baiskeli

So, I was meant to meet up with other guys from our team to preview a road course for a race in a few weeks, but no one seemed to be showing up (I had told them I was coming, and then canceled but decided to show up at the last minute without telling anyone). So, as I am doodling around this parking lot for about 20 minutes waiting for anyone to show up, I was just riding circles and essentially doing nothing, something clicked. Not an actual physical click, but I just got this 'Holy crap, I'm lucky to be alive and healthy. I'm lucky to be able to ride my bike.'.

It may have had something to do with the fact that after the ride my wife and I were going to visit my her uncle who has MS and was in the hospital yet again because the people at the nursing home he is in once again let him get pneumonia. He is in the final stages of MS, cannot move anything at all and has to be fed through a stomach tube. He is young, just over 50, and he developed MS starting in his early 30's. Mentally he is fully there, but he cannot communicate. He used to be a photographer (and a really good one at that) and when my wife and I begun dating and he could somewhat communicate we did talk a bit about photography. His wife has been taking care of him since and he only went into the nursing home when he got to the point where he needed round the clock medical attention. Life is just not fair.

I think we sometimes take things for granted. And this weekend, doodling around in a parking lot, finally able to ride around without arm warmers or leg warmers since it was relatively warm, and with the sun shining down and the birds singing and the sound of children (this parking lot is for a state reservation and there is a playground near it), I realized how much I take certain things for granted. And I realized it is truly great to be alive and in good health.

That is all

worker4youth

Indeed

veloGeezer

3 weeks ago I got run over by a pickup truck pulling an RV trailor. I got hit when he swung the trailor into me.

When I came to, there was an EMT crew strapping me to a backboard and putting me in a neckbrace. They told me to stay cool and don't move, they were taking me to a trauma center.

But I lived. I even rode a bike again last weekend.

So you're right. Every day is a gift, really. The trick is to live life, but you never learn life's lessons until you have lived a little. So you have to live life in order to learn how to live.

Most people waste their lives not realizing why they are living in the first place.

Asian Sensation

agreed

Mudu93

Could not agree more. My Mother in Law had MS almost to the point of your wife's uncle. It was tough to watch the decline in function and know how mentally aware she was. Then as if to add insult to injury she had a stroke and passed away one month shy of seeing her first grandchild born. That is why I ride in the MS 150.

dark13star

Five years ago I was struck with sudden paralysis while on a business trip to Vancouver, BC. The neurologist there, and one at home in Colorado both told me that I probably had MS. After several months of tests though, they ruled it out (I never want to have another spinal puncture!). They never figured out what I had and fell back on the "it was probably a virus" diagnosis, or perhaps a reaction to a flu shot.

Either way, I recovered with little more than a bit of left-side deficit and it was that experience that made me stop taking my health for a given. I am now 40 and in better shape than I have ever been and I often get that "click," especially when I am trying to complete a difficult hill on my bike, or ski down something insanely steep. My problem is that I don't have enough time to keep up with all the activities I like to do, but there are worst problems to have. I can always look forward to my next ride/hike/ski and it keeps me going.

There is just no substitute for good health, but it is also use it or lose it. Age gets us all, but not without a fight, for me at least.

Slackerprince

1) People in Haiti are so hungry that they are eating mud cookies made with cooking oil and sugar. But, they are dirt!! Literally.

2) When you are suffering on a hill or struggling against a headwind, I guarantee you that there are a hundred guys in wheelchairs that would gladly trade places with you.

We are fortunate, lucky, and sometimes even realize it.

Peace,

Slackerprince

kesa101

u should read the butterfly and the diving bell...

LanceFanBoy

one of my friends is in a wheelchair from a condition hes had since birth. It really is something to think that somebody can't even have the option of doing some of the things the rest of us enjoy so much and take for granted. good post.

PipinFan

You see,that is why I love to do charity rides,the Kid's in distress,the MS and all of them .... I'm proud to say that I will pedaling my bike as hard and fast I can to Key Largo May the 3rd and the 4th back to Miami to help the MS.

https://bikefls.nationalmssociety.org...E_FLS_homepage

PD: I'm on Team Holman (the company I work for)