Originally posted on December 23, 2010 (hence the reference to Reverb10). Bumping back up/Re-posting on December 23, 2012

I hate this day. I will always hate this day. On December 23, 2006, my father died from prostate cancer. As deaths from prostate cancer go, he was lucky. If you can describe dying far too young from a horrible disease lucky. He'd been diagnosed a bit more than 3 years earlier, had 3 good years where we all thought the disease had been caught early enough, the treatments were working. He was going to be one of those men who died 20 years later from some other old age related condition *with* prostate cancer. Not someone who actually dies *from* prostate cancer. I mean, who does that. As cancers go, isn't prostate cancer one of the least deadly????

That's what we thought. That's what so many people think.

Yet, prostate cancer ranks second among cancers for deaths in males. Each year over 32,000 men in the USA die from prostate cancer.

I said my Dad was lucky. At least lucky for those who this horrid disease kills. He did not have years of suffering because the prostate cancer had invaded his bones. Internet searches yielded story after story of men who spend years in pain from prostate cancer of the bones. My Dad's prostate cancer went to his liver, caused electrolyte imbalances which eventually stopped his heart. It happened fast. Far too fast.

In April of 2006 his PSA readings were normal, as they had been for the 3 years he'd been on hormone therapy. At his August check with the urologist, they had sky rocketed. In early September he and Mom toured England. While on the trip he started feeling some soreness in his hip (the start of a bone metasis).  A late September PET scan showed the spot on his hip, but also spots on his liver. October brought unproductive attempts at chemotherapy. Several trips to the hospital were needed to stabilize his electrolytes. I last saw him Thanksgiving weekend. He made a heroic effort that weekend to remain strong, appear normal to Kiddo. Shortly after we left, he collapsed. The following week he was so weak, he had to be moved to a nursing home. On December 23, as we drove to see him, he died.

His death and the Christmas season will always be intertwined.

The day 19 prompt for Reverb 10 was healing.  A prompt especially poignant for me this week. Because this is a wound which will never fully heal for me. A routine evening drive, just Kiddo and I, a quick detour to look at Christmas lights....suddenly the bandage was ripped away. The old wound exposed. I found myself with tears streaming down my face, quietly crying as we drove. Hoping and praying Kiddo wouldn't notice, that I wouldn't have to explain.

I remember after Dad's funeral asking my cousin, who'd lost her father the year before, when it would get better. Her answer, "Never, but it gets easier". 

Each year in the US, approximately 217,000 new cases of prostate cancer are diagnosed. Diagnosed early, this disease is often treatable, manageable, and not necessarily life threatening. Simple tests - the PSA blood test and the digital exam can spot problems early. I will never know if he hadn't waited 3 years between his PSA tests whether the outcome would have been different for my Dad. But I often wonder. Don't leave your family wondering. Get tested.

My cousin was right; now I can remember Dad fondly, think of him often, each memory doesn't bring fresh tears. Grief securely tucked away. But this time of the year it all comes back. The pain, the anger, the questions, the guilt. Exposed as if he died yesterday.

And so, I hate this day. I hope that on the other 364 days of the year, I honor him in what I do. Use the life lessons he taught me, the gifts he gave me, the example he set. That these are apparent in my life, in how I raise my son. But this day, the day he died, will always be a day to condemn this awful disease. And remind the men in my life to get tested. Every year.

In December I'm doing an on-line initiative, called Reverb 10, designed to help participants reflect on 2010 and manifest what's next in 2011. Each day participants are given prompts or thought starters to blog, tweet or journal. A record of my tweets in response to the prompts is found here. 

Oh, Balls

Is there some golf event or something coming to Chicago?

Oh yeah, the Ryder Cup is here next weekend. Chicago seems to celebrating with their latest street art series, remember the cows that started it all? This year it appears to be Golf Balls along Michigan Avenue.

My Kinda town...












Blackhawks:

Mrs O'Leary's cow and the Chicago Fire:

Golf, of course:

And others:

You've come a long way, baby

It just hit me that I'm coming up on my 2 year anniversary of my first attempt at mountain biking. That visit to an Intro clinic and short, short ride on a beginner trail was really more of a putting my toe in the water, versus jumping right in. If someone was to ask me how long I've been mountain biking, I generally consider spring of 2011 to be the beginning, the point I actually started going out and riding trails...and dragging my family along for the ride so to speak. But it was at the Fall Colors Festival in September of 2010 when I first did a timid ride with dirt under my wheels. Even then I knew I was hooked.

Mountain biking is an all in kinda sport. Meaning your focus has to be all in, on the here and now. The rest of world gets tuned out. Not just by being in nature, away from the hustle and bustle of life. But by the very real need to keep a single minded focus on that single track ahead while at the same time giving into an almost mindless bike/body connection, constantly shifting weight and balance. That feeling of flowing with the bike, with the trail, coupled at times with an adrenaline rush due to speed or difficulty of the trail or drop offs or jumps is wonderful. Almost addicting, Brings me back time and again.

We've added mountain biking to our vacations.Re-introduced my brother to the sport.

 Now with two summers of riding under my belt, it's great to realize how much progress we've made on our skills. As our skills grew, our interest in the sport also increased - as did our stable of bikes. Riding trails we know over again, allows us to benchmark our progress. It's a great feeling to to clean a trail you couldn't before. To make it all the way up a climb that you've had to get off and push in the past. To ride over a log as if it wasn't there. Beaver tree, what beaver tree (a particular place on an otherwise easy trail that has vexed me in the past). These improvements all help our confidence grow. With confidence comes ability, a virtuous cycle that allows us to tackle new trails, try new things. Downhill riding in Colorado this past summer, Kiddo and my first "Super-D" race. And in a full circle, we plan on doing our first cross country races at this year's Fall Colors Festival.

The one where I write about not writing

Holy crap, I have really only written one new post in nearly a year. Goodness, how time flies.

Settled into an odd circle:  feeling the need to apologize for not doing something before I could re-start doing it. Finding that thought ridiculous, but still paralyzing. Deepening the inertia.

So consider this that apology. The acknowledgement that for reasons I don't even understand (or care to face), I stopped writing on this blog for a long, long time. And have been struggling with how to re-start.

Lucky for you, patient readers, I have hundreds thousands of pictures and dozens of post topics stored away. As I travel and explore my world, I still pause to take pictures,  thinking, "this will be good for the blog." My family is used to my random stops, my posing bikes or beer mugs or even them, to get a shot for my blog. Time to get back to the actually finishing and publishing posts aspect. Time to clear out all the unfinished posts. Either write em and post em or delete em.

Now to decide what first. Chronological, most recent or oldest first? By themes? By whatever strikes my fancy?

Oh shit....here we go again with the finding ways to cause writers block. Push through, Kim, push through.

Learning right from the start...the right way

 I've written on this blog how a couple of women's only clinics are what got me started mountain biking. The first one at the Fall Colors Festival in the Kettle Moraine. This was a casual affair, almost better described as demo, which introduced me to some great trails, and got me over my fear of leaving the pavement and trying out some dirt. The next at the Ray's Mountain Bike Park was a more formal clinic following the International Mountain Bike Instruction Certification guidelines for teaching. Beginning to learn proper body position made immediate improvements in my riding.

Wanting the same for my family, was thrilled when I saw the 2011 Midwest Women's Mountain Bike Clinic was also offering a Kid's clinic (ages 8-12) and a Men's Novice to Advanced clinic. Started several years ago as a clinic for a small group of women, The Midwest Women's Mountain Bike Clinic is a weekend long event attracting over 150 people annually in June to Brown County State Park in Indiana. Sub-9 Productions does a great job of organizing the clinics using only IMBI Certified instructors and guidelines. Naturally, I jumped at the chance to sign up my kiddo and my hubby (after all I was attending no matter what!). 

After checking in and receiving their name tags for their bikes, the kid's clinic begin with introductions and questions from the coaches about what they wanted to learn. Coaches spent some time checking over bikes, adjusting seats, and getting the kids at ease, before they rode off to do skills drills on the pavement.

Soon the kid's were split into two groups based on abilities. Kiddo was placed in the more advanced group where Angie Weston and Todd Boucher began working on things like high speed cornering, front and rear wheel lifting. After some practice time, the group took off on a ride on the LimeKiln trail, where they were introduced to the concept of sessioning areas of the trail.

That afternoon when I picked Kiddo up from the clinic, he suggested a quick ride on LimeKiln to show me what he'd learned. I was surprised when he tore down the trail. In order to put that in perspective, I'd written an essay prior to the clinic that talked about how I'd hoped the clinic would help him overcome a fear of riding downhills. Dramatic improvement is an understatement. And done with good form to boot. In May, he barely rode his bike, after the clinic he was hooked. 

As an added benefit, because he learned to ride correctly at the time I was also just learning mountain biking, as a family we have been able to push each other. Kiddo doesn't let me take the bail line around obstacles. Instead there's a lot of "Mom, you can do that, you've been over bigger logs (or drop offs, or jumps or whatever)". We now feel confident on all the local trails from intro to more advanced. Our weekends typically include getting in weekend rides at our in city trails (Hoyt, Oak Hill or Crystal Ridge), or at the more extensive Muir/Carlin trails in Kettle Moraine of southeastern WI.

Mountain biking has become part of our family travels.  I was able to work in a couple of days of Brown County riding around a business trip in September, and over Thanksgiving, we tackled trails in the Nashville area. To keep active over the Wisconsin winter, the entire family are season members at Rays Indoor Mountain Bike Park (where kiddo is also taking up BMX and jumping). Next summer we'll try our hand at riding Keystone in Summit County, Colorado, our first trip to a downhill/lift shuttled bike park.

I credit the Midwest Women's clinic with not only helping our family find a great family activity, but also with helping our skills and abilities progress at levels we would have never been able to attain on our own. This will be an annual family activity for us....and one we look forward to immensely.