Today is my birthday. Number 44. Forty-four magnum, I’m calling it. Like Harry Callahan’s hand cannon. “Do you feel lucky?” I do.

For this double-quad birthday post, I’d like to revisit my fitness efforts one more time. The last time I mentioned my exercise regimen was back in November last year,  when I showed my “final” results after the P90X and Insanity programs. Well, I’ve kept up my exercises, but I’ve dropped to working out just three times a week instead of the hardcore six times a week. I’m just in a maintenance mode, now. I’m happy with my fitness level and my physical appearance, so I just want to stay like this. I don’t need to buff up like a bodybuilder.

Forgive an old man showing his bare physique one more [last] time.

[And forgive the terrible lighting in these pics. Sheesh. Opening the blinds of the big front window just caused harsh shadows. Using the flash just washed out on my pale skin — too embarrassing to use for this post. I thought I could improve on the bathroom shots. I failed.]

Anyway. Something I’ve never mentioned before is that I have a pretty severe case of arthritis. My spine, let my show you it:

This image is my lumbar spine, seen from my left side. Note the solid black cartilage space between the bottom vertebrae. That’s well-developed arthritis. That’s what pain looks like.

This MRI image was taken back in August 2007, almost four years ago. I posted about the experience, but I never came out and said what it was all about. I’ve never talked about having arthritis, here, because I didn’t want you readers thinking of me as some decrepit invalid. I’m only comfortable mentioning it in this blog, now, because I can post the fit pictures with it.

Four years ago, I went from a general doctor to a specialist to find out why I was so regularly having back pain. I always got out of bed achy and groaning in the mornings. I often, (at least once a year), “threw out my back” when doing heavy work.

X-rays and MRI photos showed the answer: pretty well developed arthritis. I was rather stunned. I mean, I was just turned 40 years old. Arthritis is something senior citizens have. The doctor told me that the disease had been developing in me for a while.

“But doc,” I said, “I was doing martial arts several days a week, just a few years ago. I earned a black belt in Tae Kwon Do.”

“You were fit and strong from the martial arts,” the doctor explained, “and that keeps the pain away.”

Core strength and flexibility, like I had while doing TKD, is the best — really the only — way to overcome arthritis without drugs or surgery. In the years after last doing any good and regular exercise, the arthritis caught up with me. That’s why I was starting to feel the disease as pain.

The doctor explained that there is no way to fix, cure, or repair arthritis, but I could keep it from getting worse by getting back into good and regular exercise. But I had to be careful and mindful of how to do exercise properly; I had to protect my back because with arthritis, it’s easier to injure, and any injury is more painful.

I may have be having pains getting out of bed then, but worst case scenario if I didn’t get back into good and regular exercise would be that one day I wouldn’t be able to get out of bed at all. Knowing how bad my back hurt sometimes getting out of bed then, I understood what that meant.

So I got back into good and regular exercise. Well, sometimes and sort of. I was on again and off again with the exercise. At my worst, I was never really “fat.” I was overweight, yes, but I’m also 40+ years old with a sedentary occupation. I and everyone with whom I ever conversed about body weight considered me average and normal for a 40-something family man. My middle was getting thicker, but my belly never plumped over my belt.

As for my arthritis, very few people knew I had it. I ran and jumped and played with my kids like all the other dads around — more than some dads because I wasn’t fat and completely out of shape like some men my age. Only when getting out of bed in the mornings, or maybe getting up off a sofa or chair after an hour or more sitting around, did I make any groans of discomfort. My inconsistent efforts at exercise at least kept me out of severe pain from normal activity. I only took any kind of drug for the pain, (usually just ibuprofen, but rarely something stronger), when it was particularly bad.

Every once in a while — once or twice a year, about — I’d do something to “throw my back out.” I’d pick something up wrong, twist or jump bad, or just sit too long in an uncomfortable position. It was Arthur Ritus letting me know he was truly moved in for the rest of my life.

When I started thinking about picking up the P90X workout, I honestly didn’t even think about needing it for arthritis control. But I was reminded by a person who loves me that I need to remember my back problem and not do something careless to hurt myself. Starting a regular exercise regimen is a good idea, but going extreme and permanently injuring myself would be just plain dumb. Good advice.

I completed the three-month P90X regimen with not a single back problem. I continued the P90X for another couple of months, and then completed the two month Insanity program, and still had no problems with my back. My core strength and flexibility was better than ever. I’ve been in close to peak physical fitness for a 40-plus year old for a year, now. And I’m still going strong.

Only once did I hurt myself during any of these workouts. Fortunately, (and maybe ironically), it happened during this maintenance period I’m keeping up, now, (not during the first/main rounds of the programs). I got a little cocky and rambunctious during a power jump routine, and lost the proper form and control. I woke up the next morning in back pain. I had to take four weeks off from working out to recover. Frustrating, that was. But after the healing time, I got right back into my exercise routine, and I make sure I keep the proper form and control when doing my extreme maneuvers.

* * *

So, I’m 44 years old today. Forty-four magnum.

Booyah! :-)

And my birthday party, next weekend, will be a wonderful nerd-fest.

Bullgrit

You know how researching something on the Internet leads to something else which leads to something completely unrelated. This pattern eventually lead me to Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit.”

I remember first hearing this song in 1991 when one of my gaming buddies showed up for our game night with a small boombox. He had the Nirvana CD playing Teen Spirit. I remember that the song had a pretty infectious rhythm, which I can still easily conjure up in my head years after having last heard it. But the lyrics were . . . what? I could make out, “Here we are now, entertain us,” but the rest of the words were completely unintelligible.

Not that songs must have completely clear lyrics, but . . .

I understand this song, and this band, especially Kurt Cobain, became a cultural phenomenon in its time. I remember asking my game buddy that night, “What’s that song about?” His answer, “Teen Spirit is a girl’s scent spray.”

Yeah, I was aware of the Teen Spirit spray thing from the common commercials of the time. But then, and even years later, I never heard anyone give a definitive answer for what that song is about. I would think that for a song to be declared masterful, a phenomenon, fans should at least have a hint as to what it’s about.

Now, I was 24 years old at the time this song was a big hit. So maybe my lack of appreciation for it has more to do with my being beyond the teenage and college demographic than with the song itself being intellectually void.

But then in 2004, Rolling Stone magazine ranked “Smells Like Teen Spirit” number 9 in its 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. Huh? How does this break the top ten? This song gets top ten status, but “Stairway to Heaven” ranks 31? Hell, how does Nirvana’s only top 20 hit (reached only #6) beat out anything by Led Zepplin? Or The Who? Or U2, or Johnny Cash, or Elvis Presley? Or even Boston, which got rank number 500 with “More Than a Feeling”? Come on — “Smells Like Teen Spirit” is 491 places better than “More Than a Feeling”? That’s ridiculous.

And then I remember seeing a VH1 show, 100 Most Shocking Moments in Rock ‘N’ Roll a few years ago. Kurt Cobain’s suicide was ranked the number 4 most shocking RnR moment? An angsty, drug-addled “genius” who couldn’t handle the couple years of fame that his weird song got him killing himself is considered more shocking than Marvin Gaye being murdered by his father, (number 5)? Or Elvis Presley dying, (number 21)?

Really, the people who figure up these top whatever lists have a weak sense of what is truly great and classic, and shocking.”Smells Like Teen Spirit” is mumbled drivel compared to many of the bigger hits even in its own year. And Nirvana/Kurt Cobain are sad one-almost-hit wonders compared to so many artists who have more hit songs than he had years of life.

I don’t hate Nirvana or their song, but it’s downright insulting for them and it to be elevated to a pedestal above so many more worthy names.

Bullgrit

Be safe in the pool this summer.

Bullgrit

Calfgrit6 was feeling and acting pretty normal, a week after his tonsillectomy. After 10 days, it seemed all was over. Then Sunday night he came into our room around 10:30 p.m. saying he was throwing up. His mom was with him before I could shake the sleep out of my head. By the time I got up and to our bathroom, she had him over the trashcan. “He’s throwing up blood,” she said.

Oh crap. Okay, this had also happened with Calfgrit10, about 10 days after he had his tonsils removed back when he was about 4 years old. So we understood what was probably happening. His surgery wound, or both, probably popped a scab and so blood was seeping into his throat and being swallowed. After a while sitting on his stomach, it comes up.

“This is a lot of blood,” his mother said. They were both over the trashcan, so I couldn’t see the results, myself. Calfgrit6 mentioned he had thrown up in his room, so I was sent to check it out.

I walked down the hall and flicked on the lights of our little boy’s room. Sweet Mother of God! It looked like a horror movie had taken place in there. There was blood on his bed, on his nightstand, on the floor beside the bed, and there was a big pool of it right at his door, an inch from where I had stepped into his room.

I stood staring at the mess for a few moments, thinking, “I have no idea how to clean this up.”

I went back to our bathroom where Cowgrit was trying to keep our little guy calm so he wouldn’t make his pain and stomach worse. I informed her about the six gallons of blood in his room.

I was told to get dressed and to go get the doctor’s phone number. We had been given an information sheet explaining possible problems/complications from the surgery, and bleeding afterwards was an item to prompt calling the doctor’s emergency number. I pulled out that sheet, and called the doc. I expected to reach the doc’s answering service or something, but apparently it was the man’s personal phone.

“Hello?” said the sleepy voice on the phone.

“Um, hi,” I said started. “My son had a tonsillectomy about a week ago, and he’s now throwing up blood. A lot of blood.”

He asked for a little more info, like the patient’s age, and then he told me to take him to the hospital emergency room. He’d call his on-call partner and have him meet us there.

I finished getting dressed and got some clothes for Calfgrit6, while Cowgrit cleaned the little guy up a bit — washed most of the blood off him. He was calmed down, and seemed to have emptied is stomach.

As he and I were ready to run out the door, Cowgrit called her mother, who lives just a few minutes away. Calfgrit10 was still in his room, fast asleep, and we didn’t want to wake him and up and drag him to the ER with us. Calfgrit6 was calm but concerned about going to the hospital. We consoled him as best we could and then he and I left in my truck. Cowgrit would come behind us after her mother arrived to stay at our house with the sleeping older boy.

I and CG6 got to the hospital at 11:25 p.m., and check in and triage went pretty smooth and fast. 20 minutes after signing in, we were put in a curtained room in the ER. Calfgrit6 was doing fine — no vomiting or problems. His mother arrived within 5 more minutes, while the nurse was checking with us. “The doctor will be here shortly to examine him and see what’s going on,” we were told.

We sat down beside Calfgrit’s little child-sized bed, and waited. We tried to get him to go to sleep, and we tried to get comfortable in the hard chairs. There was just too much activity outside the curtain for him to close his eyes, and our chairs were too uncomfortable for us to nod off. An hour passed without anyone coming back to us. We continued to try to coax Calfgrit6 to at least just shut his eyes and rest. He hadn’t thrown up any more, and said he felt okay. 30 more minutes passed with no one checking in on us. I took a peek outside the curtain, and there was plenty of people around, and not much activity, (compared to what I expected in an ER).

At 2:45, we hit the two-hour mark of waiting in the room. I groggily stepped outside the curtains intending to flag down our nurse to ask what we were waiting on. I didn’t want to be rude or annoying — you know, “that” kind of patient’s-dad — but really, two hours? The doc on the phone had said his on-call doc would meet us at the ER, so what was the hold up? Our boy wasn’t in danger or pain, so I wasn’t wanting to demand attention, but with absolutely no attention since we first go there, I wanted to just make sure we weren’t forgotten or something.

I thought maybe they were just waiting to see if the boy vomited anymore or something. Were we going to be just sent back home? Was there something going on behind the scenes that was why we were just left with no word? While standing outside the curtain, I kept seeing our nurse zipping in and out of rooms and around corners, just outside the range of contact without shouting. But then another nurse saw me and asked me if she could help me. I told her we had been waiting in here for two hours, and I just wanted to know what’s up.

Now, it was almost 3:00 in the morning. I was tired, sleepy, groggy, with an anxious 6 year old in the hospital emergency room. I didn’t want to be an ass, but I fear I came across pretty rough and annoyed. This nurse said she’d check with our nurse and find out for me. I sat back down next to Calfgrit6’s bed.

A few minutes later, another nurse came to us to apply a pulse monitor to Calfgrit6’s finger. A pulse monitor? Really? The kid had been there for over two hours without any problems, or any other monitoring, and she was taking his pulse? I immediately figured this was just to give us some attention, and the fact that no attention was paid to the pulse display throughout the rest of our stay confirms to me that it was just for making us feel like we hadn’t been forgotten. I mean, I was just asking for information on what we were waiting around for; they didn’t need to make a false show of attention.

Half an hour later, the ER doc got to us and checked our boy out. The bleeding was stopped, his stomach was not upset, and he was not in pain. So the doc just told the nurse to let us check out. <sigh> About 3 hours in the hospital.

When we got home, it was going on 4:00 a.m. By the time we got Calfgrit6 back in his own bed, and we back in our own, it was 4:00 on the dot.

Half of our July 4th was spent cleaning up the mess of blood from the night before.