In most respects I've been feeling pretty good as spring gives way to summer. One exception is the left knee discomfort I mentioned in my last post. Another is a couple of flare-ups of my hemorrhoids, and that's got me somewhat concerned, seeing as how that's one problem I really do not want to have to deal with during a sixteen-day Grand Canyon expedition.
I suspect most people in our society first become aware of hemorrhoids the same way I did: by seeing those TV ads for Preparation H. For the first half of my life I didn't really know what hemorrhoids were. But in my late 30s I started having that rectal bleeding and ran to my doctor's office in a panic, only to be told it was a relatively non-serious thing. Since then that area has flared up once in a while, but I never had any pain there. I usually mention it to my doctor during my annual physical, and she always shrugs it off as part of the normal life cycle. But sometime last year I had a much more irritating episode that prompted me to make my first-ever Preparation H purchase. And then this year I've had a couple of episodes that, while less painful, involved a lot of discomfort not just at the relevant anal spot but deeper inside as well--in my stomach or my colon or my intestines or whatever. That's where I am as of this writing, with a generally unsettled feeling throughout my digestive infrastructure.
I hope you can forgive me if I'm venturing into TMI territory here, but in the Grand Canyon one's bodily functions are a very serious matter. All river-running parties are required to pack out their human waste, and that means bringing along portable toilets ("groovers") and setting them up at camp. As long as you're nice and regular, you can just move your bowels during the hours that the groovers are available, and be on your merry way. But at the moment I'm anything but regular.
To pre-empt those readers who are poised to hit me up with a lecture: I am indeed mindful of consuming enough fiber in my diet. Various fruits, beans, green peas, lentils, almonds, broccoli, berries... I make a point of incorporating such things into my meals. I get some roughage, too: I always eat some celery with lunch and some salad greens with supper.
Anyway... I hope this episode will run its course in the next several days. According to the Wikipedia page on hemorrhoids, my symptoms are fairly typical, and they usually are gone in several days, and I'm somewhat comforted by that. If I don't get some relief, maybe I'll have to get in to see my doctor and see if there's anything I can do to stave off such an ordeal in the remote wilderness. Launch Day is now less than two months away.
Meanwhile, at least I haven't missed any training activities. I actually had a really nice session in the surfski down on the riverfront yesterday. After several weeks of very little surfing action, yesterday there was a big barge rig coming upriver generating some big lovely waves. It took me several tries to get the boat up to speed, but then I got a really sweet ride that lasted a good 30 seconds. I would guess that relative to the movement of the current I was moving at least 25 kilometers per hour; I didn't have my G.P.S. device turned on, and if I had it would have registered a much slower speed because I was moving against the Mississippi's flow. Regardless, it was fun. I got a couple of more decent rides in; sadly, the waves petered out pretty fast as the towboat pulled father into the distance upstream.
I paddled back out to the Mississippi this morning and found no upstream-moving barge traffic. I headed upriver and eventually encountered a rig coming downstream. Downstream-moving barges are much less reliable for making good surfing waves, and even when they do make them, those waves tend to contain more swirly water and they tend to wander from side to side: you'll get on a good wave, and it'll quickly disappear, and the train of good waves will have moved way off to the left or to the right. That's how it was behind this rig I encountered today. But I got a couple of semi-decent rides to highlight my hour-long steady paddle.
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