Pain in the...

I've suffered from lower back pain much of my adult life. I always attributed it to automobile accidents I'd been in as a teenager, or improper lifting during my career as an automotive technician, but in 2008, after a particularly bad bout of back pain, a trip to the doctor resulted in some alarming news.

Based on Xray and MRI results, I was diagnosed with degenerative disk disease, and advised that I had a bulging disk at L5/S1. This condition basically meant that the disks between my vertebrae were aging at a faster than normal rate, were more susceptible to injury, and that one was already starting to pinch the nerve bundle coming off my spinal cord.

I did 6 months of physical therapy, learned how to lift and move safely and how to manage the pain that I had. I learned over time that this pain was something that would never go away, but that with care, and a bit of luck, I'd have good days more often than not, and pain that could be managed with a couple of Advil now and again.

When I started riding motorcycles a few years ago, I rapidly discovered that riding cruisers or aggressive supersport bikes were out of the question - the "feet forward" position on cruisers sent too much shock up into my spine, and the "upward and to the rear" foot pegs on supersports put too much strain on my back for me to be comfortable for more than about 30 minutes.

Oddly enough, the riding ergonomics of many sport touring bikes - the FJR, the Concours, the big BMWs, the Honda ST1100 and ST1300 turned out to be perfect for me. The ST1300 was one of the most comfortable seating positions I'd ever tried, and I experienced no additional back pain from riding the big Honda, even after riding for days on end.

My back injury suddenly became *much* worse this February after my 37th birthday. After suffering through the worst pain I'd ever experienced for a week, I went to the emergency room because it was getting worse, not better.

 I was referred to an orthopedic doctor for follow up, and given a shot of Dilaudid. When this shot, combined with Norco and Flexeril, only took some of the pain away, I knew it had to be bad. Xrays showed severe disk degeneration at L5/S1, and moderate to heavy degeneration at L4/L5. A few days later, MRI imaging revealed a massive disk herniation at L5/S1. The disk material is protruding so badly into the nerve channel that the nerve bundle can't even be seen in the images.

I'm now seeing a pain management physician, will be receiving epidural steroid injections, and am on such heavy dosages of painkillers that I can't fully remember what I did yesterday. I will be starting physical therapy as well, but my orthopedic doctor has already warned me that if things are not improving in about 30 days, surgery is the next step. I can't put into words how much it hurts, even with the medication. The only thing that doesn't hurt is sleeping.

Sitting on the bike now is painful, and I don't trust myself to ride on the medication I'm taking, anyway. My left leg randomly goes numb, and I couldn't pick the bike up if I dropped it.

So obviously, I'm off the bike, and will be for quite some time...

Of course, as luck would have it, it's springtime, and riding weather doesn't get much better than this here in Central Texas. Making my way through the garage, past the bike, to the car, is maddening. Plans for out of state trips in the next few months have been cancelled, as I don't know when I'll be fit to ride again.

Different types of motorcycles

Why do I do this?

 In my relatively short 4 years of riding on the street, I've logged around 35,000 miles, give or take a bit. Nothing really noteworthy, but not too bad I guess, when you factor in working full time and being oncall every couple of weeks.

There's a saying among motorcyclists that there are two types of riders - those who have crashed, and those who haven't yet. I've crashed twice now, a fairly mild lowside due to me locking up the front wheel around 30MPH, and one serious collision with a deer at 70MPH. Each time I cheated death and serious injury. Each time I was eager to get back on and ride again.

 Some friends don't really understand the draw, while others would do and have done the same as I did. We cover ourselves in leather and abrasion resistant textiles, and gladly straddle a few hundred pounds of aluminum, steel, and an internal combustion engine, with several flammable gallons of unleaded gasoline between our legs. Why, people ask, why take that risk? When you know the statistics, and there are perfectly good cars to be driven, why chance the bad weather, the bad drivers, the fates?

 For a long time, I didn't really have a very good answer for this. "Why?" bounced around in my head from time to time, like a question with an answer you knew but just couldn't quite put into words. After my own two accidents, friend's accidents, and the deaths of people I admire in the long distance riding community, I struggled to find the words to understand the answer.

 Recently, a friend of mine observed that while doing yardwork, he was able to calm his mind, look inward, and reflect on life's lessons and experiences. He asked on Facebook - "what other activities are meditative?"

 I quickly typed a short comment about riding, but then paused before clicking submit. Suddenly, the "Why" started becoming more clear, and I started typing.

 Motorcycle riding - not just commuting to work, but actual 'getting out on the road for at least a couple of hours' riding - for me, is unbelievably relaxing and meditative. It's so effective that my wife will actually tell me that I need to get out and go for a ride when she sees that I need it.

 There's something about being open to the world and the elements that strips away everything that doesn't really matter. With music playing through noise isolating earplugs, the world is no longer black and white and right or wrong.

 It's vivid green and bright sky blue, it's the fiery colors of leaves in the fall and pastel painted meadows as far as you can see when the wildflowers bloom, it's the smell of cut hay or grass in summertime, the scent of plowed earth.

 It's the temperature change from the mountain top to the valley below, the smell and feel of rain, a set of high-beams piercing the night's darkness because what's ahead of you is all that matters now, and the reminder that sometimes we really are as free as we allow ourselves to be. It's shuttered up small towns and cemeteries and the faintest scent of decay that reminds you that in spite of all this, life is woefully short, and we should strive every day to live our lives to the fullest, and love as deeply and as hard as we can, because we are only here for a short time, and no one knows when their time is up.