No News is Good News

Last Thursday me and the parental units drove up to Mammoth Lakes for a Friday morning appointment with Dr. Karch. I won’t lie. Although gorgeous even from the back seat of a moving vehicle, driving through the Eastside during the height of fall felt like a mild form of torture. Sitting around the house in Santa Barbara, its fairly easy to forget about climbing on rock. Fingerboards are almost as interesting as the mediocre stone that we’ve been blessed with on the central coast. However the mild temps, clear skies, and acres and acres of world class boulders that dominate the landscape of Bishop create another story altogether. Damn greasy foothold.... AH!! I could be climbing right now!

I’m allowed a moment or two of weakness I think. I enjoyed the agony for a short while, but there was a light at the end of the tunnel. Dr. Karch had positive things to say during our appointment. The new x-rays showed absolutely no change in the bones of my leg. Now, this wasn’t the best possible news. Ideally there’d be some knitting apparent at this point in the recovery. However, in this case, no news WAS good news. Turns out Karch was encouraged by the fact that the screws hadn’t moved or simply fallen out of place. Like nails coming loose from rotting wood, this would indicate bone death, something that’s undeniably bad. His feeling, and one that my logical mind has to agree with, is that if the bones aren’t dying they’re probably growing. It’s one or the other right? This lack of death combined with apparent lack of infection led my new favorite doctor to one of the better conclusions I’ve heard in a while.

“I can confidently say that I don’t expect to be cutting your foot off anymore.” Of course nothing’s for sure, but when a doctor, someone who gets paid to be conservative ad absurdum says that they don’t expect outcome ‘x’ that’s a pretty strong statement bordering very close on certainty. So as tears flowed down Mom’s face Dr. Karch explained the road ahead.

The Docs are going to want to see some bone growth soon. If in 3 weeks there’s still no apparent change, then they’ll prescribe a bone stimulator (basically a device that sends a mild electrical current through the area). This would hopefully solve the problem. If after a month of “stimulation” the bones continue to be stubborn, a bone graft from my hip is the next option. We’ll talk more about that if we go down that road.

For now I’ll continue to wait and focus on using as much of my body as I can in hopes that it will jump start the healing process. On that note, I should mention that I cannot do any physical therapy with my left leg. The bones are far too fragile for any amount of weight bearing at any angle. Instead, Dr. Karch suggested that I continue to strengthen my right leg. His reasoning is two fold. First of all, there’s no reason to let it’s fitness go to shit. After all its much easier to maintain than to rehabilitate. Secondly - this is the rad part - working one limb of the body seems to increase nerve activity in the opposite limb. Dr. Karch’s suggestion: Try riding a bike with one leg. Now he was clear that this wasn’t his professional prescription (that’s not very conservative now is it?), but rather something he might have personally tried while recovering from a skiing accident where he ripped his quadricep completely off the knee. “Its way harder than you think!” he says. He also encouraged me to keep working my upper body as much as possible (within reason of course - very important to be conservative). Ok Doc. Upper body training it is. No problem. Over and out.

Another Man Down

We’ve entered yet another stage in the on going healing process - the waiting game. With no sign of infection in my blood and the debridement wound healing nicely I’ve been taken off of antibiotics, lost my little pal the Wound-VAC and graduated from hyperbaric oxygen therapy. So currently, and for first time in a while, there are no tubes hanging from my body and I’m allowed to wear whatever I want. If infection steers clear and bones start to knit the possibility of a highly functional outcome becomes very very high, but it will be at least another month before anyone considers putting any money down. And although there’s a small part of me that wants to hole up in the dark, bite my nails and fear for the worst (of course normally there’d be an empty bottle of wine or two close by, but in this example we’ll forgo it for the sake of healing), life feels oddly normal.

Last day in the chamber

Last weekend Bridget and I drove up to Santa Maria (yes, I’m driving) to visit our buddy Justin Willet at his winery. Winemakers are usually pretty busy, but during harvest in the early fall things get very exciting. For the past 2 months Justin and everyone else in the winemaking world have been working overtime to get ripe grapes off the vine and begin the vinification process. Fantasies that many have about the winemakers life are a far cry from the laborious work of harvest. There’s no cheese plate or skirt clad barefoot women in sight. No, in September and October the winery is filled with allot of sweat, tired eyes, sore muscles and more than a few empty cups of coffee. We caught Justin at the tail end of the season. He was noticeably exhausted, something I’ve never witnessed from the man I consider an expert in burning the candle on both ends. On the day of our visit he had a “light” 12 hours of work to do, so there was plenty of time to show us around.

Welcome to Tyler Winery

Punch downs!

Side note: I won't be shaving until I walk again

Chardonay fermenting away

Towards the end of the day my phone rang and the caller ID lit up “Elijah”. We had exchanged texts earlier in the day. Ever the assholes, we spent the morning taunting and assaulting each other’s manhood. He was off bouldering so I assumed the current phone call was a last ditch effort to lovingly rub dirt in my face.

“What’s up dude?”

“Oh, not much.”

“So how’s climbing?”

“Yeah, about that.... I think I broke my ankle falling off the top of Gangsta Hippie.”

This is when I start laughing, not because I don’t believe him, rather the shear irony of the situation is far greater than any amount of concern I have for my friend. I could already see us hopping around town on crutches together - the perfect couple. Better still, Elijah’s sitting up there at the bottom of a boulder, his ankle mangled and his first instinct is to call me, not for help, but just to chat.

“You’re fucking kidding me? Are you at the hospital right now.”

“No. I’m sitting at the bottom of the problem. I just snapped my foot back into place. It sorta hurts. I almost puked.”

“Are you alone?”

“Uh kinda. But Kristy and some other people are around here somewhere. There supposedly gonna get me out of here, but I haven’t seen them for a while. I might just start walking to the car myself.”

“You sure you’re ok?”

“I’m fine. Ahghh” He moans and there’s a pause. “Its starting to swell allot. I just got tired of waiting around so I figured I’d call you. Oh. I think I hear them coming. I’m gonna try to get up and start moving down the hill.”

“Uh. Ok. Call me later and let me know what’s up.”

A few years back I fell off Gangsta Hippie and slammed my head spotting a landing.

I found out later that Elijah didn’t break his ankle, but rather massively ruptured the ankle ligaments, along the way tearing out some muscle and a piece of bone. We’re told this sort of injury ruins a runner’s career, something Elijah is anything but. However, the injury is a notch or two up from your standard ankle sprain and Elijah’s traded in his climbing shoes for a pair of crutches.

Reed looking stylish back in the "good old days"

Hawk looking even more stylish

Oddly, this is actually the fourth major climbing injury a member of the Castle crew has incurred this summer/fall. Reed Bartlett took a fall recently, and from the looks of things may have chipped some bone or torn ligaments. Another veteran climber with a string of bad luck. He’s got a pair of crutches too. Of course, how could we continue without mentioning the man they call “Hawk!”, who broke his arm falling from no more than a few feet off the ground while climbing on top rope at the Owl Tor. No one’s ever claimed that climbing is without risk, but this is getting a bit ridiculous.

I can't walk, but I can campus

on really small rungs no less

Progression

I’d like to go on record for moment and officially answer the following question:

“Micah, after everything that’s happened do you think you’ll ever go climbing again?”

I ask you all this, “Does one never eat again after contracting ameobic dysentery? Does one never date again after a relationship gone awry? Do we walk outside and pray that a meteor won’t slam into our face? Does the sun rise in the east and set in the west?”

I don’t imagine it comes as a big surprise to anyone who reads this blog, but I still feel compelled to say (please excuse the necessary expletives), “Fuck yeah, I plan on climbing again!” Granted, I don’t imagine highball bouldering is gonna be the first thing on the agenda, but as soon as the docs give the green light, or more realistically, sometime before, I’ll be tying in and and pulling down.

In fact ever since I left the hospital in Mammoth I’ve been training. That first workout in the desert, the one full bar dip performed on a walker, catalyzed subsequent sessions. First in my parents home, on the pull up bar thats been there since I started climbing in high school and now back at the shed, training has been on the agenda.

Obviously options are fairly limited. I spend most of my time on the hang board and campus rungs. While fairly monotonous, I’m excited about the possibility of gaining some upper body and finger power, something I’ve lost quite a bit of over the past year. After 6 months of this I’ll either be cranking one arms with a beer in the other hand or making an appointment with an orthopod to have both shoulders repaired (for those that don’t know, my shoulders have been anything but healthy for a while now).

Motivation wanes from time to time, but luckily there’s resources available to those of us in need. Big Ups new video Progression is high on the rad scale. Then again, my opinion is a little twisted. Watching a climbing video right now is not much different than showing a prisoner pornography. Whatever the case check out the trailer.