Last fall, I completed my first post-retirement bike tour. Had I retired earlier in the summer I would have ridden across the United States. My retirement being in mid-August, as well as other entanglements, meant that a cross-country tour begun in September would have to contend with snow in the mountains out west. I couldn't let several months go to waste so I decided to ride from DC to Key West. This tour turned out to be more than double the length of my previous longest tour. Except for the lack of mountains, it was an excellent warm up.

Then something happened.  

Two months had passed since Key West. I was riding every day and feeling my oats. My kids were coming home for Christmas. We went out to dinner to celebrate. At the start of the meal, I felt an annoying ache in my back. For me, backaches are nothing out of the ordinary so I made nothing of it. As the dinner progressed, the ache became progressively worse. On the way back to the car, the pain became so intense that I had to lean against a pillar.

We made it home. I gobbled some ibuprofen and fell asleep in a recliner with a big bag of ice on my back.

The next day I was still in pain. The pain worsened throughout the day. Thinkin the pain was caused by routine muscle or nerve problems, my wife and I decided to drive to the emergency room for some pain killers and muscle relaxants.

I was examined in the emergency room. I was assigned a managing doctor. Blood was drawn. X-rays were taken. Something wasn't adding up. I was sent for a CT scan of my chest and a doppler ultrasound of my legs

After the scans, I went back to the ER and waited, expecting to be sent home with some prescriptions. Then my managing doctor came in. He told me that I have blood clots all through my lungs. My right lung was damaged and collapsing. Next came in a pulmonologist and a hematologist. They interrogated me. Have you been on a plane recently? Are you sedentary? Did your lower legs hurt recently? When they found out that I was 88 miles short of riding 10,000 miles for the year, they were shocked. 

They confirmed that I had pulmonary embolisms. These small clots had broken off from a much larger clot clot called a deep vein thrombosis in my left calf. Normally, DVTs are preceded by pain and swelling. Not mine. 

I was sent for another doppler exam of my gut. DVTs are sometimes caused by cancerous tumors. Sure enough the doppler found a small growth on my adrenal gland. I would have to follow up an endocrinologist. 

I was admitted and placed on IV blood thinners and morphine. My right lung collapsed. During the night I rolled over, compressing my good lung. I couldn't breathe. I tried to remain calm but this was all kinds of messed up.

Blood clots floating around in the blood stream can obstruct blood vessels and result in a heart attack, a stroke, or even death. It was a long, scary night.

I stayed in the hospital for another day and a half, then went home to recover. I had purchased tickets to a basketball game as a family Christmas present so we went to DC to watch the Wizards. Our seats were in the nose- bleed section, two rows from the top of the arena.

Walking from the garage to the arena took forever. The short flight of stairs from the concourse to our seats felt like the Hillary step on Mount Everest. When we arrived at out seats I cried from fatigue and despair. Three days before I was strong as an ox. Now I felt like a frail old man.

For the next several weeks, I took Xarelto, a powerful blood thinner, and used a spirometer, a device designed to re-inflate my lung. Ever so gradually, I started riding a bike. Gently. Indoors. 

Weeks passed. My riding progressed. I rode outside. I went for more scans, doppler ultrasounds and CTs. I visited my hematologist, my pulmonologist, and an endocrinologist.

Over the next five months I grew stronger. After about six weeks, the clots in my lungs dissolved. The growth on my adrenal gland turned out to be innocuous. Finally, in April, a doppler ultrasound showed that the DVT was gone. My blood work was normal. I came off Xarelto and went on daily aspirin. Finally, in early May, my hematologist gave me the green light to go on my cross-country bike tour. He told me to wear compression socks if I fly. If my leg swells up or I get back pain, I am to make a bee line to an emergency room and get checked out.

And you thought the ride was going to be the hard part, didn't you?