This has, to say the least, been an interesting week. How I managed to fit so many “normal” things into it, despite little things like today’s (Friday’s) email & website failure, which still remains unresolved (so if you sent me an email and haven’t seen a reply yet, it’s quite likely because I never saw your email and/or the reply didn’t go anywhere). And bigger things like Karen’s (my wife) hopefully-final surgery related to cancer. Which, in this case, was almost an outpatient procedure… not sure how many body parts you have to lose before you stay overnight anymore!
But through it all a sense of normalcy has been maintained; I kept up my Tuesday & Thursday-morning rides, of which Thursday’s was the most unusual, since I was riding up Kings at the same time Karen was being prepped for surgery. As I write this, it’s hard to come up with a way of telling the story without it sounding like that was the wrong thing to do, going on my usual ride, but somehow, after having been through this three times (actually four, if you count a minor, non-cancerous but related procedure while we were dating), attempting to reach for normalcy makes sense. Of course you’ve prayed for things to go as planned, and you put your faith in the doctors and get through the day.
The ride went well, pretty normal including Kevin having a seizure as we rode through Huddart Park, and I survived a surprisingly-fast pace on the upper stretches of West Old LaHonda. Actually a PR for that segment, which I was pretty darned happy with until I checked out Kevin’s times for that same segment. Thursday I was at 4:43, which puts me at 53rd out of 2009 people who have ridden it. I’m OK with that! Until I look up my son’s best time on it. 4:18 about a year ago, good enough for 7th place!!! Only 15 seconds off the fastest Strava time for that segment, which just might be within his reach. Impressive.
Normalcy continued even to the point of heading to work for a little while, waiting for a call from the surgeon, letting me know when I should head to Kaiser to see her as she woke up in recovery. Got the call at 11:15, said to be there in an hour, arrived at 12:07 and everything went just fine. I spent a couple hours at the shop later in the day (and the one thing we didn’t count on was that this would be a really busy week with lots of customers!), then returned for what always seems like an incredibly-lengthy and often-pointless process of getting checked out (leaving). It’s not like a hotel where you can just leave, maybe feeling funny that you didn’t tell someone at the front desk. But I got her home, where she’s been resting and getting along pretty darned well.
And somehow, it all seems normal.
