Here's another of the many, many fine photographs Rob Lieb took in the Grand Canyon between August 27 and September 11. In this one, Kylie Haberman stakes her tent while J.D. Terry inspects the environs of our camping spot.
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My shingles rash has been showing signs of healing all week, though the progress has been very, very slow. What were once a bunch of pus-filled hives have dried up and scabbed over, and now I'm waiting as patiently as I can for them to fade away and be replaced by healthy skin, so that I might happily forget they were ever there.
As for pain, it's been mild compared to what I've heard shingles inflicts on many other people. But I do have one spot, in my lower right ribcage area, that's been bothering me for days. If this pain were just a little more intense, and covered just a little bit more area of my body, I would probably be flat-out miserable. Apparently some cases of shingles have symptoms that linger indefinitely, and I hope this painful spot isn't going to be like that for me.
Meanwhile, I'm trying to allow myself some downtime from athletic pursuits. But my trip to South Africa is just a little over three months away, and that's not that far off in the future. Right now it's hard to imagine myself in the kind of form I want to be in when I'm laying down frequent hard sprints in pursuit of those Miller's Run swells.
This past week I've paddled Tuesday, yesterday, and today. I've kept the intensity fairly low, although I've allowed myself to try some barge wake surfing whenever that opportunity presents itself. But the vessels I've seen haven't been producing very good waves, and I wonder if that's because of the low water. The towboats are pushing fewer barges right now, and they might not be running their engines at full throttle with milder current to fight. Both Tuesday and today there were rigs coming upriver that I went out and tried to surf, shingles and all, but the surfing turned out to be not much good.
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If you didn't know for sure what a case of shingles looks like, now you do.
The doctor I saw Friday morning said it's a pretty classic case. A shingles rash typically affects a specific dermatome, or an area of skin supplied by nerves from the dorsal root of any given spinal nerve. In my case pictured here, it's the thoracic nerves that sprout from my spine and wrap around to the front of my torso. (That's my totally non-expert understanding, anyway.) I took this picture in my bathroom mirror, so that's the right side of my torso even though it looks like my left. According to the Wikipedia page on shingles, a rash usually follows "a stripe or belt-like pattern that is limited to one side of the body and does not cross the midline."
So, how long will I have to deal with this? The prevailing answer is "it just takes time." While I really, really want it to go away, I'm also grateful that as of this writing, at least, it hasn't been as painful as I've heard it can be. So far it's amounted to not much more than an annoyance, and I'm more or less living life.
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By Friday morning it was clear that the hideous rash on the right side of my torso was not running its course, and my throat was still sore, so I went to a doctor. The doctor took one look at it and told me it was shingles.
I know several people who have had shingles, and they report that it was about the most excruciating thing they'd ever had to endure. I wouldn't describe my case as excruciating, but the discomfort level does seem to be ticking upward ever so gradually. The rash didn't really hurt or itch at all when it first appeared; I could walk around barely aware that it was there. But now I can feel it constantly. There's mild itching and sort of a feeling of microscopic needle pricks. My friend Rob, who's a chiropractor and with whom I was just in the Grand Canyon, tells me that the itching is simply my immune system doing its work, and that I should absolutely not scratch.
The doctor gave me a steroid shot that she said would stem the inflammation. She also prescribed an oral steroid, an antiviral medication, and some prescription-strength ibuprofen. So far the rash looks about as bad as ever, but at least the sore throat I was having has gone away (thanks to the ibuprofen, probably).
According to the Wikipedia page on shingles, most shingles rashes heal in two to four weeks. My rash first appeared a week ago, so I hope I get credit for that "time served" and will have to serve only... what? One more week? Two? Three?
Meanwhile, my energy level seems just fine otherwise, and I'm trying to conduct life as normally as I can. On typical Saturday and Sunday mornings I go to the river, and so that's what I've done this weekend.
I woke up yesterday morning after a lousy night of sleep. I was in bed before 9 o'clock Friday evening but didn't manage to doze off until after 2 AM. Maybe the rash was bothering me, or the medications were messing with my sleep cycle, or I was simply feeling anguished by knowing that I had the dreaded shingles... I can't really tell you. But I still woke up between 5 and 6 AM like I always do, and once it was clear I wouldn't be falling back asleep, I went ahead and got up.
My biggest concern as I got in the boat was how my rash would feel with my shirt and PFD rubbing against it. I was prepared to call it quits after just ten minutes if the discomfort was too severe. But it turned out not to be so bad, and I paddled for 40 minutes. I stayed in the harbor and kept the stroke rate low, focusing my attention on stroke mechanics, which I consider the best use of these "easy" training periods like the one I'm supposed to be having right now.
This morning my rash wasn't itching so much, but it felt exceedingly sensitive. So again I wondered how it would do under my paddling apparel. But once again, it didn't bother me once I was underway. I paddled for 60 minutes and actually felt as much giddy-up in the boat as I have since I got home from out West. I paddled out onto the Mississippi and would have tried some wake-surfing if there had been any barge traffic, but there was none. So I did a loop out there and enjoyed the lovely fall weather. It was sunny with a cool breeze that wasn't strong enough to make an oppressive headwind, but created the sort of smooth chop on the river that I enjoy making the boat glide over. By the time I was walking up the ramp from the marina to the parking lot, I had that pleasant feeling I usually have after a really good paddle and I even forgot about the shingles for a few moments.
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Here's another short film that I put together from the footage I shot in the Grand Canyon. What we have here is Day 13, when we woke up to find the Colorado River running a dark grey color. My best guess is that there was some flash flooding upriver from a tributary that flows from the burn area of the Dragon Bravo fire.
Other than that, we were in a leisurely mood on Day 13. The biggest whitewater was behind us, and we were beginning to sense that the finish line was drawing near. That didn't mean our work was finished, however: hotter weather generated a pesky afternoon headwind that made our downriver progress feel like a slog. But it's easy to forget all that now as I sit here and behold the beautiful landscapes we paddled by. Certainly the music ("West of Samoa" by Speedy West) suggests a leisurely mood.
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Well, if a paddling trip through the Grand Canyon didn't finish me off physically, the crafts fair last weekend sure did. My entire body was achy and sore by the time I brought all my tools and equipment home from the event on Sunday evening.
In the days since then I have felt like doing little besides lying around. The aches and pains have been quite a variety: a sore right biceps muscle, which I strained somehow while swinging an axe last Friday; soreness in my lower back; a stabbing pain in the vicinity of my left hip flexor whenever I move a certain way; and a very general exhaustion of all my trunk muscles and even my internal organs.
Maybe the weirdest thing is an ugly rash of hives across the right side of my torso. It sort of looks like poison ivy, but I can't recall coming into contact with any of those three-leaved plants recently. I also haven't taken any new medications, and I can't think of any foods I've eaten that I might have an allergic reaction to. Very strange. I first noticed it last Saturday evening, and in the last couple of days I think it's gotten worse, not better. And the skin in my torso area seems more sensitive than usual, even where the rash isn't... kind of a tingling sensation.
Meanwhile, my weight has been down below where I think it should be. At least anecdotally, I seem to feel at my strongest and most energetic when I weigh close to 160 pounds; but for most of the last year I've been in the low 150s, and just before I left for the Grand Canyon I dipped below 150. Since getting back home, I have continued to weigh in below 150, with my low point being 146.
The explanation for my weight loss, and what it might mean, is something I don't really know. I've tried changing my eating habits a little--incorporating more protein, for instance--but I never could tell if that was making any lasting difference. In recent years I've been lifting weights less, largely because of the nerve-impingement issues in my upper spine, so maybe decreased muscle mass has something to do with it.
In any case, these days I'm feeling about as "down" physically as a person can feel. I feel borderline sick, actually--my throat has been sore for a couple of days. But I don't seem to be running a fever, and once I get up and around each morning my energy level seems okay.
The good thing is that a thorough rest is already what I have planned for the next several weeks. I'll be here at home for the next four months; my next big event is a return to the western cape of South Africa for some downwind paddling in late January. Certainly, I'll need to be trained up for that, but I've got time. I hope to have a new fitness program underway by late October or early November.
Right now I'm just trying to keep myself moving to some minimum degree. I went down to the river and paddled both Tuesday and today. I've actually felt surprisingly good in the boat once I've warmed up, though today I limited myself to just an easy 40 minutes because I'm getting more and more concerned about this rash and whatever maladies I've got in me.
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I'm pleased to announce that a member of my Grand Canyon party is part of a story that aired nationwide on National Public Radio today. Amelia Taylor of Sevierville, Tennessee, is featured for her river cleanup work in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene in western North Carolina and east Tennessee. You can listen to the story and view photographs here.
Another member of my party, Nick Wirick of Del Rio, Tennessee, appears in one of the photos.
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