Three Weeks of Updates (Left Shoulder Surgery Recovery)

Hi blog,

Finally time for the update! Since I'm still having a bit of a hard time typing, I'm going to give you updates as I've been giving them to friends of mine since the surgery.

10/28
The surgery went really well. It took half as long as the right shoulder did last time. I had a nerve block so I'm not in any pain and hopefully I'll be able to go home in the morning! Typing is a bit of an annoyance cause I've only got one arm, the left arm is immobilized by my uber sling and I can't really feel anything in that arm anyways. I don't need painkillers that much because the nerve block means I don't feel anything. All in all, things are looking great and I'm guessing recovery is going to come along nicely!

11/1
I got home yesterday, I had to stay in the hospital a couple extra days because the pain got really bad and I couldn't leave until it was better controlled. The nurses and doctors didn't really help much with the pain because they didn't listen when I told them I have a very high tolerance for pain medication, so I kept getting doses for normal people, which did very little to actually control my pain. I got through it though and got out of the hospital. It's manageable now so I'm resting at home and able to do a little bit already. The doctor says everything looks really promising so far. It might even heal better and faster than the right shoulder, so it's all going well so far. 

11/4
I've started doing at home PT which is going well. The range of motion is decent and it actually doesn't hurt too much to do the exercises as long as I keep it calmish. The therapist I'm seeing says that it's definitely better than the right one was at this stage and was impressed at how much better it was. I'm seeing the therapist again tomorrow so we'll see how it goes. Other than that I've just been taking it easy to ensure I don't push myself too much and worsen my recovery. I'm trying not to let the boredom of being safe with my health annoy me too much. I'd been having some fevers and shaking on and off at night, but it's gone down and hasn't happened in a couple days.

11/5

I saw the doctor for my one week post-op appointment and they took the bandage off my surgery site before I saw him. It's looking very clean and hardly at all swollen. There's a thin scar but it doesn't look red or angry, which was a nice surprise. The bandage was left off so now it's completely uncovered, which burns a little to the touch but is otherwise fine. I had some x-rays done and the doctor says it's looking good so far. He also checked my range of motion and was pleased, even said that he fully expects the left one to heal up faster and better than the right one. All in all, the doctor thinks everything is coming along nicely and I'll be seeing him again in six weeks.

11/13
The nurse who comes to the house says the scar is looking really good, no infection or anything. PT is still going well, I started doing shoulder shrugs and my arm is getting better range of motion, although it's definitely painful. Part of that pain is coming from the lack of painkillers, the person who wrote the original prescription did it differently than I'd been taking it so I've been forced to ration my painkillers in order to have any at all, waiting to get more all week but tomorrow I'll get new ones. It's been difficult and has caused more pain, but I didn't really have an option. I tried calling the woman who prescribed them but she never called me back so I just rationed them and dealt with the extra pain. This sort of thing isn't too uncommon, problems with medication or hospitals or health stuff in general always seem to follow me around, you just deal with it best you can. An increase in my pain for a week I can deal with, I've held out this long, I can wait another day. Still, would have been nice if this hadn't happened at all. 

11/16
Got my painkillers so everything is good now. PT still going well, added in a couple more exercises. The pain has increased a little bit and I'm not sure why. I've had a couple nights in a row where I've woken up repeatedly with sharp pain assaulting my shoulder, I think it might be the way my arm is positioned so I'm going to try to change it a little and see if that helps (note: it did, although I only slept 3 hours last night I didn't wake up due to pain). I'm starting to get back into school and normal stuff instead of just sitting around and relaxing and making sure I don't overdo things. I'm still not back to my normal routine, that will take a while since I'm supposed to wear the sling for another three weeks at least, but I can at least start to catch up on stuff that I missed and work on keeping my grades intact as best I can. 

And that sums up the last three weeks of my recovery. I will do my best to keep regular updates from here on out, although I will be very busy with school because I have two classes to catch up on. I will do my upmost to keep you and all the readers apprised of my health and any updates as they come up. 

Ethereal

You know the brain is a weird thing? (See above) One minute it's fully comprehending something, and the next that something is completely out of reach and inaccessible. That's how it's felt with this upcoming surgery. I've known about it for a couple months, hell I half-begged the doctor to do it, but it hasn't felt real to me in all that time since then. Ethereal, that's a good word for it. It's like some vague threat that nobody really takes seriously, yet is still very real. Tomorrow that threat is realized, because that's when I'm going in to get my left shoulder replaced. I did have a very short period of realization during my hospital pre-op last week, which resulted in a half-second panic attack, a single smothered sob, and then total composure and the connection to the surgery flitted back off into the ether.

This is kinda what it looks like...
only worse

The surgery is taking place at 7:15...in the morning. Which means I need to be at the hospital at 5:30 am, which means I have to be awake at approximately 4 am. I'm debating not even bothering to go to sleep, because that's about when I go to bed anyway. The surgery itself will be a total shoulder replacement, sawing off the ball joint and replacing it with an artificial head and fixing a plastic cup to the socket area so the fake head has a snug place to sit. The x-rays showed that the shoulder configuration essentially reversed itself, with the head collapsing around the socket...it looked weird. The x-ray tech complimented me on my train wreck of a shoulder. Someday I'll talk about how much I enjoy x-ray techs and their odd, somewhat morbid sense of humor that totally jives with me. But that's a post for another time, space, space-time, and quantum. Maybe some strings and branes for added effect. Look, I had to throw in science somewhere...

The reason you haven't heard from me in the last two weeks is because of all the work I've been doing trying to get ready for the surgery. There are a lot of loose ends to tie up (no I don't work for the Mafia...usually) and things to get put in place so I don't have to worry about anything other than my recovery for the next few weeks. School, paperwork, government stuff, medical things, life, friends, stress, all that needs to be taken care of prior to a surgery. Even if these surgery is completely ethereal to me, the full ramifications just out of reach to my conscious mind, I'm still under an inordinate amount of stress. I've been increasingly anxious without having a concrete reason (even knowing full well a lot of it comes from an unconscious worry about the surgery, I can't connect it on a logical or conscious level), so it's lowered my ability to focus and be able to do things, which requires me to prioritize what needs to be done and neglect certain others. Most of that has come at the cost of my social life and writing, two things that took a major hit in the last month when I semi-dropped off the face of the Earth. I figured that's something that I can pick back up after I'm doing better, whereas making sure my grades remain unaffected and finishing up paperwork on time seemed to be a more pressing issue.

This is the voice in my head for those who remember

I have taken some solace in knowing that this shoulder isn't as bad as the right one (which was replaced in June) and that I'm familiar with the workings of this one. The second joint always seems to be easier than the first one I've found (as evidenced by having both hips and knees replaced separately), so that does alleviate a little of the stress. It's still there, it always is. As blasé as I've been about the surgery and reassuring to everyone that it will be fine, there's always that little voice going "Yea but what if it isn't?" It's a hard voice to ignore. It convinced me I was going to die last year when I had my left knee replaced, although clearly it was wrong. That doesn't mean I can shut it off, but I have been slowly turning down the volume to its rambling statements of doom and hellfire.

I suppose it will be another couple weeks before any meaningful posts come out of this blog again. There might be a quick "I'm fine" post when I feel up to typing, or maybe something written by someone else with a quick explanation of how everything went. Otherwise, I'll be laid up and unable to use one arm and on enough painkillers to make a whale very, very happy. I'll try to get something out at a reasonable time.

Until then,
Andrew Bundy

My 7th Birthday

Hi blog,

Apologies for the gap. I've been trying to get a handle on everything and it's been frustrating and draining to say the least. The closer the surgery gets the more things seem to pop up to deal with. I'm definitely going to be looking forward to a nice, relaxing, pain-filled break after I get my shoulder replaced in exactly two weeks, let me tell you.

I was going to put a picture of a knee with AVN, but then I
decided this was a much better option. Don't you think?

Well, I suppose you're waiting to hear about the knee. I am too, I only just had the MRI on Saturday so I won't be learning anything from that for another few days probably. However, two days before that I went in to see my knee specialist (the first guy I saw was my general practitioner, who also does sports medicine) and the x-rays looked about normal, same as before. But then he pulled up a knee MRI I had done back in May (I didn't even remember having it) and he showed me the inside of my knee. It wasn't pretty. The majority of the interior was made up of necrosed (dead) bone. To be fair, this isn't exactly news to me. I've known that there was a lot of necrosis for a while, because of my Avascular necrosis (a degenerative bone disease caused by steroids. See here for details), but as long as the dead stuff stays inside the bone and doesn't penetrate to the surface, it's not going to cause any pain. Well, there was a tiny tentacle of necrotic (just using all sorts of variations of the word today aren't I?) bone snaking down through a big patch of it and had just barely breached the surface. There was only a tiny spot exposed, and my specialist thinks that might be what's causing the knee pain.
Theory: Because the pain only really shows up when I bend my knee at certain angles, that small dead spot is rubbing against something at that certain angle and causing the pain. When I get this newest MRI back I'll learn two things. A) Whether or not the little spot has grown any, 2) What can be done about it, assuming something needs to be done about it. Obviously there's a lot of speculation here, and that in itself is driving me up the wall. As accepting as I am about the shoulder surgery, the possibility that I might need another replacement (if the necrosis is spreading in the knee and the pain continues to get worse, my specialist might recommend surgery again) after that has done nothing to improve my mood. Frankly, I'm pissed. Murphy, always Murphy.

But that's neither here or there now so I'm trying not to think about it too much (and not doing a very good job). The book editing has been coming along, not great or fast, but it is progressing at least. Unfortunately there are more pressing things to do than editing my memoir. I'm not happy about it, because this memoir is literally the most important thing to me, but what can you do?

Let's talk about something pleasant. I feel this whole post has had a somewhat sour tinge to it. But now for something uplifting and cheerful! (Kinda) Two days ago I had my 7-year rebirthday (and I think I'm having a regular one in a few days too). In some ways, I am seven years old. This me, right now, is only seven years old. It's when I got my bone marrow transplant from marrow harvested from my brother Chad's hip bone (the needles look like something out of the Spanish Inquisition).  October 12, 2007 is when I got my new life, a new chance.

Excerpt from Life Has No Title:

When you receive an infusion of bone marrow, the staff up at City of Hope calls it your “birthday,” the day where you’re given new life and, in a sense, reborn. October 12, 2007 is my oncological birthday. The doctor for the day, Dr. Pawlowska (spelled right the very first time!), came in with a nurse carrying a bag of what I at first believed was blood. I had known that my mom was organizing people to donate blood for after I had my bone marrow transplant, and thought that before I could receive it I would need to bolster my cell counts, but I was mistaken. Instead, the ruddy-colored viscous liquid was the bone marrow! This piqued my interest a great deal, insofar as someone who is hopped up on a staggering amount of dilaudid can do anything to a great deal. I had been paying as much attention as possible, learning what I could about this and that, gaining as much knowledge as a second-year med school student in the process. If I had the energy to focus, I would listen in on conversations and pick up some odd terminology or medical explanation for whatever god-forsaken side effect I had picked up that day.

“How are you today good sir?” Dr. Pawlowska asked in her thick-accented way. It was the same question every time she saw me in the morning. “How are you today good sir?”

Most days I would respond with, “Okay I guess.” Or “Not too great.” I was a master of understatement. But today, I gathered up a smile and told her, “Excited. That’s the bone marrow?”

“It is. We’ll just hook this up and you’ll be good to go.”

“Wait…how does it get into my bones then?” I asked suspiciously. As far as I could tell, there were no nanobots lurking in the substance ready to transport the bone marrow from my bloodstream into the centers of my bones, where they would thrive and drive out the remnants of my treasonous cells.

Dr. Pawlowska offered up a tentative smile. “To be honest, we’re not entirely sure. I could tell you all about the different theories and everything, but nothing has been proven definitively. They sort of magically find their way into the bones.”

Magic. One of the last words you want to hear when a doctor is explaining such an important medical procedure to you. “Magic,” I repeated slowly, not entirely sure if I had misheard her in my drug-induced haze.

“Magic,” she reaffirmed.

We looked at each other for a long moment, then I shrugged and lay back in my bed, too exhausted to argue and knowing that the good doctor knew what she was doing, even if she wasn’t sure about the exact nature of the procedure. “Good enough for me. Let’s get started.”

So there you go. Chad saved my life. I wouldn't be here if he hadn't donated his marrow. The poor kid got stabbed by a thousand saw-toothed needles, woke up so groggy he couldn't figure out how to properly use a straw and had a sore hip for several days. I have him to thank for this second chance and the ability to continue to live and enjoy life, all the things I love: writing, space, science, friends, family, space. I'll never be able to repay that, but at least I can pester him with interesting space facts the next time I see him.

PS: Comet Siding Spring will be flying past Mars on October 19 at a distance of 89,000 miles (much closer than the moon is to Earth). It'll be awesome.

Your 7-year-old Master,
Andrew Bundy

Hectic

Hi blog,

Apologies for the late post, my computer recently attempted some bizarre form of self-destruction and I put it in the time out corner...forever. In its place is a new computer that seems to function normally as of writing this, so I shall stick with this one because I like functional technology. But the technology has not been the only hectic thing going on lately, it's been a veritable madhouse of events and non-events.

The magnetic donut

Still no word on my knee. In fact, I still haven't even had the MRI. I should have included in last week's post about the fun MRI waiting games "Hey MRI, when are you going to get scheduled so I can actually learn something?" But I have a date with a giant magnetic donut machine on October 10th, so at least that's good. Although if it takes two weeks to get figured out, I'll be cutting it really close to my surgery date on the 28th of the same month. Down to the wire!

It is now official: I have begun (in earnest) on the second draft of my memoir. Please, please, hold the applause. Oh, there is none...right, well keep holding it then. After Nick got back from insane death race in which he kicked proverbial ass (because kicking a real ass usually pisses off its owner, or worse, it'll kick you back), we shortly resumed work on our books. Nick has been screaming through his (I'm not sure if that's literal, you'd have to ask him) and cranking through his edits at a blistering pace. Meanwhile, I am trudging through the quagmire of my childhood and questioning the legitimacy of keeping any of it for the final product of the book. It's an agonizingly slow, painful, annoying process to go through nearly 40 pages of probably unnecessary junk to sift out what is important, especially when you know the real content hasn't gotten done and you feel like all you're doing is wasting time when really you'll have to rewrite that whole section almost completely. And the feeling that I have to rewrite that entire childhood-high school section is reinforced by reading Lance Armstrong's 2000 memoir and seeing how much more compelling the telling of his story is than the telling of my story (at least through the pre-cancer parts). It's driving me crazy, knowing that what I've done is supremely subpar work and having very little idea how to fix it save for scrapping it all and starting over is just...GAH!

Anyways...I'm at least making progress through it and am now on the edge of getting to the real meat of my story. Progress has been slowed somewhat by a resurgence in physical issues (discussed shortly), but I'm doing my best to push through them and get the work done anyways.

(Told you it was shortly)

Well if I ever had a nickel for a dime, I'd tell you that the first part of this sentence makes no sense. However, I'd also tell you that my migraines have crept back in when I wasn't looking. Over the last week I've been dealing with borderline crippling headaches, and over the last two days the headaches haven't been borderline at all, they've been full-force Andrew-stopping nightmares. I'm not sure where this sudden surge of headpain comes from, but I suspect it's stress-related. The other option is that my preventative migraine medication is no longer functional. This happened last year with a different medication, which I'd been taking for a year. Now that I think about it, I've been taking this new medication for about a year too. That's probably just a weird coincidence that I don't particularly like at the moment.

But let's focus on something else: my shoulders! The right shoulder continues to improve and is now functioning just as well, if not BETTER than the left shoulder! Then again, this might not be as impressive as it sounds, because my left shoulder is slowly deteriorating at an increasingly not-so-slow pace. In fact I can hear the grinding crackling crunches when I rotate my left shoulder in certain ways, which, although they don't hurt, elicit a kind of anticipatory wince for the pain that doesn't come. But I'm not worried about the left shoulder, because I'm getting a better one soon anyways. What's more important is my right shoulder and how it's been holding up. The range of motion is improved, the pain is nonexistent at the best of times, and not as bad as it used to be at the worst of times. I'm continuing to stretch and work on both shoulders, both in physical therapy and at home (although probably not as much as I should be at home, but that's something I'm working on), and I think I can expect a very good recovery for the right shoulder, and the left one once that's been dealt with.

All right, time for me to fly off and do something. Ciao blog and readers!
Your aeronautic overlord, Andrew

Memoir-able (Recovery Part 4)

Howdy blog,

Well there's a couple exciting bits of news I wanted to share.

The first pertains to the recovery of my shoulder. I am now 10 weeks post-op. When I saw the doctor yesterday he continued to be impressed and amazed at how much range my shoulder has. He told me (again) how tight it used to be and that I have the range of motion that I do is just astonishing. It's actually better than the left shoulder now in some regards. There's increased pain in the right shoulder since I've started doing outpatient physical therapy, but that is normal for an operation and should subside soon as long as I make sure to rest it. I have to keep reminding myself of Zen #3: The faster you hurry, the slower you go. You'd think I would have that one deeply ingrained in my recovery process after so many surgeries, but I'm impatient and this surgery has been unlike the others in both its recovery and my abilities post-surgery. It'll be about a year before the right shoulder is fully healed if things continue on the way they have been, but progress will be semi-continuous throughout so it's a promising bit of news.

The other thing discussed during my doctor's visit was the left shoulder. As some of you may or may not know, the left shoulder was nearly identically damaged to the right one, and it was only through the arbitrary filter of how much each one hurt that the right shoulder was chosen as the first to be replaced. The left shoulder is now beginning to ache more, so after I see my doctor in two months, I will likely be having another surgery shortly afterwards. I'm more excited about this than I am any other emotion. With any luck, it will be my last surgery for a while (although I said that last year after my left knee replacement so...I'm cautiously optimistic) and then I can start focusing more on everything that comes after. It'll be nice not to have to think about when I'll be cutting out my bone and replacing it next, maybe I can better focus on writing and other life events after that's dealt with.

Speaking of writing, we move onto my second (I'm including the last two paragraphs as one big semi-related news item) bit of news. I've been working on a memoir detailing my life (briefly described at the end of The Cancer and the Cure) and specifically all the crap with cancer and dealing with the side effects of treatment after the fact. For 16 months I've been doing on and off work with Nick regarding our memoirs, and after all that time...I have finished the rough draft! It's a huge deal for me, because this isn't the first intonation of this book. I tried writing it half a dozen times before and each time wound up abusing drugs or having a mental breakdown from the stress of recalling all of the traumatic experiences in my life. It took an enormous amount of mental and emotional energy to get it out there, and it wore me out to the point of exhaustion, but I finally got through the rough draft and proudly did so in one piece! (Not including all the extra pieces put into me by surgeons) I've been on a short break as school starts, but then Nick and I are going to be going into the editing process and making the books even better.

To celebrate the finishing of the rough draft, here's a small section conscripted from my book Life Has No Title. Until next time readers and blog.

Normally I encountered runners along the path, but today it was just myself and the little white dog. I looked at him, he pointedly ignored me as he usually did, and got an idea. Maybe there could be a runner. Me. I thought back to Nick, who had returned early in the summer and had been spending some time with me. There was a runner, someone who pushed his limits to insane measures and even further than that. If he could run a hundred mile race, why couldn’t I go on a short jog? He once drew inspiration from me as he made his way 3,000 miles, and now I could draw inspiration from him as I ran…a lot less than that.

“Come on Tucker! Giddy-up!” I put one foot in front of the other, picking up speed slowly but surely. The dog started to trot alongside me as I increased my pace but suddenly stopped and nearly dragged me off my feet after just a few seconds. “Okay, fine. We’ll take it slow you little prick.” I started again, making sure to stick to a light jogging pace. Every slap of my foot against the uneven surface sent a strange jarring sensation up my leg. It felt…good. I kept it up, sometimes going a bit quicker, but would soon be dragged back by a resistant dog. After about ninety seconds I gave up trying to pull the little ass along with me and settled back down to a walking pace. “Well that was fun,” I said to myself. Tucker sniffed at a bush.

I wasn’t content with such a paltry result though. During that jog I felt as though I had untapped energy that I could have unleashed had I not had a leashed mutt at my side. I would have to try again.

That’s exactly what I did too. My mom and I were walking the dog this time, so I didn’t have to hold the leash. As we walked, I told her about my jogging experience a few days before and she seemed impressed. “I think I could do better though,” I said, channeling my inner Nick. “Watch this.”

If she protested, I didn’t hear her, because I was off without another word. Uncertain of how fast to go to start with, and not even sure if I remembered how to run properly after five years, I could hear Nick whispering in my ear. “Open it up Bundy!” I’m pretty sure he’s never said that to me in my life, but that’s what I did. I sped away at full-blast and nearly lost my footing in the surprise at how quickly I was going. For a few precarious steps, I was running to avoid faceplanting, but I caught up with myself and sprinted away. I could feel the years melting away as everything around me became irrelevant. None of the pain to remind me of surgery after surgery, none of the aches to remind me of the atrophied muscles and hospital stays. None of the mental anguish harassing me those last couple months as I further slipped into becoming an anxious wreck. It was just me and the path. Everything else was in another world.

The wind rushed by, my legs pounding into hard earth, and on and on I ran, laughing silently and grinning ear to ear by the time I came to a halt as my burning legs asked politely to quit. Besides, I was almost out of bridle path and I would have to make the trek back to my mom. I honestly felt as though I could keep going if I wanted to, the rush was exquisite! I felt, for the first time in years, like a normal human being. It was such an alien feeling I wasn’t sure what to do with it. At least now I knew that my body wasn’t totally trashed, and I knew Nick would be pretty pleased when I told him about this the next time I saw him.

Your one and a half armed overlord,
Andrew

Top Ten Zen #3: The Slower You Go

Howdy blog,

Well, time for part three! Shall we get on it then? Good answer.

Top Ten Zen

Andrew and Nick have compiled a list of Zen-like philosophies comprised firstly of a quote, an interpretation of said quote, and finally a story to drive their point home. This list can aid you in doing anything from completing a 100-mile race to surviving cancer, or obtaining any goal you set your mind to. 

Here are our previous posts for those who missed them:

1. The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step
2. Body follows mind

The tortoise ascends

"The faster you hurry, the slower you go."

The Survivor’s Take: Patience is one of the most important factors when it comes to recovery. Pushing yourself too hard can make things worse, and what at first appears to be a big step forward might end up actually being several steps back.

The Runner’s Take: In endurance sports, it’s easy to get caught up in the competition and let things like nutrition and form fall to the wayside. Don’t let them. Even if it means sacrificing speed and position early on, staying relaxed and fueled leaves you in control of your race.

Survivor’s Tales: With my most recent surgery, a total replacement of my right shoulder, I quickly found myself impatient with the healing process. Compared with all the lower joint replacements, my recovery seemed to be going smoother and I felt better than I remember with the other surgeries. Within two weeks I was pushing myself to my limit, and admittedly a little beyond, with my exercises. In addition to that, I would sometimes take my arm out of its sling for extended periods of time, despite the doctor telling me to keep it in for at least six weeks. It didn’t take long for sharp pains to start cropping up in my shoulder. As a result of all this overreaching, I had hurt myself and was unable to do as much PT as I should have, causing my progress to regress. It took almost a full week for the pains to calm down enough to where I could start exercising properly again. Had I simply stuck to my recovery plan, I might have gotten to the point I am now even faster (click here to see my progress so far), but I’ve certainly learned my lesson: when it comes to recovery, it pays to stick to the plan instead of brushing it aside at the first glimmer of your strength returning. It may feel like you can do so much more, but very often it’s just a brief phase and soon you find yourself paying for your arrogance with sharp aches if you’re lucky, and serious damage if you aren’t.

Mountain Tales: It was the second to last climb of Ronda del Cims. 3,000 feet in just over two miles at an average grade of 45%, far steeper and more technical than any single climb at the Barkley marathons. I came into the aid station at the base of the climb right alongside Carles, a local Andorran runner who was holding 3rd place. He blew through the station and started hammering up the long climb. I glanced at my watch and realized it had been over an hour since I’d eaten anything. I hobbled slowly behind Carles as he pulled further away. I stuffed Gu after Gu down my throat and ate as many dry crackers as I could. Food was an awful chore, but a necessary evil. About halfway through, Carles was now 200 feet higher than me, but I knew he’d not eaten a thing. He’d burn out shortly. I swigged down more Carbo Pro and whipped out my hiking poles asking myself, “What can I relax?” I let go of my tense shoulders, let go of the tight tension in my arms and felt my upper body sink.  It’s terrifying what unconsciously tightens up while running. About three quarters of the way up the climb, I finally caught Carles.  He was breathing hard and his steps were labored on the steep ascent. The short seconds I’d taken to fuel my body were now paying off. I passed Carles and kept my pace steady all the way to the top of the climb. The faster you hurry (aka skip things like nutrition and proper form) the slower you’ll go. Endurance sports are the tortoise’s race, not the hare’s. Take care of yourself and you’ll be rewarded!

A mildly exaggerated recreation of how I hurt myself

Of course, just because we are sharing our own extreme examples does not mean that these philosophies are all strictly for extreme situations. We share these because they can be used by anyone in the proper situations and we invite you, dear reader, to take these helpful tips into the world to use as you see fit. Feel free to hoard them or share them with others around you. It is both of our hope that these do some good somewhere, and so we wish you luck in your journey of a thousand Zen-filled steps.

Andrew Bundy

Nick Hollon