Get Your Grump on Thursdays - Was (What's chapping my @ss today?)

[joosttx]

Grump 1: I started feeling sick Monday morning before my flight home. By Tuesday I was full on sick. Now it's lingering and I haven't touched a bike all week.

Grump 2: I'm not still in California riding with the misfits out there.

We prefer to be called knuckleheads, thank you.

[dashDustin]

We refinanced recently. About a month ago, a few weeks before my wife had major back surgery. She has shaky handwriting to begin with, and it has been declining due to neuropathy, numbness, tingling, etc. - hence the back surgery. She had totally lost feeling in her hand by the time we were done signing all the documents.

Can you expand on this any? PM is fine. Since sitting at a desk, my handwriting has gotten worse and it's now to the point where I can't write certain numbers or letters. For the past 7mos, my ulnar nerve has been getting pinched because of the way I was sitting, so my pinky and ring finger were numb. I thought that had something to do with it. It's taken about 6 weeks of consciously not sitting a certain way, and feeling is starting to come back. Still can't write certain things, though.

[NYCfixie]

Serious grump:
My girlfriend and I are in a rough spot. Cycling seems to be the culprit. I just wonder if cycling is sort of symbolic of our personality differences. If I stop racing (I don't want to stop racing), I wonder if the things that make me an okay amateur bike racer (goal oriented, obsessive focus, selfishness, etc...) would just rear their head somewhere else. I also love her dearly and would be heartbroken to see her go. I wonder if she's better off without me.

Tell her you could switch to golf. See what she says.

[Lionel]

My hip does not seem to get better and it sucks.

[dashDustin]

Serious grump:
My girlfriend and I are in a rough spot. Cycling seems to be the culprit. I just wonder if cycling is sort of symbolic of our personality differences. If I stop racing (I don't want to stop racing), I wonder if the things that make me an okay amateur bike racer (goal oriented, obsessive focus, selfishness, etc...) would just rear their head somewhere else. I also love her dearly and would be heartbroken to see her go. I wonder if she's better off without me.

Yes, they would.

When my wife and I go out with fellow cyclists, typically single females, they're always like "oh my god it must be so awesome that both of y'all ride!" Sure, but riding isn't racing. I've stopped racing so that the focus can be on her. Cyclists are pains in the asses. Gotta realize that. Shit takes forever, training is excessively long. Hard workouts lead to grumpiness and fatigue. It's expensive. There's a difference between a cyclist that rides and one that races. The goal oriented, obsessive racer that is in a relationship tends to forget that there are 2 folks that are sacrificing in order to get him/ her onto the podium. That balance has to be incredibly difficult to find. I look at pros like Katie Compton and Mo, JPow, and am amazed at what they can do. I'm sure it helps that they're pro. For those of us that aren't pro, though, who do work 9-5 and have daily life responsibilities to deal with...that balance has to be figured out or else someone ends up feeling shafted.

Take a step back and prioritize. Have a sit-down with yourself and decide what's more important, or figure out how to balance it all.

[nahtnoj]

Can you expand on this any? PM is fine. Since sitting at a desk, my handwriting has gotten worse and it's now to the point where I can't write certain numbers or letters. For the past 7mos, my ulnar nerve has been getting pinched because of the way I was sitting, so my pinky and ring finger were numb. I thought that had something to do with it. It's taken about 6 weeks of consciously not sitting a certain way, and feeling is starting to come back. Still can't write certain things, though.

That sounds bad - but my wife's issues aren't related to any particular nerve or sitting position. She has Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, hyper-mobility type. Its a rare (or at least rarely diagnosed) connective tissue disorder, of which she has a particularly bad case. Her body doesn't produce enough collagen. As a result, all of her joints are extremely loose; they sublux and dislocate pretty much without provocation. Hips, shoulders, wrists, elbows, ribs - you name it.

The surgery she had was a tethered cord release. A normal person's spinal cord floats in their lumbar spine. A lot of people with EDS have cords that are connected to a lumbar vertebrae, usually around L2. Her's was attached lower than normal, which is worse. The surgery removes the part of the vertebrae the cord is attached to, which relieves tension on the cord. Symptoms of a tethered cord are leg pain, lower back pain, and bladder/bowel issues. Amie had all of these. Symptoms have gotten a lot worse since her fusion (C1-C2) last summer, which, in stabilizing her neck, pulled her spinal cord tighter.

So far it seems like a success. She can feel her extremities again, and can do things - like hold her legs straight out while sitting in a chair - that have never been possible before.

[BSUdude]

Dammit I want a new road bike.

I've been riding the same road bike for the last 4.5 years. I'm coming up on 25k miles on it without changing anything except the wheels, bars, and stem. It's actually a nice bike that I got a smoking deal on. But I just want something new. The logical part of my brain tells me it doesn't make sense, a new bike won't make me faster, paying all that money for no measurable difference is a bad financial decision. But I want it.

Oh, and we just agreed to replace the HVAC system in our house. While our new system will be a great step up in efficiency and we got a great deal at 0% interest and 4 years to pay it off, it just makes it harder to justify the purchase of a new bike.

Also, last month I was told by my dentist that I'm going to either need a crown or oral surgery in the next year. I am pretty damn vigilant about oral hygiene, moreso that other people in my family and this shit doesn't happen to them.

I think that gets me current on grumps for the last month or so.

[joosttx]

My hip does not seem to get better and it sucks.

Are you going to go to a doctor and have your hip checked out.

[xjoex]

Can you expand on this any? PM is fine. Since sitting at a desk, my handwriting has gotten worse and it's now to the point where I can't write certain numbers or letters. For the past 7mos, my ulnar nerve has been getting pinched because of the way I was sitting, so my pinky and ring finger were numb. I thought that had something to do with it. It's taken about 6 weeks of consciously not sitting a certain way, and feeling is starting to come back. Still can't write certain things, though.

Hey Dustin - Do you use a mouse ? I used to have this exact problem and about 15 years ago switched to a track ball. It all went away. Then I switched to a apple trackpad almost 7 years ago and am fine. If I grab a regular mouse and use it for a full day it starts coming back. Just something to try.

-Joe

[Lionel]

Are you going to go to a doctor and have your hip checked out.

Well, I did that in France before leaving.... He said just wait.....

[j44ke]

Hey Dustin - Do you use a mouse ? I used to have this exact problem and about 15 years ago switched to a track ball. It all went away. Then I switched to a apple trackpad almost 7 years ago and am fine. If I grab a regular mouse and use it for a full day it starts coming back. Just something to try.

-Joe

Yes, computers ruin your ability to write in a lot of ways, especially since the muscles are not making any large movements while using a mouse and that creates a herky-jerky hand movement when trying to write with fluid movements.

[David Tollefson]

Spent the night staggering between the bed and the toilet. Feel like crap.

[Jonathan]

Feeling the frustration of realizing that somebody else is more of an unmovable force than I am. Sorry for the necessary vagueness.

[Shinomaster]

yesterday I rode (hard) for 3 hours ten minutes and now I'm super tired, and don't feel like going to work. Wait is that a grump?

[dashDustin]

Hey Dustin - Do you use a mouse ? I used to have this exact problem and about 15 years ago switched to a track ball. It all went away. Then I switched to a apple trackpad almost 7 years ago and am fine. If I grab a regular mouse and use it for a full day it starts coming back. Just something to try.

-Joe

I do, but the hand that's giving me issues is my left hand, which is my non-mouse hand.

[Eric Siepmann]

Band wagon black hawks fans. Most of them started drinking when I was walking to work through the Loop this morning. I watched 2 periods of Black hawks hockey this whole year and refuse to jump on the wagon. Hell, the last game I went to was in the old stadium with Belfour in the goal and Roenick on the first line. Ask anyone on the bandwagon some basic questions about the game, its lore or even simple rules and they get that deer in the headlights look. And now I have to venture outside into this mess of even drunker fans to get my lunch. Glad the silliness is over. Grump off.

[davids]

"Post racial" America and all those well-meaning people who say racism is a thing of the past.

My heart is torn for all of us, but especially Charleston and the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church. Nine people attend a bible study group and end up slaughtered by a hate-filled manchild. I am near tears.

[EricKeller]

My hip does not seem to get better and it sucks.

I fell on ice back in November, and it took forever to stop hurting. In fact, I'm not sure it has stopped hurting, but it doesn't hurt all the time anyway

[Jonathan]

"Post racial" America and all those well-meaning people who say racism is a thing of the past.

My heart is torn for all of us, but especially Charleston and the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church. Nine people attend a bible study group and end up slaughtered by a hate-filled manchild. I am near tears.

Places my grump in its proper perspective.

[zetroc]

Domestic terrorism, and the amount of hate that some people harbor within themselves.