Epideral Injection

This morning I went in and had some minor out-patient surgery. I had an MRI done about a month ago which showed that the reason I haven't been able to ride my bike is "Degenerative Disk Disease" in my lower three disks. Basically this means that the jelly between my vertebrae is deteriorating / inflaming and putting pressure on the nerves which go to my legs... leading to cramps and pains which I associated for many years with just riding too hard.

Dr. Hermes and the staff were all wonderful and made me feel very comfortable with the fact that they were going to be sticking needles into my spine to inject Cortisone. The procedure only took about 10 minutes, with the worst pain being the local anesthetic before they put the big needles in. In a couple of days the cortisone should start reducing the inflammation and I should start noticing an improvement in my back and leg pain. However for the next couple of days I'm going to be pretty sore, stiff, and black and blue.

The most excitement came when I assured the checkout nurse that I could feel my toes and would be fine to walk out to the car. Three steps later the local seemed to have been released suddenly into my hip which totally gave out. Luckily I was right in the doorway of the recovery room, so I was able to hold myself up while she pushed the wheel chair under me.

I spent the rest of the day being lazy, watching movies, and fixing a few bugs while laying with my back flat on the coach. Luckily my wonderful wife brought me some Gummy Bears which dramatically increased the healing process. So after not being able to walk under my own power for the first part of the day, I am now moving somewhat zombie like around and able to sit in a chair for short periods of time. Should be basically back to normal by morning.

Enchanted Circle by Moto

No photos for this entry because I forgot to stick the camera in my pocket, which is unfortunate because it was a great adventure. Tiffany and I got on my Daytona 675 at 8:00 and headed out for Taos via "the High Road". The High Road basically runs through all of the little towns which are up in the Sangre de Cristo's rather than the highway down in the valley. There are plenty of high mountain fields, pines, aspen's, and fun twisty roads.

When we arrived in Taos the fuel gauge had been on for about 15 miles, so I was getting a little anxious to find a gas station. There isn't much in the way of retail between Española and Taos, its mostly horses and pine trees. We pulled into the first gas station, got off the bike, took off the helmets, sunglasses, gloves, and stretched. I went to put the credit card into the pump and realized that it was turned off. No big deal, I pushed the bike down to the next pump... which was also turned off. We put back on the helmets, sunglasses, gloves, zipped up the coats, fired up the bike and drove to the next gas station. Before going through all the gyrations, we made sure the pumps were working... no dice, turns out the power in that section of town was out.

We went further into town, found a working pump, and had Italian soda's at The Bean coffee house. We left Taos feeling refreshed and headed out to do "The Enchanted Circle" since this would be our last time and Tiffany hadn't been through Angel Fire or Red River before. The drive was beautiful and lots of fun following a twisty little river and popping out in Angel Fire. We took a tour of Eagle Nest's main street and was surprised by a little black bear dumpster diving in the middle of town in the middle of the day. We watched him for a little while but left when a family of 4 little kids started to sneak up on it to get a closer look.

Over Bobcat pass to Red River which resembles more of a carnival than a mountain town and Oklahoma and Texas plates were the norm. In fact, my bike may have been sporting the only New Mexico plate in the town. We almost stopped at "The Dairy Shack" for burgers, but the clouds were gathering and I wanted to get down in elevation before the daily monsoon moved in. The next stop was a late lunch at "Pizza Outback" our favorite local joint in Taos, and a good place to stretch the legs. After downing some excellent pie and plenty of water, we zipped back to Santa Fe via the low road. There were lots of rafters on the river, and it got hotter and hotter as we dropped elevation.

7 hours, and two very sore bottoms later, we got home. We walked through the door and hung up our jackets just in time for the hail to start pounding the ground in our courtyard.