Why we do the PMC

So after update our PMC profile & history on the PMC website, it occurs to me that we might do well to explain why we particpate in the PMC. It's a lot of work - we wouldn't want to seem crazy.

Karen's mother, Wanda, had cancer when she was in elementary school. As a child, Karen was shielded from the pain & the fear associated with her mother's illness, but looking back, it was a definitive life event, and it was hard on the rest of her family. Wanda continues to livestrong - some 20 years or so in remission, and it is partially in her honor that we ride.

When we first moved back to Massachusetts, we hadn't yet heard of the PMC. As fate would have it, the summer (2005), Ken's uncle Richard lost his battle with cancer at the end of July, and his services were held on the first weekend of August - the PMC weekend. We made the trek back to Hawaii for services that weekend, and would have had to miss the PMC anyway, had we planned to participate.



Ken and Uncle Richard were fairly close. Along with Ken's Aunt, they would take Ken, his sister, and sometimes his cousin on trips in the summer as children, which led to an atypically close relationship - almost like having a second set of parents. Even as an adult it is difficult to realize how quickly things can change and how quickly someone once seemingly invincible can disappear. The last time we had seen Uncle Richard was at Ken's grandfather's funeral, who had passed away from cancer in the fall of 2003. No one can see into the future, but I wish we had had more time to visit with him & Auntie that trip. It never even crossed our mind that he wouldn't still be there when we next went "home".

Ken's grandfather lost his battle with cancer in the fall of 2003. Papa, as he was known, had been asking for Ken to come visit during the last weeks of his life. Due to a military committment, Ken had to delay his trip home longer than anyone would have liked, but we were finally able to make arrangements to fly home to see Papa. We had family members tell Papa we were coming, to give him hope, and a reason to hang on a little longer if he so chose. But he couldn't. The night before we were to fly out, we received word that Papa had passed on. We didn't get to say goodbye. Suddenly our trip to visit had turned into a trip too late. We missed him literally by a matter of a day. It was told to us upon our arrival, that his last few hours were spent in and of hallucinations, and the last thing that Papa said to his son was that he was ready to go home (he was at home, but not the home he was talking about). When we got to Hawaii, at least we were able to help with the funeral preparations. We picked Papa up from the crematorium, and I can still feel the weight of his urn in my hands.



Cancer runs in both of our families. It also has affected a great many of our friends. To this end, we try to live a healthy lifestyle. We eat right, we eat organically when possible. We take care of our environment and limit what exposures to carcinogens we can. We wear sunscreen religiously. We don't smoke. We exercise - and by doing so, we raise money to fund cancer care and research to help others.

There is no way to turn back time and do things differently. But we can learn from our losses. We can also do our part to help avoid these situations in the future for other people. We can help create hope, and the PMC brings a great deal of hope to a great many people. There is nothing like spending a weekend riding with some 5,000 other riders who are all there for the same purpose. The hope that is generated in tremendous. I know the PMC is bittersweet for many, if not most, of it's participants and volunteers. There are a great many tears to be seen, but those tears, more often than not, are accompanied by smiles, and many times, by words or signs of thanks. There is nothing quite like seeing a child stand by a sign cheering & thanking you for helping save his life.

There is a boy named Jack. If you've watched the NECN coverage of this event, you might have seen Jack on TV. Each year since he was two years old, Jack has been at the Nickerson SP waterstop, next to a sign that reads "I'm __ now, thanks to you." Last year, I believe he was 11 years old. It's the little (or big) things like that which really stick with you.

Fundraising Update 6/22/08

On Friday, I received an email from a friend - she has sent in a $250 check to our PMC team. Very thoughtful of her, and we so appreciate it. Between this friend and my mom, we'll be up to about 15% of our goal once that check clears. We have a LONG way to go.

Nice Hills!

We had a nice little 26 mile ride yesterday, just Ken & I. It was hotter out than we expected - we later saw a bank sign that stated it was 87 degrees out - but it was still mighty fine out. We started our ride and headed up the first dreaded hill. Dreaded not so much because of it's size, but because we only ever ride up it completely cold - we are never warmed up before climbing the hill. About 30 seconds into the ride, we hear behind us "PMC, PMC" (we were wearing our jerseys), an lo and behold, here's Howie from the Nashoba Valley Pedalers. He tries to give us a card for the club, to which we sheepishly reply "we're already members" (we are - not a lie). And he asks "why aren't you riding with us, then?" Ahhh... peer pressure. Maybe we will someday. But fitting our weekend rides into someone else's schedule takes a little too much effort for us. It also seems silly to drive our bikes to a meeting spot just to ride by our house later in the day, and still have to go pick up the car. Besides, we had volunteer work to do yesterday morning, and we never quite know when we'll get home from that.

The first hill wasn't so bad, actually. Maybe its the new bike. But it was just easy, and Ken seemed to think so too - he caught up fairly quickly on the down hill. After getting into Harvard, we had to stop and stretch. I hate stopping for any reason, even to stretch, but I'm trying to take it easy on the shoulder, as I rather like using my right arm (I think my left arm actually belongs to someone else - or, someone else controls it for me, and they do a poor job). It kind of helped. Down the hill from Harvard center on our way to Littleton, I hit 39.8 MPH on my bike - this is the first time I really "get down" on my bike - into the drops, making as small of wind sail as possible. It was a long enough descent that I could play around with head position and elbow alignments and listen to the changes in the wind going by - the quieter, the more wedge shaped (at least by my figuring, which may be a complete lie). Needless to say, it was quite fun.

We stopped to stretch again in Littleton. At this point, I'm feeling like a complete Ninny for having to stretch all the time, but it was getting hard to turn my head to the left (which is where the traffic is). Back on the bike, back up the hill. It's a longish climb (compartively for this area) out of Littleton back into Harvard. But then again, ANY route into Harvard involves a climb. At any rate, when we stopped in Littleton, we were at 241 feet above sea level. When we were "up" in Harvard, we were at about 612 feet or so. It wasn't steep, but it goes on awhile.

We did, however, enjoy a lovely long down hill for what seemed like miles at Mile 16 (Stow Rd). The speed limit on this road is 25 MPH. I was going 28/29 MPH for a good long time (mentally yelling "Wheeeee!" the whole time). The beginning of this downhill is a 10% grade, then it levels off to 2% or 3% after a half-mile. Over all, the descent lasts about 2.5 miles. Not bad for these parts. I did, however, get passed by an inpatient SUV driver while I was going 5 MPH over the speed limit. So if I was speeding, how fast must that woman have been going to pass me on that narrow, winding road? I do believe I yelled "dumbass" at her. She deserved it.

It was a good ride, and the rest of it was more or less uneventful. Eventually I gave up on stretching, and just wanted to get home as fast as possible. So we picked it up after the final 2 hills. Every time I find a 25 MPH speed limit, it seems like a personal challenge (I hate rules). I did finally figure out how to comfortably sprint in the drops - a new skill for me - when Ken blew my doors off on a town line sprint (I didn't SEE it, and thus didn't know we were sprinting for it). I almost caught him - at 30MPH on a flat. Sprinting. In the drops. I'm sure there is a style rule against that. But hey- it seemed to work well.

1094 kcals burned in 1.75 hours. Not bad. I think Ken burned some 1500 kcals.

Shoulder pain & the "EMG Scan"

I had an EMG scan done today as part of a "checking out a new chiropractor" exam this morning. Part of my continuing "try to stop the pain in my shoulder" quest. This was after a 20 mile ride at 630 this morning (which contained hills at 9% and 11% grade, at times - a good ride).

This is my take from it: A normal, well adjusted, pain free person's scan would like the diagram in the upper Right corner. My scan is in the upper left corner. These two scans show how well the motor nerves are working (the guy held these little sensors to my skin all up and down my back, on either side of my spine). White means the nerves are working well; green means they are working slightly less well; blue is one degree worse than green; red is one degree worse than blue (and two worse than green); black is off the chart. You can see where I am off the chart - coincidentally, thats just below where my shoulder hurts. Just hearing the guy say "yea, your not making it up" - that was a nice vindication - I'm NOT crazy.

We also did the little dance of "on a scale of 1-10, 10 being the worst, how much has your shoulder hurt at its absolute worse?" I said 8. To which he replied - that might be a 10+ for other people. I like it when people realize that pain is a sliding scale. It means they aren't a complete idiot, which is always encouraging. But it also occurred to me - if last July wasn't a 10, then what is? I've done several things which MIGHT have been a 10, but I am convinced that there has to be pain worse than that out there. Maybe after childbirth I'll revisit the pain scale discussion.

The bottom left scan image shows where the muscles are straining the worst (while sitting down) - you can see how my back muscles on my left side are trying really hard to pull my hip back out (or maybe it is out, although I've gotten pretty good at noticing when it goes out). Interestingly, the two little green arrows on my right side are right in the area where the pain is. Then again, there are little green and blue arrows where nothing seems amiss to me at all.

They took some xrays today - it'll be interesting to see what they think of that. My Doc took xrays last summer right after the PMC (when my arm was really not working so well) & she told me I had a muscle strain gave me some pills which do help in extreme instances, but a half a pill knocks me out for a full day after taking it at night. I'd rather be in pain that semi-conscious. Unless, of course, I'm on a transcontinental flight, and then I'd rather be unconscious above all else.

It's funny though. I've noticed this phenomenon before - you never really FEEL the pain until someone else tells you that 'yea, that hurts for a reason.' Its much easier to put something out of your mind before someone else tells you how you should be feeling.

The saga continues...

6/16/08 Fundraising

So we're up to $200 in fundraising (thanks, mom!). My mom apparently got very tired of waiting for the donation letter to arrive, and sent me an unsolicited donation. Which was a nice kick in the butt to finally get those letters out.

We only have several thousand dollars left to go. I was hoping to avoid sending paper letters out, but I've come to the conclusion that it's just too easy to loose emails in inboxes (I've had trouble with this myself recently). So back to old fashioned paper it is. Please recycle your letter after you've sent the form back to me :-)

Almost Summer!

Summer solstice comes this weekend! We've had our first heat wave and Ken's allergies are no longer keeping him off the bike, and he has been figuring out some quick routes that he can ride before going to work a couple of mornings a week. Due to his intense work schedule, its been really hard for him to find time to ride. Although, you know, it's light out until 830pm or so. But if we were to ride that late, we'd be going to bed around 1030pm, and we get up around 5, which isn't really enough sleep.

We had a lovely cool & misty ride last evening - the tops of the hills were all foggy. It was just beautiful. Four hundred feet of climbing. We came across a red fox in Berlin - it crossed the road in front of us (this was about 715 pm), and was sitting in the woods, watching us, as we climbed a hill.

Karen has found a new group of ladies to ride with in town on the weekdays, and they seem to be a good match. Last Friday, I (Karen) went out with some women in town and did this ride. One of the really nice thing about riding with new groups of folks is the learning of new routes and being able to look at the same old roads a little differently. Doesn't hurt that the weather was absolutely beautiful. 523 feet of climbing.

Once Ken is able to get a few shorter rides in during the week, we should be able to start increasing our weekend mileage. Which would be good & very much necessary. Ken's been topping out at a painful 35 miles on the weekends - I'd really rather see us at a pain-free 45 or 50 mile weekend ride by now. But with this shoulder of mine (the nagging shoulder injury is back, and it seems to have brought reinforcements this time), who knows... Its acting up around the 7 mile mark now, which is just ridiculous. I'm doing heat/ice rotations, advil, icy hot, and even took half of a muscle relaxant last night. Working on some massage therapy and chiropractic help. It'll get there. But the idea of riding another PMC with pain like that is really, really depressing.

Stats up until now (at least the rides I've managed to record - I forget sometimes):

• Almost 12 hours total on the bike (you should be laughing at this - its very sad)
  
• 300+ miles traveled (laugh here too - I would do it myself, but I'm a bit disappointed)
  
• 13,344 calories burned (thats the equivalent of about 27 Big Macs... not that we EAT such junk, but thats ok - it's for comparison only. Or 96 cans of coke, which we don't drink either.)
  

We're coming upon that magical time of year when hopefully the mileage will start to really add up (quickly). I had hoped to have significantly more hours & miles logged by now, but life has this annoying habit of getting in the way.