Tired?

Blogging is something of a new activity for me. Linda and I posted frequently over the past year on CaringBridge (http://caringbridge.org/visit/chriskimball) as I went through a couple of major surgeries, chemotherapy, and some other unpleasantness. Those posts had a lot to do with my physical condition, and it always startled me that anybody cared, let alone enough for over 18,000 visits.

When I softly shut down CaringBridge and opened a blog, I had a semi-firm commitment to myself not to blog (apparently a verb for almost a decade now) about my physical condition, after the transitional opening post. But here I am again, thinking about physical condition.

I'd like to participate in a triathlon. Notice the carefully chosen word "participate." Not "compete" or "race" or even "finish." It will mean getting back on a bicycle, which was once a regular activity but needs a restart. It will mean running again, which was a very regular activity until late 2006, when the symptoms that ultimately led to a cancer diagnosis and treatment started making it difficult to run. But most of all it will mean swimming, which I haven't done regularly since I was 10 to 12 years old learning to swim in the old, cold, heavily chlorinated basement pool at the downtown YMCA in Madison. I have been swimming enough times in the intervening 40 years to know that I can still swim and -- at least in my 2006 physical condition -- could finish a half mile with effort but not undue trauma.

I've since learned that everything I was taught about swimming form was wrong. If I'm going to start swimming again, I really should find a coach to learn a good form without repeating old bad habits and building up a muscle memory of old bad form. Perhaps I will do so. Knowing me, it's more likely that I'll read a book or an article and try to do it myself. We'll see.

But the real problem is not finding a coach or getting started again. The spring weather is sufficiently encouraging without anything more. The real problem is this body I'm now carrying around, with some parts missing and some parts rather unhappy. Even with all the right medication and the right foods (cutting out almost all fat, supplementing with vitamins and enzymes), I still have a serious problem every time I get tired or stressed. After fatigue or stress, the next "day" -- typically a period of about 12 hours starting in about 12 hours -- is awful.

I've lived my entire life counting on the fact that I could work and keep working at essentially full speed for 20 hours a day for extended periods. I didn't do that very often, but it was my ace in the hole. Late on a paper? I'll just push for a day or two and it will get done. Big deal to close? I'll work around the clock until it is done. I might have a bit of let-down afterward, but I could get it done. And physically I could train hard. My knees, ankles, elbows and back might complain -- there's nothing magical about my joints -- but up to the limit imposed by my joints I could work and work and work, and get stronger or more agile or faster within days.

I can't do it any longer. I know this would have come with age, eventually and gradually. However, for me it has come all of a sudden with the surgery and shortening of my digestive system. Push hard, stay up late, work until I'm tired, run an extra mile, worry about something out of my control, and I will pay dearly in near-term physical discomfort ("discomfort" is such a nice word for experiences that make me seriously question whether I want to live another hour).

I feel like an old man before my time.