Coming Back to Life

This was my two-year-old pepper plant at the end of May. I thought it was a goner. I was going to dump the old soil and plant something new in the container. I set the container on the porch, fully intending to get back to it the following day.



The following weekend, the formerly bare pepper plant was sprouting tiny leaves. Now it's loaded with more than half a dozen peppers. My lovely plant will be coming back inside before the first overnight freeze, and hopefully it will live to see another summer!

This is what most of my garden looked like when we returned from Ride the Rockies. I spent the entire next day replanting, re-aerating by hand, watering, trimming, pruning, nurturing...

This is what my garden looks like now.



This is what I spent the next five weeks doing. Mostly in bed. Because I couldn't move the day after all the garden work.

The pain grew steadily, just like the garden. My doctor took me in on an emergency basis. He put me on all kinds of medication, which I couldn't take at work because it put me to sleep. When I wasn't working, I was sleeping.

Finally, test results were delivered.

An injury of old has come back to life, perhaps aided by a little bike wreck back in March. Possibly fueled by inadequate training for a hard six-day, cross-state ride. Likely pushed on by too many hours spent sitting at a desk at work sans breaks and stretches. Oh, and with legs crossed: "No, no, no! Feet flat on the floor!"

And by golly, no more lifting. "You hear that, Young Lady?!?"

Do you suppose I should tell him about the company softball game??? The one they asked me to photograph for the company newsletter, the one we would have to forfeit if they couldn't find/convince one more female to play? ("You did WHAT?!?") ("Hey, I hit the ball! I didn't make it to base, but I hit the ball!")

We likely will never know precisely what ignited this outburst, just as when the bone chip came out of nowhere in 2004 to floor me and result in a two-inch scar in the middle of my lower back. What we do know is that it robbed me of my 17th month in my 60-mile-day streak. What we do know is that it rendered me incapable of wearing my prized High Roller jersey this summer.

A disc is an insulator to the nerve bundle running through the spine and a shock absorber for the vertebrae above and below it. It's 80 percent moisture at birth. It dries out as it ages. It suffers upon impact or trauma. And sometimes, it rebels. Angrily.

Because no blood flows to discs and they don't receive fresh oxygen and nutrients, they cannot heal or repair themselves. A disc can, under certain circumstances, be replaced with plastic parts. In most cases, the body balances itself out by about age 60, and the injured disc isn't as much of a nuisance. Otherwise, there is no cure.

But I refuse to roll over and play dead.

I've been yoga stretching and walking every day for three weeks. I'm keeping my feet flat on the floor. I'm getting up from my desk often, even if all I get to do is walk around my chair.

And last weekend, I got to sit in the saddle again for a test ride. It was short, but rewarding.

The bears in my dreams came to life. Well, one of them did. And he put on one heck of a show for me. About 200 shots' worth.







"I knew the moment had arrived
For killing the past and coming back to life."
-David Gilmour, Pink Floyd

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