Altitude Sickness

By Brady Crain I promised last week that I would start doing more interesting things to write about. Then came a few good hard intellectual and emotional kicks to the groin.  I won’t get into it too much, but this sort of thing used to spin me out for weeks, or months, even years. How…

Pip the guinea pig, peaking out from his blanket fort By Brady Crain I have, based on the orders of everyone, been taking it much easier.  I lift or do pushup/pullup sets every two days, walk at least once a day, and trail run every two to three days, between four and 12 miles. Easy…

By Brady Crain A crowd in the Boston Common recently marched in protest of the Free Speech rally and against white supremacy. By Brady Cain It took me quite a while to digest what happened in Boston. One of the most memorable parts of the march was the heat (standing in a crowd on sunny…

By Brady Crain I continue to do too much. I am between the rock and the hard place of being far more capable than I was before my surgery, and inexplicably in more pervasive pain than I was before my surgery. What is puzzling about the whole thing is that this is not disabling pain.…

By Brady Crain This was supposed to be a reunion story. Ten days ago as I was packing my car to leave Jersey City, I met someone very special.  I was carrying my first load of bags to the garage where my car was parked, and one of the neighbors in the yard said ,…

By Brady Crain I am back, and thank goodness for that.  Living in a non-air conditioned top floor apartment in Jersey City was a little too warm for my blood.  Okay, it was a lot too warm for my blood. I did love the neighborhood thoug. I would walk a mile through garbage and glass…

By Brady Crain I’ve been house sitting in Jersey City for the last few days, and for the next week. I love coming to the city — going to the museums, the culture, the music — except the exhausting roar of tires and air conditioners that is virtually ever present in a New York City…

By Brady Crain Things are going really well with the back surgery recovery. Now that I can move my arms about and twist my spine, even trips to the chiropractor are easier, and it feels good to get back to the morning routine I have had forever, where I tumble out of bed, do a…

By Brady Crain I have spent a lot of time since this lumbar surgery (left side L3-4 foraminotomy/facetectomy - didn’t need a laminectomy because the disc was already gone) walking, swimming, icing, and stressing about what was going to happen if I spent $3,000 or so (my out of pocket maximum) on a surgery that…

By Brady Crain Recovery continues apace. The second round of steroids did the trick, and now when I walk I am nearly completely pain free, and when I swim or ride my trainer, I am pain free. I am still icing many of the hours a day (I had to get four ice packs, and…

By Brady Crain Thee healing chronicles continued: I have good days, and I have bad days. The thing that gets me down the most is not really being able to move my torso at all. Luckily, tomorrow I will be allowed to start lifting weights with 20 pounds in each hand, as long as I…

By Brady Crain I have spent the last 11 days recovering from a L3-4 Fforaminotomy, which is an operation involving the grinding away of bone in the nerve opening (foramina) that has been causing my sciatica for 30 years or so. The day of the operation I got up at 3 a.m. and skied my…

This article will be published during my first week of recovery from moderate lumbar surgery. The surgery is called foraminotomy, a procedure designed to widen the passageway for my sciatic nerve. The thing I want to talk about this week is snowmaking.  The reason this season has been so glorious and long (skiing well into…

By Brady Crain As always, summer seems to have popped open overnight, and I am always blown away by it.  One of the things I miss most living in Killington versus other more residential towns is magnolia, lilac, cherry, and crabapple trees (even rhododendron, azalea, and forsythia).  There are a few flowering trees around, and…

Ah, spring, when young men’s thoughts turn to … well, to skiing. Also to mountain biking and road cycling and rock climbing, and softball. I skied what I think was day 213 today (it starts to get confusing when I am not only operating by scans, but by counted uphill days — simple math has…