Update

Life goes on.

I'm really enjoying the time away from the hospital, although I've still had 5 medical appointments in the past 2 weeks.

One was with a psychiatrist assigned to the cancer unit at UVM Medical Center.  He manages a couple medicines for me - medicines that help me mentally to deal with disease that is trying to kill me.

One was with a therapist who I see regularly. She only sees cancer patients, and her presence in my life is impossible to measure.  There are things you deal with when you have cancer that are too much to even put on a spouse.  Sometimes, I just need to vent.  Sometimes, I need help on how to communicate effectively with someone in my life.  She is always there to listen.  Mostly to listen, but she also offers up great nuggets of wisdom at times.

I have a chemo port and it needs to be flushed periodically.  That was last Friday.  This is just done to prevent clots from forming around the lines from the port.

I had to see my primary care provider, who takes care of most of my medications, including pain meds.  A new VT law requires that I see her every 90 days now, instead of the six month schedule we had been using.  So, that appointment was required by law if I want to continue using pain meds.

And, my physical therapist, who is coming back from two knee injuries, saw me yesterday.  She is just starting to ease back into work, and I was her first patient on her path back.  I mostly wanted to talk and not put too much stress on her after all that she has been through.  She is a top level athlete in her own right, and this major knee injury has been a terrible thing for her.  Having had an ACL replaced (her injury was much more extensive than mine), I've been trying to be a supportive friend.  But, it was also nice to know that she's on the comeback trail and is up to seeing patients again.  I am sore today from the work she put me through yesterday, so I'm sure she hit the right spots.

I'm sure I'm a complicated case for her.  There just aren't many people walking around who have lost most of a core stabilizing muscle, so there are not really any fixed protocols for making this better.  She's making up a lot as we go along, based on how my work in the gym is going and how I perceive the work she gives me to be helping.

But, she's a Ph.D Physical Therapist, a smart lady, and an athlete herself.  I couldn't have a better PT.

On another note, my all time record for most CF workouts in a month is 18.  This month has 31 days and only 8 weekend days.  I rarely do CF on the weekends, so months with 5 weekends usually see me with a lower number of CF days.

So far this month, even though I've really just returned to CF, I've done 13 CF workouts already.  Today is a rest day, but I'll get number 14 on Friday.

Then, I would need four more in the last 6 days of the month to tie my all time record.  Regretfully, I have a concert next Monday and plans next Thursday, so even if I go this coming Saturday morning, a rarity for me, it looks like I'll only get to 17 days.  Still, 16 or 17 days in August, after major abdominal surgery in June, makes me pretty happy.

My goal, as I returned, was to use a 50%, 60%, 70%, ..., 100% rule.  My first week, I tried to use 50% of the prescribe weight and in some cases, 50% of the prescribed reps.  Each week, I'm trying to do a few more reps and a higher weight.  I'm currently in the 90% week, but last night, I didn't really do 90%.  It was a really tough workout:

In 10 minutes:
Run 800 meters
50 wall balls
short rest
5 heavy push presses

In 10 minutes:
Run 800 meters
50 kettlebell swings
short rest
5 heavy push presses

In 10 minutes:
Run 800 meters
50 box jump overs
short rest
5 heavy push presses

In 10 minutes:
Run 800 meters
50 push-ups
short rest
5 heavy push presses


Our Wednesday workouts have been really tough recently, and this one was no exception.  Running has been especially difficult for me on two fronts.  First, I have a lot of pain when running, even though I'm wearing compression shirts to "hold everything together".  I have some problems bringing my legs through, and catching my feet on the ground.  I'm always afraid I'm going to trip if I don't .  This is all tied to losing so much of psoas muscle, and I have to be very aware of every single step when running so I don't trip over my own feet.  This is such a change from the days when I could mindlessly crank out a 30 mile training run, and feel fine for the rest of the day.

Also, during chemo in the spring, I was anemic, and my ability to do aerobic work suffered.  Then, I had two months off after surgery.  So, over a period of six months, my aerobic capacity dropped to perhaps its lowest point in the past 35 years.  It's getting better slowly, but I'm in woefully bad shape at the moment.  My strength work is a struggle, but nothing like the struggle I face as my heart rate gets pushed up.

Each week is getting better though.  A few weeks ago, on a set of 3x400 meters, with some other work mixed in, I had to walk part of every single 400.  Last night, I opted for 600s rather than 800s.  Not 90%, but it turned out to be a good choice.  On the first three, I ran (slowly) every step of the way.  On the fourth, I walked the last 50 meters.  On that rep, every person running 800 meters finished before I could finish 600.  But, it's getting better, so I'll take that.

On the second movement in each round, I opted for 40 reps instead of 50.  Again, not 90%, but this was the correct scaling.  On the push presses, I picked a weight that I knew would be challenging on the first set, and really difficult by the last set.

The sets progressed as I expected.  I was glad to do wall balls first.  They were the toughest of the four high-rep movements.  I finished all the work in the first round in about 7:30 and I got to rest for the remaining time.

In the second round, my 600m run was about the same time, the kettlebell swings were faster than wall balls, and I got about 3:00 of rest.

In the third round, my running began to slow.  Suddenly, I was last of the entire class.  In the first two rounds, I had been slightly ahead of a couple people, but not many.  For the box jump-overs, I did step-overs - stepping on the box and then over it.  The pain in my stomach is really limiting 4 standard CF movements - running, rope jumping, box jumps, and burpees.  I noticed this week that rope jumping has improved, so that one is now less of an issue.  Running is getting better.  Burpees and box jumps are lagging.  Box jumps are the only movement that I was doing previously that I'm not yet doing at all.

In the final round, the wheels kind of fell off.  On the run, I was absurdly slow.  I walked the last 50 meters.  Compared to two weeks ago, the running was a major victory.  Including the warm-up and my scaling, I had 2600 meters of running last night, and I ran (slowly, but it was running) all but 50 meters.  Two weeks ago, going 400 meters without walking was nearly impossible.  So, even though the wheels were falling off, it's still an improvement.

The push-ups were brutal.  I think I started with 8.  Then 5.  Then 4.  After that, I did mini-sets of 2-4 with rest in between.  I got to 35 before I was forced to go to singles.  The last 5 were all done as single reps with rest.  At that point, I had used 8:50 of my 10:00.  I decided that my best chance of finishing the push presses under the 10:00 mark was to wait until I had 30 seconds left, and try to complete them all in that time frame.  I made it with about 5 seconds to spare.

I had gone into the workout sore and tired from Monday and Tuesday.  I felt some fatigue from my PT session as well - just some isolated muscle fatigue that affected a few things, running included.  I think I scaled it perfectly.  I was really hard, but it was manageable.

CrossFit truly is infinitely scalable.

After Friday, I will be done with my 5th week of my comeback.  In some ways, I'm disappointed.  I don't think I realized how much fitness I had lost during chemo.  In my first chemo, I was hospitalized for a four day infusion.  Then, I could only walk for the next 5 days or so.  But, after that, I had 10-11 days where I could train hard.  I didn't lose much fitness during the four rounds of that chemo.

The chemo this spring was six rounds.  The acute symptoms right around the infusion were less severe than the previous chemo.  But, the cumulative fatigue was far worse, and I lost more fitness than I realized during the three months of that chemo and the time period after chemo when I was still recovering.

Even now, almost 4 months after the chemo ended, I am still dealing with some side effects.  I'm convinced that the chemo made my recovery from surgery more difficult.

But, in the immortal words of Jim Valvano, "Never quit, never surrender".  That's my attitude.

And, my friends at the gym have been great.  I've been frustrated a lot.  When you have a back squat PR of 375 (done since I turned 50), and you are squatting 95 pounds, it feels pretty pathetic.  When you have a lifetime PR of 2:21 for 800 meters and you can't even run that far unbroken right now, it feels kind of depressing.  But, my friends at the gym remind me that I'm out there and I'm working hard.  They remind me that I've been through a lot.  My body has been through a lot.  I'm a cancer patient and I have a serious disease.  They remind me that most people in my situation wouldn't be out there at all, and that every single workout I do is a victory.

At times, it is frustrating.  But, I am lucky to have some great friends on my side.  Where I see "pathetic", they see "heroic".  I don't think either word is really correct, but I'm glad to still be out there.  And, I'm especially glad for my friends and my wife, who encourage me on a daily basis.  There are a lot of things I can't control right now.  I don't like that at all, to be honest.  But, I can choose to go to the gym and give the best effort I've got in me.  As a lifelong athlete, that's good enough for now.