Rising from the Ashes

A few months ago my family and I completely geeked out and had a Harry Potterfest in honor of my son William having finished reading the entire Harry Potter series.  We pretty much lived in our pajamas for the entire two days and lived on everything from Waffles to Devile Eggs to Ice Cream Sundaes for dinner one night and sushi the next.  One of our favorite characters in the entire series never spoke a single word - Dumbledore's phoenix Fawkes.  It struck each us how sad it was that at the end Fawkes was left without anyone, after he had spent so much time with Dumbledore he was now without a companion and flew off alone across the lake, after giving us such wonderful moments as this;



And this;

And although he is one of my favorite fantasy literature characters of all time, Dumbledore needed help to kick butt as is shown in this little discourse which pits Dumbledore against my favorite wizard of all time;

 

And if you want to know how Sir Ian was able to channel all of that Tolkienesque persona into a mere mortal package, you have to listen in on his conversation with Ricky Gervais;



Now when Harry first meets Fawkes he bursts into flames.  Harry, never having seen this occur is of course shocked when he tells Dumbledore about it and he responds, "And about time too, he's been looking dreadful for days."  Not to compare myself with a truly memorable character, I myself have been looking dreadful for days, uh weeks, okay really since last November.

You see, I somehow managed to either injure myself or exacerbate a previous injury in my back to the point that riding my bicycle had become painful.  I couldn't make it for more than five or six miles before the pain would start up.  That pretty much has been going on for almost a year.  I've had injections, I've had epidural treatments, I've had chiropractic work (thank you again Dr. Scott!) and I've worked on my core.  The result is its better (I can ride about 30 miles non stop) but I'm far from back to my 2012 Ride Across America shape.   Instead, I've been making excuses not to ride (it's cold, I have things to carry, it will be dark) and I've seen my fitness languish to a level I haven't seen since my ankle surgery.  Although I did manage to briefly raise my head from my this self imposed torpor currently feeling like some sort of sun worshipping lizard,


(Could Someone Put Some Sunscreen Between My Shoulder Blades?)

in that I created a fundraiser to try and send a child to Sunrise for one week which I called 467 for Sunrise (based on the idea that 46 children are diagnosed with cancer every day and seven will perish from the disease).  I ended up raising $800 ($100 short of my goal) but it got me back on the bike and riding almost every single day.  Unfortunately, after logging almost 500 commuting only miles in the month of September, I lapse back into my sunbathing lethargy.  It's been that way pretty much every since.

Well no more!  I'm starting to feel better and I have to stop babying the back.  Of course, this is not to confuse the issue with Sir Mix-a-Lot's "Baby Got Back";



Trust me, at this point I got my own big butt!  But that's only part of the issue - a big part.  I just went today for my Northport Fire Department physical only to find out that although my blood pressure is great (116/76), I am now the heaviest I have ever been in my entire life.  I've decided that not only do I need to get my body back, I need to get my passion back - I need to ride!

But as I have been doing since 2007, I don't just ride for me and that's why I feel the most guilty.  Since 2007 I've been riding for others, trying to raise money either for research or to make possible a life changing summer for a children (or children) fighting cancer.  As I've written many times before, I don't have a lot of money but I feel I need to give something back to the cancer community in gratitude for the fact that I have three sisters and a mother who are all now cancer free.  The odds that four people related to you would be struck by cancer in an eighteen month period are astronomical - that ALL of them beat it is a miracle. 

And that's why I ride. 

To see the faces of young children, many of them either fighting this disease or in remission, having the time of their life for nearly three months is a true gift.  To know that I had a hand in helping them feel like just in other kid doing things that other kids sometime take for granted (but my campers never seem to do so) and being able to express themselves in a way they haven't before is a blessing.

And that's why I ride.

When I have to deal with the frustrations of the day and this crazy hectic world pushes down on me and makes me want to curl up in a ball I have an escape, one that I have been neglecting for far too long.  It makes me feel alive, reconnects me with the joy of my youth and reminds me that there is beauty in even the flight of a small bird or the bounding of a rabbit running in the grass as you roll along.

And that's why I ride.

So it's January, one of the coldest months of the year.  I wake up early in the morning and I allow the excuses to compile and mount until I roll over and refuse to get out of bed.  It's time to stop the madness.  It's time to get out and ride.  It's time to get rid of my big butt before Sir Mix-a-Lot comes after me. 

And it's time for me to lose 20 pounds.

So here I am publicly vowing that I will lose 25 pounds in the next three months.  By April 15 I will be down to 155 pounds for the first time since I got married.  Yes, you read that right I weighed 180 pounds on the scales during my physical - I just hide it well.  My plan is to lose 14% of my body weight in the next thee months and I am going to update this blog at least once a week (every Friday) to let you all know how it's going.  This will also take care of the doldrum that has infected my blog upkeep in the last year.  Well, really since we did the Ride Across America.  So my writing will serve dual purposes.

You see I have a plan.  This summer I am going to do something else to raise money for pediatric cancer.  I'm not sure yet what it is but suffice it to say I will never be able to do it if I don't lose weight and get myself into shape.  I am going to once again ride for the kids and for those who are fighting this disease. 

And maybe, just maybe, when baby no longer got back, baby's back will hurt no longer!

Stay well my friends and I'll see you on the road!

Bionic (sort of?) Cyclist

Before I go into today's long overdue post I just want to get something off my chest, and please forgive me for shouting - THIS BLOG HAS HAD OVER 9,000 VIEWS!!!!!!!!!!  I want to thank each and every one of you who has ever read and/or viewed my blog - it means that what I write is reaching someone.

And now back to the post.  Okay, so today I had to go for a "procedure".  For those of you who are familiar with Brighton Beach Memoirs you may want to whisper the fact that I have a "condition"



Yes, apparently on top of my "asthma", "reconstructed ankle", and "sleep apnea" I have a "herniated disc" which has necessitated my having a "procedure" called a Lumbar Spine Epidoral Cortizone Steroid Injection (it sounds so much better when you whisper it);



Apparently, my "condition" is not that unusual in men ages 30 - 50  (although I think my doctor said something about 70% of men may experience one age 35+) and only a small percentage of patients (something like 10%) will need corrective surgery.  So, I don't need surgery but I'm having this "procedure".

Now, I've known about it for a few weeks but we only scheduled it a week ago which sort of sucks because it means all of those wonderful anti-inflammatory drugs that were keeping my "condition" in check started wearing off.  Apparently, anti-inflammatories are cummulative (which is why we have to take them twice a day for like ever) so since I stopped taking them I've been feeling the pain pretty much all the time.  As a matter of fact, yesterday I walked into the main office at school and my Assistant Principal said, "what's wrong, you look like shit!" - ahhhhh, you have to love Ray Gessner.

So all the research and studies seem to indicate that after my shot I should feel much better.  It should at least relieve the tightness in the muscles of my lower back and right gluteous maximus (latin for big butt) that I feel fairly constantly.  So the big question is will it turn me into the Steve Austin of cyclists?



Well, probably not.  But I should be better, stronger, faster than I have been in a long, long while.

Of course, we're really not sure what caused it so I can't really say for sure how to keep it from happening again.  One theory is that is simply a genetic break down of my spine (apparently I also have something called sacralization and a fairly sizeable cyst that is also pressing against the nerve - they're going to try to aspirate that as well today).  Another possibility is that whatever preexisting condition I had was exascerbated by my accident and that earlier this year (February to be exact) I had gone to visit my good friend Dr. Scott Torns and he thought I might have some damage in my L4 - L5 area.  Well, it turns out he was right (he's really very brilliant and if you need a chiropractor on Long Island I would say GO TO HIM!) and there is a lot going on in that area.

But I prefer to look at the glass half full;

(Ahhh, that which nourishes all!)

and I feel like this is going to take care of a myriad of problems.  With any luck I'll be spry and fit and raring to go.  Which is a really good thing since this back has to hold up under 3600 miles of travel on a bicycle this summer!

Well, I'm off to St. Catherine's now - I'll finish this post when I get back.

So I'm back - okay, pun intended.  I'm a bit loopy right now so if I go off on a random tangent, or at least more random than usual, its the medication not me. 

Before we left we had a few errands to run and thinking that I would have lots of time on my hands at the hospital I got a new book at the library.  It's called My Thoughts Be Bloody and it takes an in-depth look at the fued between John Wilkes Booth and his brother Edwin and how their rivalry helped drive JWB into his assination of Abraham Lincoln.  Its part theatre history, part American history, and part history geek out!  Since I love all three areas I was in heaven!

We got there early and of course, owing to my unerring sense of direction, promptly went to the wrong place.  Thank God my sister Alina bought me the Garmin GPS unit for my bike - with my sense of navigation I could end up in Utah during the cross country and that would be WAAAAAYYYYY out of the way!

Anyway we got to the right place and got all checked in and barely had time to get down to reading before I was called in.  Now I was all prepared for a quick in and out since I had watched the video above.  And then the admitting nurse asked me if I wanted anesthesia.  Now I hadn't planned on it, especially since the only time I've had it in the past it left me realllllllllllyyyyyyyy loopy.  I think it caused me to slightly hallucinate the first time as you may remember from this post.  So I was a little reticent but since they were going to also try to aspirate a cycst that the doctor thinks might be pushing against a nerve in my spinal column she STRONGLY suggested I have the "twilight" as she called it.  Turns out she was right.

Anyway, after he came and marked on my back, I got to read a little bit and found out that JWB's father was a famous actor from London who was married (and Jewish) but who ran away with a young girl to America (influenced as he was by the writings of Percey Bysshe Shelley and Lord Byron).  They would never be able to be married but could start a new life in America.  Then they wheeled me into the room.

To save all the gory details (see video above) they anesthetized me and the loopiness began in earnest!  I never went out, I was in this hazy, fuzzy stage but I still felt some twinges of pain when the needle went in and the injection went in, and he tried to aspirate (unsuccessfully) the cyst.  It was all over in about 20 minutes and they wheeled me back out where I tried to read some more but fell asleep.

Now I'm just dealing with a potential "epidural headache" perhaps caused by them having to go so deep to (unsuccessfully) aspirate the cyst.  But I can say that for now my back feels better!!!!  I may never be doing this;



Nor, with my newly reconstituted back which is free from pain will I quite be as mechanically efficient as this;



of course, in my wildest dreams it would be amazing to be able to ride like either one of these guys (for those of you who don't know, they are the infamous Schleck brothers);



But what it does give me is new hope that I won't have my herniated disc explode somewhere in the middle of Kansas and have to abandon the Connor's Army Cross Country Ride for Sunrise!

I have some really great news coming on that front!  It looks like we'll be able to get some of the student groups at SHS behind us to help fundraise for Sunrise.  They can't sponsor Connor's Army (so if ANYONE reading this knows anyone who can help sponsor us on that front) but they can help us towards our goal of $50,000 to send eight children with cancer to the camp.

IF YOU ARE READING THIS, whether its your first time reading my blog or your eighty-fourth time, please help us spread the word.  We have donations coming in but its happening slowly.  Every little bit counts.  If you think about it, one drop of water by itself is not much, but when they combine with other little drops of water they can fill a bucket, a pond, a lake, a sea!



You see (don't you love homonyms) I really do believe in this cause.  I'm not doing it to get credit for myself and I'm not doing it so people will write how wonderful I am.  I am truly scared of what this journey may do to my body and since I'm a dance teacher/choreographer, my livelihood.  But I also realize that helping children have the opportunity to be children without the stigma of being *whispered* "the kid with cancer" is too important not to try.

Unfortunately, between us, Amy and I don't have quite the same family support that other people who start not-for-profit foundations have.  Other family groups can band together and call upon their dozens of cousins, aunts, uncles, etc. to help them fundraise, to help them promote the event, to plaster the community with advertising, to get people to use their connections to hold music concert fundraisers, or auctions or raffles or other inventive fundraisers.  All Amy and I have are each other and we can't do it alone.  We need the bigger global family - we need a village.

So, if you've read this far it tells me that you are part of my cyber family - you do care about what I have to say and what I'm trying to do to help these kids.  So I ask you, please take a moment and ask yourself how you can help us help these kids.  Its not for the glory, its not for the accolades, its for the kids.  Think if it were your own children (present or future) who were going through this, wouldn't you want someone to try and help them?

Sometimes I think the reason we don't get everyone jumping on board is because cancer is not effecting my own family now like it did when I was riding for my sisters and my mom.  To me, that's the exact reason we should be helping these children - because but for the grace of God would go we.  And my family needs the help of you, my cyber family, to make this happen

So if you've read this far, take some time to write a comment below.  Take some time to add our facebook page , invite your friends to do the same.  Take some time to become a regular, registered follower of the blog.  Take some time to go to https://www.wizevents.com/register/register_add.php?sessid=1809&id=1056 and make a donation, no matter how small it is, to Sunrise on behalf of the Connor's Army Ride Across America.

We are only a small part of the 7,000,000,000 people who inhabit this earth and its up to us to take care of the others - especially the smallest drops of water!

Thank you my friends, stay well and I'll see you on the road (yes, I'm riding tomorrow - because I can).

And the Wheel of Fortune Turns Again

So in medieval philosphy The Wheel of Fortune, or Rota Fortunae, is a concept referring to the capricious nature of Fate. The wheel belongs to the goddess Fortuna, who spins it at random, changing the positions of those on the wheel - some suffer great misfortune, others gain windfalls. Fortune appears on all paintings as a woman, sometimes blindfolded, "puppeteering" a wheel.  Often she looks something like this;

Now this is not to be confused with the Pat Sajak show we all know and love (particularly since my wife Amy was once a major winner on the show);



No, we're referring to the entire idea of fate, of course with the addition of the entire blindfold issue, we might be tempted to confuse her with "Lady Justice";

Or, if you follow the headlines (particular as justice pertains to cyclists rights) as seems to be all too common today, this version;

But that's really not what this posting is all about (at least not yet).  What I want to share with you all is the capriciousness of fortune and this week it has come on so many different levels.

First of all, the downside of the turning wheel.  I know I've mentioned numerous times about my cycling accident in July (I Made God Laugh Today) and how I think it has effected me on a karmic, spiritual level.  However, this past week I discovered another physical effect that I previously not known about.  Apparently, at some point during the accident I also hit very hard on my right hip.  For a long time I had a large scrap and a bruise in the area right below my right hip bone.  A bit of the bruise is still there.

Well, last weekend I did some shoveling and cleaning up around the house to get a little dug out from the event that was Snowmageddon!  Well I guess I must have twisted wrong because I woke up Monday morning in a lot of pain.  Now, you have to understand as a dancer I do have a pretty high pain threshold and I can take a lot of punishment.  As a matter of fact, my back has been sore and/or hurting pretty consistently for the last two months or so.  However, Monday's pain was a new level so I called my friend Dr. Scott Torns to see if he could fit me in.  He got me in that morning and did a series of tests and came to the conclusion that I probably twisted my L5 vertabrae;

Which probably accounts for why I have had pain in my lower right back for so long.  Anyway, he's been working on me now and everything is getting better (without the need for pharmacological help!).  The downside of all of this is that I haven't been able to ride my bike this week.  I've been leery of getting on the bike and undoing all of his hard work.  However, that will hopefully be taken care of as I finish these last adjustments.  I'm going to try to get out on the bike this weekend to try my hand as the weather is supposed to finally warm up.

So that is the physical condition of me (and by extension Connor's Army) but there has also been an interesting turn of the wheel in regard to the emotional and financial situation.  No, we haven't gotten a new infusion of sponsorship cash in hand (although, again, if ANYONE is reading this that has a connection to any potential sponsors - LET ME KNOW!) but we have had a lot of people come forward this week with offers to do some fundraising on behalf of Connor's Army.

First of all is my friend and colleague Peter Haughwout.  He is one of the founders of a collective of artists known as Art Studio 85.  Their group has a primary goal of "entertaining our audiences through a myriad of media. In attempts to evoke emotional responses from a growing New York community, it is our studio’s desire to appeal to all of the senses and to eventually reach individuals internationally."  They "regularly engage in discussions on topics such as philosophy, current events, religion and metaphysics just to name a few" while "Group critiques and required pilgrimages (visits to exhibition spaces) allow our artists to remain competitive and current in their creative fields."  I personally know many of these artists as many of them are collegues of mine at Syosset High School and I have seen their work first hand.  Go on their website and check it out - I wish I had a quarter of their talent with a pencil, paintbrush or clay.

Pete and his group are putting together an art exhibition at the Walt Whitman museum for early April and they intend to run it as a benefit for the museum and Connor's Army!  We don't know how much it will generate but every little bit will help us towards our gaol.  With any luck we may be able to raise another $1,000 through this event!  More would be a blessing of immense proportions but we'll start small and that would be enough.  Yet, there's more!  He is hoping to do a similar show in June with student artists that traditionally has a very large turnout.  With any luck, we'll have the funding we need before that event and all of the proceeds from the June show can go directly to Sunrise Day Camp.

Also, one of my former students has a comedy improv troupe at Emerson and she is putting together a benefit show that will be held next Friday night!!!!  THANK YOU MEL!!!!  As soon as I get more information about that event I will post it here and also on our facebook sites as well!  With any luck that will generate a goodly amount as well.

And finally, and this offer really touched my heart, one of my former acting students who is now involved in a lot of the after school clubs has offered to go door to door in Syosset and ask businesses to support Connor's Army.  She is also going to approach the student government about sponsoring us as well!   She floored me when she made this offer and I can only hope that more of our "Army" can help us with smaller fundraisers such as this.  Please, any of you who have the opportunity no effort is too small since every dollar raised for the cross country event brings us one wheel length closer to the finish line!

Thank you everyone for believing in us and believing in our mission!  Please keep those fundraisers coming and I will keep letting you know how close we are to making this happen and changing the lives of these kids.

Now, keep your fingers crossed that when I go out this weekend I don't mess up Dr. Scott's adjustments!

Stay well and I'll see you on the road!