Working at a competitive high-paced software company in the Silicon Valley, being a husband and a father of an almost four-year-old and a 9-month-old, and taking care of All-OffRoad in the evenings (assuming the kids get to sleep early enough) takes up most of my time. The rest of my time is used up playing guitar, taking pictures, riding motorcycles, and any other hobbies that I can think of. This means that I don’t have time for everything — certain things must go. So far, in my case, it has been health. I have asthma, a bleeding ulcer, had a minor heart attack, and more kidney stones that I can count using my fingers and toes. I’m overweight, out of shape, and generally lazy. I avoid going to the doctor at almost any cost. Even when I go to the doctor I’m not at all convinced it’s worth while, except for the pain killers.
Don’t get me wrong, I like my doctor, he’s just not all that compassionate. Most conversations end up including phrases such as ” . . . well, what did you expect?” and ” . . . get used to it.” After my, now notorious, 1997 endo in Baja I found myself with most of my left arm numb. After a couple weeks of being numb from the shoulder down, I decided to go to the doctor. After explaining the symptoms and describing the cause he responded with “I think you got off pretty lucky if that’s all that happened. You damaged some nerves and will probably get most of the feeling back in six or seven months. Chances are it will come and go so you might as well get used to it.”
Sometime later, I had to go back for one of those humiliating problems that coincided with the ugliest case of four-color “monkey butt” that he’d ever seen. I explained the problem and then bent over. One look and he gasped “geez, you’ve been riding the damn dirt bike again, haven’t you?” He then said, “you know, if you’d lose twenty pounds and stand on the pegs like you’re supposed to, this wouldn’t happen.”
Knowing that our annual Baja Adventure was coming soon, I decided I’d better start a weight loss program. To start with I got the worst flu I’ve ever had. This laid me up for about a week and a half. I followed that up with a sinus infection. While taking antibiotics to get rid of the sinus infection I ended up in the hospital with the largest kidney stone I’ve ever had. After several days in the hospital and a “minor” procedure to remove the stone, I found that I had lost 23 lbs. By the time the Baja trip came around I had lost another 2 lbs. and was down to 220. I can’t even remember last time I had made it down to the “20s.” Unfortunately, loosing 25 lbs. in less than two months, without any exercise, left me with virtually no stamina for Baja, but that’s another story…
