.

There are people, much nobler than I, who have the patience to sit with patients. I had to admit to Mike today that as much as I’d like him to think that I was there for him I knew he didn’t really need me to be there. The hospital put a rolling shelf of movies within arms’ reach of him, possibly being tipped off how much he likes the cinema. I know he has a Kindle, and with his love of books five uninterrupted hours of reading could feel like heaven to him.

But five uninterrupted hours with Mike sounds like heaven to me. So I got the hospital to print me off a schedule of his treatments and I sat beside him like I was HIPA endorsed family. I asked questions of his doctor, interacted with his nurses and pharmacists, and made myself at home. I had decided that if questioned I would tell them I was his brother. “You’re a Freeman?” they would ask to which I could honestly with my hand on the Bible answer, “Yes, I too am a free man!”

Here is the payoff – normally I get an hour or two with Mike each month; now I’ll get at least 10 for the next half year. And you need to pray for Mike because I’m not always the most sensitive guy in the hospital. Last time I spent the night with him in this place he told me his incision only hurt when he laughed. Of course I kept him stitches half the night.

Yes, there are evil things that are dying a slow death inside of Mike right now, but there are also new infusions of life and love that I see in him each day, and so as long as I know he is tethered to a chair I am selfishly going to strap myself down right next to him.

For more from Chad, please visit his site at:  http://www.chadestes.com/

Bogus Basin

Bogus Basin, April 27, 2012

Sunday, April 27^th, our training mission was to ride the road to Bogus Basin (Boise’s nearest ski hill).  Neither coach could attend this ride, so it was considered a mentor led ride.  I have not been good about updating my blog this season, so please allow me to tell you a little bit about what has been going on.

In November/December, I was asked if I would consider being a mentor for the 2012 cycle team, training for America’s Most Beautiful Bike Ride.  After much consideration, I decided to do so. 

Training for the season started right around the beginning of February.  We started with spin classes inside due to freezing temperatures, but around the end of February, moved it outside, onto our bikes.  We have a team of 5 people, consisting of beginners to advanced riders, two coaches and one mentor (8 people in all).

2 of the 3 participants who were able to do the Bogus Basin ride on the 27th were first timers for this ride, and due to the length of the 16-mile climb, we all settled in at our own pace.  At one point, I looked down towards the road that I had just been on and saw J & M headed up the hill.  I yelled down at them and waved.  Then, I was looking around another switchback up the hill, and saw R. R did not give herself permission to stop for a rest until 5 miles into the climb.  She saw me coming and waited for me so that we could ride a little ways together.  As we were resting, stretching and eating, a runner that we had seen earlier on in the ride rounded the corner and passed us. He was running with barefoot shoes, carrying a backpack that looked like it had a load in it, and had his earphones in his ears, listening to music.

After he passed us, we continued back up the hill.  We rode together for a little while, and R took off and passed the runner.  With a little bit of work, I passed the runner as well.  I’m not sure if I liked the outcome of that, however.  I would round a corner and all of a sudden, he would yell at the top of his lungs, singing whatever song was playing in his ears.  Then it would get quiet.  Then he would yell, “WOOOOOOOOO!”  Then, he would be quiet.  A few minutes later, he would pump his fist in the air and siiiiiiiiinnnnnnng at the top of his luunnnnnnnnngs.  Then quiet.  This kept up for awhile, and I didn’t feel as though I was gaining any ground on him.  It was also beginning to make me nervous, so I pulled over, stretched, ate a little bit, let him pass me up again.

I looked back for J & M while waiting to give the runner enough time to get a good distance ahead of me.  I didn’t see him again, until the ride leveled out and I was about half a mile from the top. At that point, I was going about 16 mph and passed him like he was standing still. When I got to the top, I found E, B, and K, huddled in little shelters out of the wind.  E started looking for a garbage bag to help keep her warm on the way down the hill.  R had hidden on the backside of a building, putting her hands on it to warm them up.  E, B, and K decided that they couldn’t wait much longer, or they would turn into popsicles (they were already half way there when I got up there), so they headed back down the hill.  R waited with me.  We decided to get back on our bikes and start heading down to find J & M.  We rounded the first corner and there they were!!! So we turned back around to hang out with them and ride back down together. 

One cool thing we discovered while we were up there is that some outhouses next to the tubing hill are heated!!! Aaaaah, a little piece of heaven in a thawing (but still frozen) world.  We ate a little bit and then headed down.  We stopped once to warm up frozen fingers, and then continued on down the hill.  There was one point where we could feel the temperature raise 10 degrees just in one little area, which was a welcome relief to my chattering teeth.

That day, we rode 37 miles.