Father Time….a career of being undefeated, the only one/thing/event that truly is. I keep trying to put that on the back burner and keep in mind that the longer I manage to keep moving, the better chance there is that more and more advances will happen to keep the line moving forward.

I, maybe better than most, know what it’s like to be unable to move. Starting back in 2008 or 2009, the bone on bone arthritis in my hips became more and more painful. Sadly, I thought it was a knee issue and equally unfortunately, the highly regarded rheumatologist I saw in Norwalk, treated me for knee issues. When it didn’t improve, I sought out an orthopedic surgeon regarding knee replacement. The first one I saw, also highly regarded from NYU Medical, did say he didn’t understand the knees causing me that much pain, however, he would do the replacements. Keying in on the fact that he didn’t seem to be sure and that knee work is hideous recovery (ruptured both patella tendons in my knees in ’93 so I was fully aware of the work needed to rehab hinge joints), I decided to seek a second opinion…fortunately the knee guy I saw in Norwalk agreed with the NYU guy that the knees shouldn’t be causing me pain, and called in his colleague who was more of a hip guy..he IMMEDIATELY had me walk a few steps, took yet more Xrays (this time of my hips, not my knees) and proclaimed….”your hips are shot…nothing lubricating them, bone on bone THAT’S what’s causing pain” One good news piece followed by one bad news piece…He would not do a replacement because of my weight…So next up was a consult with an outstanding doctor from HSS who was not at all put off by my weight, in fact, he was quick to say that he had done replacements of folks far heavier than I was (given I was close to 350 lbs at that time…that’s a pretty big proclamation)… So the hips were done, one at a time over 6 months and I was able to give up the copious amounts of Oxycontin and Vicodin (yes, at the same time) that had kept me at least functional for a couple of years…(yes, you read that right….YEARS)… [Sidebar: I was lucky, likely because of my very high tolerance, that kicking those drugs was tough but other than the last week, the withdrawal was not too bad…]

While I was in orthopedic better shape, I was still the size of a medium planet and it was still difficult to move around a lot. That was “fixed” in July of 2015 when I had bariatric sleeve surgery and more than 6 years later continue to be successful and it has allowed me to run, walk, swim, and do the little things like laundry, trash, dishes etc easily.

That brings me all the way back to the point of this particular stream of consciousness: This morning I was feeling “off”, it was kinda cloudy (still is) I had slept strangely, some solid some interrupted with various thoughts, and the last thing I wanted to do was go for a run. However, an exchange I had with a friend of my daughter a few days ago has kept me motivated to lace up and get out. So this morning, suited up, chose music (today a lot of Linda Ronstadt), packed a small water bottle and out I went. The first 1/4 mile was hell, my thoughts kept going back to “what the hell was I thinking”…about 1/2 mile in my breathing got better, and things started to loosen up, around a mile, it was all good…humid and still cloudy, but it felt ok…I ended up doing only 2.02 miles, but all I kept thinking was how lucky I was to be able to move like that, and how much I actually enjoyed it. I also kept thinking that the more I move the more I’ll be able to move…once, a long time ago I read somewhere than anything that’s still stagnates. I don’t remember what it referred to but I do believe that…I’m pressing 70 (well, still about 8 months to go there) but I’m hoping to be writing a similar blog statement when I’m pressing 100….

The title: 146….the kids at school always used to ask how long I thought I’d like to live…for absolutely no reason I always said 146….(quickly clarified that I’d be happy with 144 healthy 🙂 The more science advances, the more I move, the more I do my best to NOT contribute to issues that could mitigate that and with a huge does of LUCK to avoid all kinds of otherwise unavoidable issues, the closer I get to 146…