RAGBRAI - 2015 Edition

This year I was only able to fit in one day of riding on the Register's Annual Great Bike Ride Across Iowa (RAGBRAI).  Instead of the last year or two, I rode 100 miles in a single day rather than over two days, from Fort Dodge to Eldora.

My 2015 observations:

* We need more bandwidth!  Cell phones worked OK on LTE out in the country, but in the small towns where everybody stopped, there was no data going in or out.  You'd think RAGBRAI and its vendors would find a way to end the data gridlock.

* There was a significant delay on the ride due to two bridges being under construction within a couple of miles of each other.  This is unacceptable to any veteran of the ride.  We know RAGBRAI is supposed to work with the Iowa Department of Transportation to make sure the route doesn't run into this kind of thing.

* It can get a little lonely on the extra 25 mile loop that allowed for this year's optional 100 mile day.  I've done that three times now, and it helps to have someone else with you.  Unlike the regular route, there are few riders and almost no organized places to stop along the road.

* Still hard to find church-stand fruit pie on the ride.  But I did, a fine slice of apple pie.  There were several other varieties, but again saw no pineapple pie this year.

* The usual big corporate food vendors were there (Farm Boys, Mr. Pork Chop, Tom Tenders, Beekman's Ice Cream), but the biggest crowd I saw by far was at the new Iowa Craft Beer Tent.  Rumor is that it drew the largest crowds all week.

* Drones!  Saw drones overhead capturing video of the ride in a few different towns.  It would make for a good chamber of commerce presentation.

* Best jersey seen this year goes to Team Good Beer.  Nothing special about the name, but they had lederhosen-style jerseys, which were awesome.

You Have A Tumor

In July of 2000, after a few months searching for answers about chronic fatigue and stiffness in my legs, I got a call from my family physician.  It was obvious this was no ordinary call; it was Sunday morning around 9 A.M.

After a quick exchange of pleasantries, I will always remembers her next words:  "You have a tumor."  I will never remember much about the rest of the call, beyond being told to go to the hospital later to visit with a neurosurgeon she recommended to me.

In short, I had surgery a few days later to remove a spinal tumor.  Although the pathology was not confirmed for a couple of weeks, it was later determined to be a benign ependymoma.

Today, July 14, 2015, marks the 15th anniversary of that surgery, the only in-patient surgery I've ever had so far, and hopefully the only one I'll ever have.  Several weeks later, it was followed by a six-week course of preventative radiation therapy, which I know I'll never have again.

I don't want to write much about it, I don't even want to talk much about it, but it's a good time for me to look back and consider the lasting impressions I have now:

• There is no not being scared when you are told you have a tumor.  It doesn't help for others to tell you it's going to be fine.  However, one thing that does somewhat mitigate the fear is drugs, in my case Xanax, which has a way of making you not care about things even though you know they are very serious.  This remains the only time I've ever taken something like Xanax, but I can understand how and why people get addicted to it.

• The internet is an incredibly distracting, mentally exhausting resource for looking up health issues.  It's 50/50 to me whether it was (is) a good thing or a bad thing.  But what might help is to find someone else who's been through what you're going to go through.  I wish I would have known someone else in my situation, someone who might have given credible advice.  Unfortunately, it was kind of a rare deal, so much that the internet didn't even help.

• When someone is going through a recovery and/or long-term oncology-type treatment, send them a card sometime.  Misery loves company, even when the company isn't as miserable as you.  It's just good to know that others haven't forgotten about what not only you, but also your family, are going through.

• Don't act in such a hurried or fearful way that you make non-emergency medical decisions without getting a second opinion.  I didn't, and although I feel like I had a good surgeon and a good outcome, in retrospect, I'd have gotten a second opinion on both the surgery and especially on the preventative radiation therapy.

• There wasn't anything good about this tumor/surgery/treatment, but if I had to pick something, it's that I no longer care about aging.  In fact, I've considered every birthday in the past 15 years to be a gift.  Health is a gift.  Age is a gift.  Too bad I had to spend a few weeks thinking about dying young before I figured that out.

What's In A Name

Years ago, one of my kids was talking to a friend, who was trying to remember my name.  She couldn’t come up with it, and eventually she said that it was "some old guy’s name.”  And so it was that I first recall ‘Bill’ being called an old guy’s name.

For reasons unknown, I always remembered that story.  My given name is William, and I certainly have other options for an everyday nickname, including Will, or the more contemporary Liam.  (But not Billy, I already went through that phase as a child.)

So in the past year or so, after reading that the name Liam was the #1 name for newborn boys in Iowa for the past two years, I’ve been jokingly(?) asking folks to call me Liam, because Bill is an old guy’s name and I’m still a young guy.

This Liam thing is starting to catch on.  So I'm telling people.

If I simply don’t respond to Bill, by chance or by choice, I can always correct the person by saying I don’t recognize Bill anymore, only Liam.  Of course, this isn’t entirely true – because I’ll also go with Will.  I often use Will instead of Liam when asked for a name at a casual/fast food restaurant.

Name versatility.  It allows you to go from a young guy to an old guy and back to a young guy.