Prologue: Getting to June 6 in One Piece

June 6, 2019 is the day Rob and I plan to begin a one-year bicycle adventure around the perimeter of the United States. But, even as our bikes are tuned up and our panniers packed, I’m not convinced we will make it to that day without a major injury or health problem stepping in our way. Injuries can only sometimes be avoided and for two people approaching Medicare age, you never know when a new old-age problem will jump up in front of you, saying, “Here I am! You can’t ignore me.”

I went to bed on a Thursday night in the middle of April looking forward to a day of skiing with friends. It had snowed during the week and the mountain was serving up fresh powder, a break from the springtime slush of the previous weekend. The weather called for a blue sky, light wind, and comfortable temperatures; in other words, a perfect ski day. My last day in Colorado before returning to New Hampshire would be a fitting end to a winter that gave me memorable ski days spent instructing skiers with disabilities and free skiing with friends.

I would be meeting two friends at 7:45 the next morning for our carpool to meet up with others at Loveland, a favorite mountain for locals, with its widespread views above treeline and infinite ways to slide down the mountain on two skis. Loveland is where my friends have pushed me past my own emotional limits, challenging me to ski the bumps, through the trees and off-piste, and down powder-laden bowls.

Earlier this year, on a day there with friends Mary and Inge, I got distracted while we were talking about the techniques involved in skiing bumps and dropped my mitten off the chairlift, onto a steep bump run, one I’d never had the nerve to go down.

“Oh, shit!”

Mary said, “I’ll get it.”

Inge, who had brought up the topic of bumps, saying they still presented a challenge for her, said, “I’ll go, too.”

How could I let them go after my mitten without me? I said, “I’ll go with you.”

As the chair continued up the mountain we looked for the best way to go, trying to remember where my mitten had landed while I worked on getting my courage up. I’d done plenty of blue bumps, I’d done some black bumps. I can do it, I told myself, just take it slow. And once I got started, I tackled it more easily than I had expected. Not fast, probably not pretty, but I wasn’t terrified as I slid down the steep side of one bump, turned around another, Mary and Inge ahead of me, and then there it was, my black mitten, not too far from the bottom of the run.

That was some warmup.

Then they talked me into taking Chair 9 to the top of the Continental Divide. I’d only done that run once before, several years ago, with a couple expert skiers who I knew could rescue me if I ran into trouble. The thing is, I’m a coward at heart. But still I try to live by the motto: “Find your comfort zone; then leave it.” Even so I need my friends to reassure me that I can do it. I trust their judgment because they are also adaptive ski instructors, well-versed in being able to assess their students’ skiing abilities so as not to take them on runs that will risk life and limb. At least I hope so.

So there I was, at the top of the Continental Divide. The mountains stretched forever under the blue sky. We took off our skis and walked the short distance to the very top of the ridge for a look over the other side and the obligatory selfie of the three of us. The view was stunning. So was the view down, where it was so steep I couldn’t even see the dropoff. But Inge knew how to negotiate it. Our skis back on, we headed only slightly down, mostly across the slope, until we arrived at a part of the bowl where the steepness mellowed out and we could see our way down. I adjusted my weight and rotated my legs to begin a turn, skied across the slope to scrub my speed, then another turn. I was skiing down the terrain I had only looked up at before, awestruck, just below the top of the Divide. And now it was just me and the powder and the views reaching out across the Rockies. I was full of adrenaline and the thrill of tackling a new and beautiful challenge, leaving my fear behind.

We did that run three times that day and I will be forever grateful to Inge and Mary for their encouragement, showing me that, yes, I could do it.

That was earlier in the season when our bicycle trip lay far enough into the future that I knew I would likely have time to heal from any ski injuries. But that Friday morning in April when I woke up the first thing I began thinking about were the challenges that lay ahead for me that day, the trees, the bowls, the bumps. I’d want to ski everything along with my friends. I wouldn’t take any needless risks, but even careful skiers get hurt. Breaking a leg now would be disastrous for the plans that Rob and I have put together for the coming year.

There’s a saying among skiers: “Never take a last run.” You’re tired but not too tired and you still want to get in one more run to cap off a great day. And that’s when your legs stop working the way you think you’re telling them to and instead of the happy ending to the day that you’d envisioned, you’re going down the mountain on a sled on your way to first aid.

Instead of taking a last run, we say we’ll take two more runs, then quit after the first one.

While I lay in bed early that Friday morning, I pictured myself standing at the top of a run and the thought running through my head, “You could get hurt.”

I thought about my last ski day the previous Sunday, on a local mountain with a good friend. We had some great turns together. I decided that was a fitting enough end to the season and that, this year, I would not take a last ski day. I did the unthinkable and called my friends and cancelled. I haven’t seen them since to find out what kind of day I missed but I’m sure it was one for the memory books.

But injuries don’t just happen on the ski slopes. Two weeks after I returned to my home in New Hampshire we had another cold rainy weekend day. I went outside to get some wood for the fire and, stepping down from the woodshed with a pile of logs in my arms, my foot caught in a hole in the palette holding the wood. I crashed on the flagstone walkway onto my hip, dropping the logs. I dragged myself inside, assessing my injuries. “Rob, I need a bandaid!” I yelled when I saw blood pouring out of a gash on my right arm, a cut so deep I thought I might need stitches. Rob came downstairs with a small bandaid, nothing that would do the job, and then I noticed another equally bloody gusher on my left arm.

“I need some large bandaids,” I said.

 “You just said a bandaid.” And up he went and brought down the box of extra large ones, just before the blood had a chance to pour out onto the floor. The bandaids did their job and my hip didn’t sustain any major damage. But the fall did shake me up. I was pissed at myself for being so stupid.

Then, the following week, I was driving home from my art studio in Lawrence, Mass., a drive of about an hour and 5 minutes, when I noticed this very large floater drifting across the field of my right eye. There it goes. Oops, here it comes again. Back and forth it went, a distinctive blob with a hole and an opening cut out. The biggest damn floater I’ve ever had. Floaters are normal, but this one? I’ll see if it’s still there in the morning. And it was. Before going out on my run, I looked up “detached retina” on the internet. Symptoms of a detached retina: flashes of light. I didn’t have those. Floaters. Yup. I skipped my morning run and at exactly eight o’clock I was on the phone to my eye doctor.

“Can you get here in twenty minutes?” the receptionist asked.

“Probably.”

“We’ll see you at 8:30.”

On the way over I thought of all the people I’ve known who have had detached retinas, all caught in time. But hanging out after surgery for two weeks on your stomach with your head facing down can’t be fun. And our son was getting married in a few weeks. And then we had our bike trip.

How many times have I taken someone to the ER and we’ve waited hours to be seen? But when I dropped Rob off a couple years ago with a heart rate of 190 that didn’t want to settle down, I hadn’t even parked the car before he was seen by the ER team of doctors. Same thing with floaters. I got the full workup right away. Retinal pictures, dilation drops, exam. And a look at the pictures showed the floater. There it is, and in the next shot, see there, it’s moved and now it’s here. The good news was that my retina had not decided to take off. The bad news is that floaters, once they appear onstage, they don’t leave. My doctor said that sometimes they go off into the periphery and don’t bother you. Not this one. It likes to be center stage as much as possible, especially in the morning, on my runs.

My eye doctor, a kindly older man, wanted to see me again in six weeks. “I won’t be here in six weeks. I’m going on a year long bicycle trip.” “When are you leaving?” “June 6.” We both did the calendar calculation. “That’s almost five weeks. I’ll see you then.”

The other day I put on my sunglasses and there was a big blob in the middle of my left lens. I took them off and gave it a wipe, but it wouldn’t budge. I rubbed harder, put them back on, still no luck. “Damn,” I thought. “I’ve got to get a new pair. I can’t deal with smudges on top of floaters.”

I keep a careful watch over my new floater. Sometimes I don’t notice it, but, especially when I’m outside, there it is, jumping around so quickly I wonder if I have more than one shooting around in that eye. It’s giving me a constant worry. Because the doctor told me that, being near-sighted, I’m at high risk for a detached retina. And if I get a new floater, I’ve got to see him right away. I’ve had little floaters for a long time, so many I can’t possibly count them all. How would I even notice a new one, unless it’s another giant?

Every time I watch that floater I worry that a new one will pop up and it will mean the worst and I won’t make it to my son’s wedding on June 1. Then I worry that I won’t make it to the start of our bike ride on June 6. Then I worry that we’ll be riding along in the middle of nowhere North Dakota and this time I’ll get a floater that will signal the end of my retina hanging on and the end of sight in my right eye.

Getting old sucks.