Totally wish I could have been there!

Great Quote that I read over the weekend "Friends are people that know everything about you, yet still like you" Don't know who to attribute that to, but its a great line anyways. Heard it from a good guy Bill Wixey, who is a local TV reporter who was recently diagnosed with Hodgskins Lymphoma and has started Chemo for it. He's currently writing a blog about his experiences, and it's inspiring stuff. You should check it out if you have a moment. blog.billwixey.com
This past weekend was the New York ride, and I totally wish I could have been there! I want to thank Hillary for keeping all of us that couldn't be there in the know through Twitter! It was nice to follow along with everything. Made me feel like I was there, kinda. I think I will have to tote the BlackBerry around with me this year and do the same!
Training is going.... well.... it's not going right now. I have been asked by my doctors to put it back on hold again. My body is torn up right now and the concern is that while by body is recovering from the training, it will be ignoring the inflamation in my colon and back thus perpetuating the problem. Although I do not like the idea of stepping down my training as I don't feel I have enough time as it is to do this, I understand where they are coming from and want to get better. Although I want to ride this year, I want to be around to ride for years to come!
I feel sooo old right now! I have more doctors looking into what's making me sick and hurt than my parents. I will say that I think that because I have so many, they are finally getting a good idea of the entirity of what's happening. Here's the latest update for anyone that cares about it. Saw my new Rheumatologist on Thursday of last week to find out what the hell is going on with all my back and joint pain. After seeing all my labs, and ordering a couple of xrays views that the other doctors hadn't, he came to the conclusion that I have inflamitory arthritis that is directly associated with my Crohn's. So with that diagnosis, I now know what is happening with everything. I am all flaired up, I have inflamation that has spread into my muscles and joints, and on top of it all they keep telling me I should find a therapist or get on to some form of SSRI to stablize my moods a bit because they are all concerned that I am depressed. Course of action... Put me on to Humira, continue on 30mg of Prednisone, add in Flaggyl, don't forget Prilosec, and top it off with a laundry list of suppliments including Calcium, Iron, Vitamin D, Folic Acid, oh and don't forget about the weekly infusions of Ferlocet. My pill organizer looks like my great grandfathers! The good news is that I am starting to think that we are getting somewhere with all of this. I have been sleeping better at night, not getting as tired in the middle of the day, and my appetite has seemed to return. Best of all I think I mBut ight be putting a couple of pounds back on this skinny frame of mine. I'm sure the doctors are happy to see that. Now if I can only convince them that taking all my blood for tests and labs isn't the best thing for my health..... LOL
I have to say that there was one aspect of training for this ride that I totally didn't anticipate at all, and that's the emotional strain that I have been putting on myself through this process. I'll admit that I am extremely hard on myself and have been pushing myself harder than I probably should be to get this going. That's also my nature though. I put a heavy mental load on myself this year to complete this task. The first year I didn't know about the ride till it was too late to even think about training, so I told myself "OK next year you will do this." Then the next year came along and I was in the hospital dealing with a flair up when training time came around, so my body told me "There's no way in hell that you are doing it this year!" so I sat back and crewed again. That compiled the mental load on myself to make it happen this year. Over the winter, by body gave out on me again and it forced me to start looking for different doctors. I really liked my last doc, but with nothing changing in years, I wondered if having a fresh set of eyes on the situation would be helpfull. Enter the great staff of doctors that I have now! They have been putting in a lot of work trying to figure this out and get me back on the path to good health again. I think now that we have it all figured out, we may be able to get me feeling good again. That would be a good thing for the future, as I have a family to think about now. But I am still hammering on myself about this! Why can't I get healthy enough to make this happen? It eats away at me constantly and I know it's all in my head. I know that I am not dissapointing anyone else if I don't ride. Hell I think that this year I would be yelled at more for attempting to ride than if I didn't. And I know that my family and friends wouldn't think any less of me if I didn't ride. But what eats away at me is that I would think less of MYSELF if I didn't ride this year. I know it makes me no less of a person if I don't ride this year, expecially considering that my doctors have told me not to. Yet in the back of my head it eats away at me, screaming that I failed. I don't deal well with failure, expecially when I have the ability to control it. I just can't get over that nagging feeling in the back of my head that I failed this year. And I don't know that there is anything that will get me over that except to just do it.
Oh the things that we put ourselves through.....
Well I really should get back to what I am suppose to be doing. Untill next time!