I was released from the hospital this afternoon, and am home. We usually have our Christmas gathering on Christmas Eve, but posponed it until this afternoon this year.
I am feeble, and have a Frankenstein incision from the middle of my back all the way around to just under my arm, with 40 staples in it, but it’s still great to be home for my family gathering. Merry Christmas, everyone!
I was admitted to the Dallas VA Hospital on Wednesday, and had surgery Thursday afternoon. They did a wedge resection on my upper left lung, and after the pathologist confirmed it was cancer, removed my entire upper left lung lobe, as well as a bunch of lymph nodes. The lymph nodes will be biopsied, and if they are cancer free, then the surgery was a cure.
They had me walking a lap around the Thoracic Intensive Care Unit on Friday, and cyclist that I am, I asked for and got bonus miles, walking a second lap.
I was moved from TICU to a regular room last night. I will probably be here another couple of days.
I had no symptoms that really alerted me, but looking back, there were hints. The first was in June, when I experienced asthma like symptoms during a 128 mile ride. I wasn’t wheezing, but was short of breath, unable to breathe in my usual amount. This would have not been noticeable on my couch, but was VERY noticeable on a 128 mile bike ride. I had to stop and catch my breath on the one significant hill on the ride, became exhausted much sooner than usual, and was barely able to complete the ride. When I got home and told my wife, she thought I should go to the ER, but I couldn’t bring myself to tell a doctor, “Doc, I’m so terribly sick that I could barely complete a 128 mile bicycle ride.” I also had bronchitis for three weeks in August. I’ve always been bronchitis prone, but hadn’t had it this bad in years.
I probably should have posted some of this story about how it got diagnosed before, but here’s my story up to now. It starts with a thyroid nodule. It wasn’t cancerous, but ended up leading to the discovery of my lung cancer. It was the spring of 2006 when I noticed a lump on the lower right front of my neck. It was much lower than my Adam’s apple. I had a checkup with my regular doctor coming up, so I mentioned it to him, then. He said it was likely a harmless thyroid nodule, but referred me to a thyroid specialist. I traveled to the Dallas VA Medical Center to see this specialist. I had no idea then of how many times I would make this trip in the upcoming days.
The thyroid doctor ordered an ultrasound scan to measure the nodule, then an FNA (fine needle aspiration) for a biopsy to check it for cancer. None was found, and the doctor said the nodule should just be checked annually for growth. She did say, however, that an umbilical (belly button) hernia I’d had for a long time needed to be repaired, and I had surgery in January of this year for that. It was my first surgery in many years.
In the spring, another ultrasound scan was done on the thyroid nodule, and it was determined that there had been quite a bit of growth. Another FNA was done, and when it was inconclusive, another procedure was done, where the neck is numbed, and a much larger needle is used to extract biopsy samples. Just before he gave me a shot to numb my neck, the doctor said, “I don’t know if I should numb you or not. A long distance cyclist like you would probably like the pain.” I was NOT very reassured by this. There was still no cancer found.
I thought all this was to determine whether or not to do surgery on the nodule, but I was mistaken. The doctors had already decided to surgically remove it; they were trying to decide whether or not to take my left thyroid gland, as well. Thyroid nodules are common, and very low risk when they’re small and on young people, but when you are older and the nodule is bigger, and especially when it has a growth spurt, there is a very high risk of thyroid cancer. Thyroid cancer is among the least deadly of cancers, but it’s still cancer. If there is cancer on one thyroid gland, the risk of cancer on the other thyroid gland is so great, they remove them both. Since they didn’t find cancer in my thyroid nodule, they only wanted to do surgery on the right side.
I agreed to let them remove the thyroid nodule, and they scheduled surgery for September 29th. I was scheduled to race in The Texas Time Trials on that very day, so I asked them to reschedule for the next available date. They scheduled me for surgery on November 15th. Two weeks prior to that, I did all my pre-op appointments, which included a chest x-ray. They spotted a shadow on the x-ray, so faint they weren’t even sure if it was anything more than an x-ray glitch (properly called an artifact). When they went back and reviewed the pre-op chest x-ray from the umbilical hernia surgery, 10 months earlier, and saw the same shadow on it, they knew it wasn’t just an artifact, and ordered a CT scan.
When they called to tell me of my CT scan appointment, they only told me that my chest x-ray had something suspicious on it, and they wanted to take a closer look. It was 8:15 pm on Wednesday, November 14th, the evening before my scheduled surgery, when the surgeon called and told me my surgery had been canceled, and he was pretty sure I had lung cancer. It was a 2.8 centimeter SPN (single pulmonary nodule – anything less than 3 cm is a nodule, 3 cm or bigger is a mass). He called back the next day to tell me he wanted to admit me to the hospital on Sunday, November 18th.
Since the doctor was already supposed to operate on a thyroid nodule, and here I was with a cancerous nodule in my lung, he figured the thyroid nodule was probably cancerous, too, and that I might also have cancer in lots of other places, as well. With me as an in-patient, he knew he could get quicker test results and consultations with other doctors, to determine what, if anything, could be done for me. He didn’t share all that information with me at the time, but with the tone of his voice, he might as well have.
I was admitted, and violated with various tests. The first consultation the doctor wanted to do was, understandably, with the pulmonary (lung) doctors. It wasn’t until my second day in the hospital that he was able to do this consultation, and as soon as he did it, everything changed. The pulmonary doctor took one look at the CT scan, and told the thyroid surgeon that it was not a metastatic tumor from some other cancer, it was NSCLC (non-small cell lung cancer), and was the primary tumor, and as small as it was, it was probably the only cancer I had. He recommended that the thyroid doctor release me from the hospital, and turn my care over to the pulmonary doctors. I was released that evening.
My doctor care went from fast and furious to a snail’s pace. The pulmonary doctors seemed to be in no hurry. It was two weeks later when I had my appointment with a pulmonary doctor, who told me the SPN was well contained within the upper lobe of my left lung, that my lymph nodes showed no signs of cancer in the CT scans, making the cancer likely Stage 1, and that surgery to remove that lobe of my lung should be a slam dunk cure for the cancer, with a 90 percent chance of it not recurring. He told me with a straight face that I would notice no difference with that lobe of my lung missing. I’m no doctor, but I immediately knew better than that. Your right lung has three lobes; your left has two. A couch potato might not miss half of his lung being removed, but a serious cyclist was sure to notice his VO2 max being surgically reduced that much.
My research, though, had already told me that surgery was the best way to attack early stage cancer, so I agreed to the surgery. I asked about thorascopic surgery, which is much less invasive than open thoracic surgery, and he told me the VA only does open thoracic surgery for a lobectomy. I considered trying to get the less invasive thorascopic surgery. There were only a few doctors doing this type of surgery for lobectomies in the country, so I would have to travel, and even then, most would not guarantee not to change to open thorascopic surgery, once they got inside. Using a thorascope for a lobectomy is very difficult, apparently. The surgeon has to get all the way around the lung to remove lymph nodes to properly stage the cancer, and not many have the skill to do that with a thorascope. And if there are any complications, you get opened up anyway. So, I agreed to the open thoracic surgery at the Dallas VA Medical Center. If I had known then what I know now, I would have done whatever necessary to try and get the thorascopic surgery, instead.
I came in for a pulmonary function test the next week. A pulmonary function test checks your lung function to see if it’s good enough to give up a lobe of your lung, and still have enough lung function to get by. Not surprisingly, my pulmonary function was in the high-normal range, and the woman who administered the pulmonary function test said it was the first time she had seen a high-normal range on a lung cancer patient. I was to end up being a freak to many of the medical people I saw.
I waited for my surgery to be scheduled, and called when mid-December rolled around and it still hadn’t been scheduled. After my call, they called back to let me know my surgery had been scheduled for the day after tomorrow, December 20th. Wish me luck.
I did 41.3 miles from home on the Nimbus yesterday and 25 miles today on the Joe Pool dam on the Corsa. It looks like these will be my last rides before lung surgery, and therefore last rides of the year. I ended up with 6161 miles ridden this year.
These rides have a way of turning into epic adventures, and this one was no exception. There were six riders on this permanent brevet. We started the ride in Princeton, at 7:00 am. I got to riding along, talking to Peggy, and the next time I looked around, there was no one else behind us. The crosswinds were already pretty gusty, even early, but we made decent time to the first control, and before we were ready to leave, the rest of the group arrived.
At Ladonia (which is home to one of the friendliest Deputy Sheriffs I’ve ever met), we turned north, and had a good tailwind the rest of the way to Honey Grove, the turnaround point. Peggy said she wasn’t feeling her strongest, and I had to admit I wasn’t either, so we didn’t really try to fly down the road while we had the tailwind. We just pedaled a comfortable pace.
At the Honey Grove control, John Droese pulled in just a few minutes behind us, saying he would keep his stop short, and wanted to join us. John is new to LSR, but is a strong rider. Before we left, the rest of the group arrived, so they were still just a short distance behind us. By then, the winds had to be blowing 30 mph, and the 12 miles straight south back to Ladonia were brutal. That stretch isn’t hilly, but it’s so open it really catches the wind.
After we left the next control at mile 95, it sprinkled lightly for a few minutes, but that was all. The 6.4 mile stretch from Lane to Merit is straight against the wind, with some tough hills, and that was one of the hardest stretches I’ve ridden in a while. My legs were toast by the time we turned west again.
With 15 miles to go, my rear derailler shifting cable broke. This instantly clunked the chain into the 11 tooth gear. This gives you a 3 speed bike, and you ain’t going to like the gears you have. The 3 gears are high, higher, and highest. It had been progressively getting darker outside, and of course it chose this time to start sprinkling again. I don’t know of a quick fix for this problem (if you do, this would be a good place to post it), so, knowing the skys could open up at any minute, I decided the best approach might be to keep going, doing my best to keep enough speed to get over the hills. I can tell you that I do not recommend trying to climb a tough hill at 9 mph with a 50 cadence, especially when your legs are already fried. By picking up my speed to try and keep going, I eventually lost sight of Peggy, and of course the minute I did, she broke down.
I knew I would eventually get stopped by a hill, so John said he would go back for Peggy. Sure enough, after walking my bike up a steep hill, John and Peggy showed up, and we spent a few minutes trying to do a fix to get me in a lower gear. John pulled the cable while I pedaled to get the bike into a lower gear, then we tied the cable. It did not work. As soon as I took off, it clicked into the 11 tooth gear again. I decided to keep going. I only had to walk one more hill, but I did struggle mightily on several. The 9 mph with a 50 cadence seemed to be my limit. If I fell below that, I had to stop. But, I sat right on the 50 cadence on several hills, my legs boiling in hot oil.
After my cable troubles started, I was so intent on just getting in that I neglected to keep drinking my carb drink, and I paid the price for that. As soon as I pulled in the parking lot, I bonked, and could hardly stand. A few minutes of sitting in my truck downing sugar made me feel much better (thanks for the Herseys chocolate, Peggy), but my legs were so fried, they looked like this:
Well, maybe they didn’t look like that, but they FELT that way. I ended up finishing in ~10 hours. Mileage was 125.6. On the bike time was 8:21, for a 15.0 average. Total climbing was 3958 feet. The wind made it feel like more.
Rose and I arrived at the Arlington Bicycles Inc about 12:15. My new tandem carrier setup worked perfectly; I think this setup would be fine on the highway if I want to make a longer haul with the tandem. The ride start time was 1:00 pm, so we took time to explore the new Bicycles Inc store. It is really big and well stocked. The ride signup sheets were inside the store, and there was also all kinds of fruit to snack on.
We enjoyed the route. The main change on the short route is the return, which comes back on Turner-Warnell then Calender, rather than a long haul down Sublett, which gets pretty busy in the afternoon. It still makes a longer run down Rendon Road than I like, but the traffic this time of afternoon was much less than the after church traffic we caught last time, and the short route doesn’t stay on Rendon Road nearly as far as we did on the LSR ride.
I never got an official count, but it looked to be 50 riders or so, in all. There were a half dozen or so tandems, and there looked to be plenty of newer riders. We started out at the back of the pack, not having done any of these group rides on our tandem, and not sure how well we would keep up. But, we soon found the speed at the back too slow, and started passing folks. We soon ended up with a group which included some slower riders from the 60 mile route, and the fastest of the 37 mile riders.
We rode out against a howling south wind. The clouds kept the temperature mild, though. This is great weather for November! The break at the Rendon Store at mile 20 was very welcome. The more upright seating of this tandem isn’t as comfortable as my other bikes, and 25 miles or so is all I usually do on it.
With the big tailwind behind us on the return, we kept up with the fastest riders on the short route, except for the usual getting dropped on hills. We ended up with 37.2 miles, with an on the bike average of 15.5 mph. I guess having a pace set for us by riding with this group speeded us up some; we don’t usually manage that fast an average on the tandem.
There was pumpkin pie waiting at Bicycles Inc after the ride, but we settled for more fruit, and headed home for dinner. We both enjoyed the ride; I’ll think we’ll do this one some more during the winter. A 1:00 pm starting time like it has will be good when the temperatures get cooler.
I had an excellent day, riding this 200k brevet. Steve, Peggy, and Ray are great company, and it was so nice to be doing the ride with a pack of recumbents who’s uphill and downhill speed characteristics match my own. This ride starts in Italy, goes southeast to Groesbeck, then takes a more westerly loop back to Italy.
As I loaded my bike onto the rack this morning, I noticed how cool it was, and turned around and grabbed my arm and leg warmers, and tossed them into the truck. That was a good move. In Italy, the temperature was 57 degrees this morning, with a stiff south wind, and even after I put the arm and leg warmers on, I was still shivering. It’s hard to believe it made it up to 91 degrees in the afternoon, and with a big time tail wind, it was downright hot the last bunch of miles.
Within a few miles from the start, the four of us settled into a group by ourselves. We passed Nelson. He was doing the 300k, and conserving energy with a modest pace at that point. The southwest wind, which had been blowing at 10 mph or so when we started, kept picking up, and shortly after we turned west on SH-31 at mile 24, it really started blowing. The eleven miles down SH-14, from Mexia to Groesbeck, mile 52 to 63, were just brutal, against a wind that was really howling by then. Everyone arrived at Groesbeck tired.
But most of the miles after that were with the wind, and we really started moving down the road. At the last control stop, mile 93 at Mount Calm, Ray decided to wait for his friend, Dennis, who had had a blowout and another flat, so Steve, Peggy, and I took off by ourselves from there. We had started the ride with intentions of keeping our pace moderate, since it was Steve and Peggy’s first 200k, and I’ve tended to crater myself lately, when I try to hammer too many miles. For most of the ride we did a good job. We would get the pace a bit fast, then catch ourselves, and slow a little. At this point, however, we just kind of took off. There were a few miles west, against a quartering wind which really slowed us down, but once we turned north on FM-308 at mile 101, we really cranked it up.
After we turned onto US-77 in Milford at mile 125, we made a quick stop at an outdoor pop machine, wanting a rejuvenating soft drink for the last few miles, but the machine was out of order, so we just rested a few minutes, and continued on. I can’t believe how strong Steve and Peggy still were as we pulled into the finish! Congrats on your first 200k, you two, that was a great effort!
We finished with 132.2 miles, and a time of 9:30. Average speed was 16.6 mph, for an on the bike time of just under 8 hours. This ride was just too much fun; I look forward to more brevets with these bent riders!
This ride starts at the Crowley High School, goes south on small roads through Cleburne, through Rio Vista, to just west of Covington, then turns northeast and goes through Covington, then north to Grandview, and down small roads, staying just west of I-35W, back to Crowley.
I really like this route. Most of the roads are small, low traffic, country roads. Many of the roads are tree lined, and very scenic. Even the stretches of highways are pretty low traffic roads. There are hills, but nothing really steep, and none are really long hills, either.
Greg joined me on this ride, and we both decided at the beginning to keep the pace reasonable, on not spend this whole ride hammering. And so we did. I finished this ride feeling better than I ever have after a century.
It was 63 degrees with a stiff south breeze when we started at 8:00 am. It actually felt a bit cold until we got underway. It was just a few miles down the road that a few bikes took off ahead of everyone else. Greg and I, both needing to make an unscheduled pit stop anyway, resisted the urge to join this group, and just stayed with the main group. When the 58 milers turned off in Cleburne, there were just six bikes out of the main group headed on for the century: two road bikes, two tandems, and two recumbents.
We kept a comfortable pace for the most part, but the south wind got pretty tough until we turned northeast near Covington. From there on, it was easy sailing, and I do mean sailing. It was a fun, spirited group. The tandems were experts at spotting the city limit signs first, and won all the city limit sign sprints (although Greg did claim the cemetery sign sprint). We also took our time at the stops, and didn’t finish the ride until after 3:00 pm. I ended up with 98.3 miles, with 2967 feet of climbing, an on the bike time of 6:05, for a 16.0 mph average.
My usual winter route roads south of home have gotten very torn up from the oilfield truck traffic. I do enjoy roads without terrible hills for my winter rides on the Nimbus. I’m planning on incorporating some of the roads from this route into some winter routes for myself for this year.
It was a fun ride, like the airport ride always is, even though I really don’t like riding in the rain. There was great chat and camaraderie with riding friends headed out to the airport, then a rabbit that I just couldn’t catch as I blew myself up on the airport loop, then feeling the drizzle start, and watching Paul slip-slide on the wet roads as I dragged my tired self back to the start. Did I mention that I really don’t like riding in the rain?
Then, war stories were swapped over a sandwich, while the air conditioner froze my soaked self. Someone remind me to pack a towel and dry shirt next time the weatherman says a 40% chance of rain. I ended up with 54.3 miles at a 17.4 average. It was great riding with you, Paul, Steve, Peggy, and all the GDB folks.
It was last winter when the seeds of entering The Texas Time Trials was first planted in my head. All winter long, my most frequent riding companion was Mark Metcalfe, on the Joe Pool dam. He was recovering from his late spring crash, and therefore spent the winter riding at speeds I could usually keep up with. We talked about a lot of things, but of course his long distance riding was a frequent topic. He told me I should enter an event in the next TTTT, but I hadn’t even done a century, and felt my best in even the shortest TTTT event would be too embarrassing to be posted for the world to see. He said that a four man team for the 500 mile race gave you over a day to ride 120 miles, that there had never even been a four man recumbent team in TTTT, and that I should think about putting a four man team together.
When I mentioned it to Paul, he sounded reluctant, even though GDB folks had bugged him about doing something at TTTT last year. I only later found out that he just wasn’t going to consider it until he test rode the course, and was sure his lap times would be at least close to what other riders had averaged. When I asked Steve about joining the team, he also expressed concern that he wasn’t fast enough for something like this. I pointed out to him that I had ridden with him a little and he seemed fast to me, that we were all amateurs and none of us other than Greg on the TiCa were likely to post any times that looked like anything resembling pro times, and that no one was going to judge him too harshly if he was willing to come out and try (of course, both Paul and Steve ended up smoking the course).
Looking back, we were pretty clueless about so much of what was coming. We had picked up tidbits here and there, questioning people who had done it, like Nelson and Ray, but we still barely had an inkling of what we were getting into. Brenda had just recently mentioned to Paul that having two riders alternate for two laps during the night, while the other two took a longer break, was the best way to get a little sleep during the event. It also occurred to me that some kind of hint about what time a rider’s next lap would start would help, so just two days before the race, I wrote out a tentative schedule, with night breaks like Brenda had brought up, and passed out copies the night before the race. We ended up doing WAY better than the schedule, but at least it gave us starting times to adjust from.
At first, I had Greg pencilled in as the first rider to start, since he was sure to be the fastest on his new TiCa. Eventually, it occurred to me that Paul as the first rider would make more sense, because the crazy beginning mass start would be in the dark, an awfully tough challenge for Greg on the lowracer, and because the first rider has to do a 7th lap, 20 miles more than anyone else, and Paul’s endurance had looked better than any of us this year. While Greg and I were trashed at the end of HHH, Paul seemed in great form at the end, and with ample breaks, had maintained a 20 mph average for the 100 miles.
Focusing on the training and riding, you also have no clue about how much work will be involved with crewing an event like this. Ray’s saving us space at the start/finish, and Paul bringing a canopy for there, worked very well. Rose was less than enthusiastic about even going, and sitting around while the other riders and I alternated riding for close to 30 hours. She took her own car so she could make a trip or two home for sleep and tending to home matters. Once the race started, though, there was no way she was leaving. The crew work done by Rose, Terrie, Peggy, and Alexis were far more necessary and important than I had ever thought of, and Rose’s masseuse work on my legs were a big part of my being able to finish my laps.
Neither riders nor crew got much sleep. I’ve never known anyone else who can fall asleep on cue any better than me, yet when I finally got time to lie down, even in my exhausted state, it took 10 minutes for me to fall asleep, and the 2 hours and 20 minutes of sleep I got was more than any other team rider, and some of the crew.
Considering how we marched headlong into the unknown, I thought we did pretty well. Our relay handoffs could have been a bit better, but it all went a lot better than could be expected for a complete rookie team and crew. There were no flats or major breakdowns, but I had my trials and tribulations during the race. On my second lap, construction people laying tires to move a tracked bulldozer across the road, stopped me and made me wait. It was only a couple of minutes, not much in the grand scheme of things, but it seemed like life and death as I sat there. I also lost my main light during the second night lap. The battery died. It charges up today, but takes hours to do so, and only shines the light a bit over an hour. I don’t know if it’s dead, if I never charged it up and ran it down enough for it to be working right yet, or what ( a rookie mistake from a non-night rider). I had to stop in the middle of the lap and retrieve my puny Cateye EL300 from my bag, and use it the rest of the way. That was a very scary lap, with not enough light to see well. For my last lap, also a night lap, Paul lent me a helmet light which did a great job, but as I retrieved stuff from the back seat of my truck before the lap, my night glasses fell to the ground, and of course, I stepped on them. Paul also lent me glasses.
Mark Metcalfe had said what an uplifting thing a team challenge like this can be, and Nelson mentioned in another post how meaningful a team experience like this is, but without a reminder, you forget how team camraderie can be with the right teammates. I’d go to war with these guys, now.
Who knows if and when we’ll do something like this, again. Unless I can get faster, I don’t think these guys should keep me around for a second go-round. It will take a few more days for everything to settle in, but I can already tell that this was one of those adventures that I’ll always remember and cherish. Adventures like that are too few and far between.
Even with Mark Metcalfe’s prodding, I’m not sure this team would have ever gotten together without the steady chatter and exchange of thoughts that the rbent forum provides. Thanks, rbent.
