Transplant Athlete
Wednesday, July 06, 2005
  I wasn't the only one on medication

Kansas was mostly harmless. During the day it was hot, flat, and fast. At night, it was attack of the killer bugs. The air was thick with mosquitos. On Saturday morning we were told that we were only three hours behind the 7th place team, but at the time station in Mount Vernon Kansas #27, we found out we were really 6 hours behind. The good news was that there were several teams around that time, so if we were able to make up time, we had a shot at a higher position. By TS #29, we had made up 12 minutes, but we were still losing tons of time at transitions and probably could have made up another 15 to 20 minutes if our transition went smoothly. At the time, we felt like we could make the time up, so every minute standing by the side of the road was a minute lost.


Looking back over the route book, I can only remember about half of the pulls that I did. I rarely looked at the route book, and when I did it was to look at the route profile. I'll be glad to get the raw footage from NBC, to help my memory.

Now, I wasn't the only person on the trip taking medication. One crewmember stopped taking medication and became a sobbing lump on the RV couch. So yes, I did make someone cry today. This was very much like "Survivor" but trapped inside an RV, with the riders being the only ones getting out for the immunity challenges.

Mundane Facts:
1) The Air conditioner in the RV leaks water all over the place including the couch I like to sleep on. The floor gets disgusting.
2) I act like a baby when I've been riding for a long time. Pointing and going uh uh to get what I want.
3) Because of the water everywhere, and Clay dropping a bag on my head, days after Mike dropped a bag on my head, I've determined that the bunk above the cab is the best and safest place to sleep.
4) The tanks on the RV fill up quickly so showers must be short. At one point while washing dishes, the graywater going down the sink drain was coming back up the shower drain. My daughter loves waterfalls, so she would have thought the right turns were cool. Scott Jancy did our dirty work by emptying the shower a cup at a time (into the grass at a hotel) so that we wouldn't have any more waterfalls. Until we got to a proper dump station.
5) When unable to get a massage, the Compex Unit in active recovery mode works just as well. In fact, a couple of times I used the Compex Unit after a massage for added benefit.

 

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In 1986, doctors discovered that my Kidneys were failing, they gradually got worse until September 25, 2000 when my mother donated a kidney.

After the transplant, I felt like I needed to prove something to myself, so I took a bicycle tour(PACTour) across the US. I've competed at the US and the World Transplant Games as well as in Ultra distance events. My transplant will likely fail in the next couple of months and I'm currently preparing to go on dialysis.

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Warning Signs for Kidney Disease:

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