Category: Pain

Athletes and drugs

I didn’t write a summary of the last couple of days of the Tour de France as I usually do because I didn’t actually get to watch them on TV until I got back from Oshkosh, and by that time the news was all about Landis’ failed drug test. I want to reserve judgement about Landis until we hear the full results of the investigation. But one thing I read in several discussions of this whole thing is “we should just allow the athletes to use whatever drugs they want”. This is a damn stupid idea for a couple of reasons, and I’d like to expand on this.

The first reason it’s a stupid idea is that athletes will do anything to get an edge on their competition. If everybody else is using drug X, then you have to use X or you’re going to be at a disadvantage, even if you’re a better athlete than them. The drugs would become just another arms-race situation. The various sports governing bodies have done what they can to reduce technological arms races – they want technology to evolve, but they don’t want it to decide competitions. Back in the days when fibreglas skis were new, the FIS had to step in and say that cross country skis had to be a minimum of 44 mm wide at the widest point, because people were trying narrower and narrow skis to get a speed advantage, to the point where a large number of competitors were breaking their skis in a race – if you didn’t break, you’d gain a few seconds over everybody else. The UCI does the same thing in bike racing with their weight limits on bikes. The limit is arbitrary, but you have to draw the line somewhere. If drugs got to be the next arms race, people would be doing major damage to themselves.

And that’s the second reason why it’s a stupid idea: athletes don’t care about the future. If you told an athlete that if they take this drug they’d win the Tour de France but they’d drop dead two weeks later, but their win would still stand, there would be a line-up around the block for the drug. How do I know this? Personal experience.

Most of my competitive life was in pain. I was pretty sure that continuing to compete would make the pain problems worse in the future, but I cheerfully accepted that trade-off. I’m not as cheerful about it now, but I stand by the decision. And I wasn’t competing for prize money, million dollar endorsements and world wide fame. The sports I was competing in were obscure to the point where most of my friends had never even heard of them. And I wasn’t even winning most of them – I never won a Canadian Championship in anything. In cross country skiing, I wasn’t even in the top 4 on our university team. But I loved the competition against myself, and the feeling of doing my best, and the knowledge that I’d tested my limits and come through them. I basically ruined my knees and condemmed myself to lifetime pain for nothing more than a feeling. Can you imagine what an athlete would do to himself if there was more at stake?

Tour de France Rest Day

Ok, I didn’t think I’d be posting about the Tour today either. But today I have another reason to respect Floyd Landis.

Floyd has been doing great this year – he won 3 major races before the Tour, and now he’s a minute out of the yellow jersey after a great performance in the first individual time trial. He’s always had a reputation for hard work and for never making excuses or complaining. But now I find he’s a fellow chronic pain sufferer. He’s just admitted that for 4 years he’s been suffering from osteonecrosis in his hip, and he’s going for hip replacement surgery soon after the Tour (to maximize his recovery time for next year’s Tour). The New York Times has two stories, here and here. (Registration required, use BugMeNot.)

One of the interesting facts I learned from the articles: his extreme forward position on the seat on his time trial bike was chosen to create a wider angle between his trunk and his femur to help his hip work.

Some of the quotes from the articles:

He walks with a limp. He sits as often as possible and cannot cross his right leg over his left. He takes elevators instead of stairs, valet-parks at the shopping mall and sometimes has difficulty sleeping. Running is out of the question. Like many of the 216,000 Americans who will receive hip replacements this year, his life is defined by chronic, debilitating pain.

Yeah, I can relate.

Later, back at his house, Landis would finally open up a little about the pain. He would say: “Everybody thinks you can overcome pain if you want to enough, and let me tell you, you can’t. This isn’t some Jean-Claude Van Damme movie, where somebody can get shot in the leg and keep going. There’s pain that makes me stop, makes everybody stop.”

Here’s hoping you don’t have to stop, Floyd.

Is this it?

I am convinced that one of these days, my pain will just get to the point where I can’t stand it any more. Having to give up anything that requires mobility, like kayaking, is bad enough. But I worry that I’ll end up having to medicate beyond what is legal for flying, and lose even that outlet. Or worse, I’ll be unable to even think straight, either from the pain or the medication. I don’t know what I’ll do at that point, because my life as a relatively happy and productive member of society will be over. I’ve thought that day was just around the corner for 25 years now, but so far it has been gradual enough that I’ve been able to make adjustments.

But right now my elbows are killing me. On top of my usual knee and hip pain, my elbows have been so sore I haven’t been sleeping well, and I can barely concentrate when I’m awake. And it has been like this since Monday. If it had happened as a result of Friday’s kayaking, I could understand, but I didn’t do anything exceptional on Sunday or Monday that could have triggered this.

Of course, watching the recent episode of “House, M.D.” didn’t help, where the stuff happening in the guy’s brain was putting him in so much pain that even putting him in a coma wasn’t helping. I felt like I was watching my future.

I hope this isn’t it. I’m 45 years old, and I’ve been in near constant pain for 30 years. I just want it to stop.

You know what sucks?

– Dental surgery sucks. I got a temporary crown this morning. Between the numb mouth, the screeching of the drill and the feel of things being ground away inside you, or the two people with their hands in your mouth, one of whom is constantly telling you to open wider as your fight with all your mental might to not bite them and tell them to get the hell away from your mouth, there isn’t much to like. It’s four hours now, and I’m getting the feeling back in my mouth, but this temporary crown feels like a foriegn object in my mouth. At least it’s not cutting into my tongue the way the fragments of tooth were doing all weekend, but I probably bit my tongue a few times while it was numb.

– Canadian voters suck. It’s almost as if they’re afraid of insulting politicians they used to like, so they keep voting for the PM who gets more and more unpopular, but wait for him to retire and then vote his replacement out of office out of anger at the one who just retired. They did it to Trudeau/Turner, Mulrooney/Campbell, and now it looks like they’re going to vent their anger at Chretien’s arrogance and corruption on Paul Martin, who seemed like a pretty decent PM for a change. I’m just hoping and praying that Harper doesn’t get a majority, because he would be a giant step backwards for social liberalism in Canada. Plus, Canada is the only member of the G7 with a balanced budget, so why vote in a guy whose going to fuck with that to give giant tax breaks to the rich?

Fuck fuck fuckity fuck fuck fuck

I applied for long term disability insurance. Not because I anticipate problems, but because I don’t want Vicki and I to end up broke and homeless if I can’t work.

After review of your application, we regret to inform you that we are unable to issue a policy to you because of your longstanding history of multiple joint problems.

Because if there is one thing that would prevent me from typing all day, it’s chronic knee pain.