Hello and welcome to An Altitude Problem, where life is a roller coaster. If this were a real roller coaster, we would be screaming WOOOOHOOOO! and throwing our hands in the air on the way down, not curling into dead-weight balls of misery and dropping like rocks. Real roller coasters are fun. Emotional ones really suck. We're supposed to yell WOOOOOHOOOOO on the way up, but we never realize we were up until we drop again. At least not all the time. There have been a few times this last month when I have actually looked up and around me when I was on top, smiled and said something to the effect of "this is living".

Let's see...since my last post... oh, dear. It's been so long, I will just have to hit the highlights. There were several weeks of work that left us (Marci and me) exhausted. We spent several days moving an apartment's worth of furniture from her apartment, down two flights of stairs to a trailer, cleaned out her apartment, moved her and her cat and her essentials into my place, and left the rest of it in the trailer, not to be used again until she is living in Kansas. We moved a trailer load of Bobby's and my furniture down to a storage unit in Kansas. We made a trip to Kansas to put on a surprise birthday party for my mom, who turned fifty this year. I spent a fun weekend hiking and biking with a "boot camp" of a motley crew of people I came to have deep respect for. I got sunburned. I spazzed/danced with friends at an impromptu street party at the Swan Mountain King-of-the-Mountain line during the USA Pro Cycling Challenge, screamed until I was hoarse as Andy and Cadel, America's tour de France darlings, shot past. I missed Bobby. We fussed. We saw each other once. Marci and I pulled an empty trailer back to Colorado. We hired new help. I all but stopped working. I started working at the bike shop again, then immediately quit- my last two shifts are this week. We put the house on the market. We worked on finishing the bathroom project. I showed the house. B wondered why I was so testy and I didn't have a good answer for him, except to say that I am so sick and tired of not knowing what manner of thing is going to come up tomorrow, and I am tired of being adaptable, and I am tired of being agreeable when it really bothers me to not know where I am going to be tomorrow, or next week, or next year.

And that was still just the half of it.

The trip to Kansas was fun. Since having a birthday party for my mom on her actual birthday was not possible for everyone's schedule, Leroy, Mary and I practiced some lies and deceit, swore the community to secrecy, and had it a week early. We decorated the shelter house in the state park and had a magical, full moon evening in the soft glow of the twinkly lights we hung from the rafters, homemade ice cream and Jason Koehn's brisket. Since Bobby's home is a camper right now, the three of us (B, Andy and me) shared a couch/bed and stumbled over each other in the mornings, trying to wake up and eat breakfast in the mornings, took 3 minute showers, since that is as long as the hot water lasts, enjoyed being together.

I did a really fun road ride with a co-worker on August 22. We took off from Dillon, after a stop for air in tires and lube on chains at the bike shop, and rode to Frisco, on to Copper Mountain, and on to the top of Vail Pass. We stopped at the top and enjoyed the warm sun and cool breeze before coasting (me) and flying (him) down to Frisco, then taking the bike path to Farmer's Corner and Swan Mountain Road home. 42 miles and 5,000 feet of climbing in three and a half hours. I came home more exhausted than I wanted to admit, and hunched over a bit in pain, since Mother Nature had chosen that morning to bless me with the present she feels compelled to give me every month. (I would like to say, though, that I have started taking a Mangosteen and multivitamin supplement called Vemma, and the pain has gotten bearable lately). That evening, I finally got back up off the couch about 6:30, packed my backback and my bike, and went to preride the race course I was going to be racing on the 24th. In hindsight, I should have remembered Fall is approaching. The days are gettig shorter. But I wasn't thinking, and I stopped halfway up to take pictures of a brilliant double rainbow framing the damp but sundrenched valley below me, and didn't ride hard, and it was getting dark by the time I got to the top of Keystone Mountain. I took the race course trail down to the turnoff where we were to start climbing again in deep twilight, my senses numbing as I barely registered trees flashing by, as I bounced and rattled down the rough trail, my bike somehow staying under me, glad I knew the trail well. Then I started climbing again, back up all the vertical feet I had just lost, over to the other side of the mountain. The elevation profile for this race is a big M. Up,down partway, back up, then down. By the time I got almost to the top of the second climb, it was so dark I began to wonder how exactly I was going to be able to see anything by the time I got down. I gave up looking for the turn-off, decided to skip the singletrack descent and descend on the road. Then I saw a needle of light through the trees. Another rider, as crazy but smarter than I. He had remembered his lights. I turned around and rode with him until the single track turned into the forest, then I turned around and cautiously, blindly made my way down the mountain on the faintly visible white ribbon of road, the friendly forests of Keystone, my benevolent playground, suddenly ominous and full of unearthly sounds, strange groans and creaks and grumbles.

When I had navigated the last portion of trail, a quarter mile of mandatory singletrack that I rode slowly, my behind hung far back over the rear wheel and my front wheel light so it could ride over the rocks I did not see, I breathed a sigh of relief. The other rider finished just behind me and we laughed about my predicament and how I would definitely not be making that mistake again.

The race was a good one. I came ready to do some damage. This was my home turf, and nobody deserved a win here more than me, I reasoned. I straightened my hair and put on make-up for the team photo, posed with the 15 or so riders who wear the jersey of the bike shop I work for, as well as Smith Optics, Keystone Bike Park, and Clif Luna Bars. As I was getting my helmet on and attaching my race plate, a coworker asked me if I planned on leaving Andy in the truck. I had planned on it, I said, but if he wanted to get him out and walk him around while he waited, he was welcome to. I hooked Andy's leash as I have a hundred other times, I thought, and handed it to him, with instructions to make Andy socialize and get a little less psychotic around strangers. And then the starting whistle, and I pedalled to the top of keystone. That part is a blur, What I do know is that I know the way to the top of Keystone like the back of my hand. I couls almost do it with my eyes closed. I know where to push hard, when to downshift, when to stay in a high gear and stand on my pedals. And I watched to gaps close between me and my fellow Sport category women, then I was passing Sport men who started a minute ahead of us, then every muscle in my lower body was screaming at me but I was closing on the top, then I crested and was flying down the trail I had ridden in the near dark two nights before, bike and trail and me in three part harmony as I ducked and swerved and danced to the tune it sang, knowing every line through every technical portion. I popped out at the bottom and pointed it uphill, passing one of the Expert category women, who had started three minutes ahead of us. And with a final burst of power, I crested the top and flew down, and down, and down until I was at the bottom and crossed the finish line. It was my best finish of the year, long minutes ahead of all the riders I battle with every race. I only finished a minute later than that girl Marlee, who has just started racing and can climb like a mountain goat and should be racing Expert, if not Pro, but for some reason keeps racing Sport and making the race for the rest of us about being first place after her, which is actually second, but there is no chance of beating her, so second has become the new first. (Did I mention I have no appreciation for sandbaggers?)Across the finish line, then a cool-down lap around the parking lot. I stopped and talked to a friend, then went to find Andy. He wasn't in the truck, and his "handler" was nowhere to be seen. I began peeling off my helmet when my co-worker rode up on a borrowed bike and skidded to a stop. "Oh, I am so, so sorry, I lost Andy!" He handed me Andy's tags and leash. "These fell off when he bolted. I'm so sorry, he was fine, and then, just like that-". I had attached his leash to the flimsy keyring holding his tags onto his collar, rather than to the sturdy ring on his collar.

I tried not to panic. Andy has done this before. "He probably just ran home", I told him. "Don't worry." Then I got back on my bike and took off for home, six miles away, thinking I would find a smallish Golden Retriever somewhere along the bikepath between Keystone and Summit Cove. I called for him every few seconds, in case he was off the trail. Nothing. I left my bike and jumped into my car and sped back to Keystone, thinking I'd see him on the road. Nothing. I fought a rising panic. I drove back home and jumped back on my bike, knowing that they were calling my name right now, and that in Keystone a podium was standing empty, but I didn't care. I jammed my headlamp onto my helmet and a measly light onto my handlebars and careened over the singletrack connecting Summit Cove to Keystone. I took corners too fast. I called his name every few seconds. I took maverick trails that I normally don't ride in order to do my part to stop erosion. I skidded my tires down them, since they are too steep and loose to ride without leaving a mark, and I didn't care. The sound of "AAAAAAANNNNNNDYYYYYYY!" echoed through the silent, dark woods. I finally got back to Keystone, where the after party and awards ceremony was dying down, and met several friends there who offered to help me look. I called animal control and Keystone emergency services, in case anyone had reported a stray dog, and left them my number. Then Bobby called to tell me he was going to bed, and I finally gave into my panic and sobbed like a little girl. I told him I needed him so much right then, and how ridiculous it was that he wasn't there for me. His worry took the form of anger. Several of my friends took their big race van and drove up to Montezuma, after someone said he had bolted that way. The coworker from whom he had bolted gave me a hug and apologized again and tried to reassure me that he was just out chasing squirrels, but I know Andy. He bolted trying to find me, and if he wasn't at home, there was no telling where he might be looking, alone and scared and puzzled over why his mama would abandon him like that. I drove all over Keystone, calling out the window, crying. The breeze had died and the air was crisp, I could hear my calls echoing back to me from the mountains. Why could he not hear them? Five hours after he had bolted, I drove home and collapsed into bed still wearing my bike shoes, and sobbed until I was achy but still not asleep. The only sound outside my open window was packs of howling coyotes, rangy mountain coyotes that a 65 lb scaredy-cat golden retriever would be no match for. An hour later Bobby called me. His anger had passed, and now he was crying, too. "We have to find him. He's our boy. We can't not find him. We can't not know what happened. If I was up there, I would still be out looking. Can you go ride the bikepath one more time?" So at midnight I bundled up in Bobby's old orange coat and jeans, pulled on my full-finger bike gloves and ratcheted my bike shoes tight and rode slowly out of the cove, back to Keystone. I begged Bobby not to hang up, since his voice in my ear helped me feel less alone as I rode under a brilliantly starlit sky, my voice echoing, my whistle thin because my mouth was too dry and my lips were too cold. Finally, he hung up and I kept looking and calling. I returned home at 3:30am, every muscle hurting from shivering so hard in the 40 degree night air, my bike light dead and my headlamp dim, opened the car door in the driveway so Andy could crawl inside if he came home, put a piece of tape over the front door latch so if he scratched on it or bumped it, it would swing open, and left my bedroom window wide open with the screen out, so I could stick my head out and check if he was home from time to time. And not a wink did I sleep. I had not eaten anything but a Honey Stinger shot before the race, just glucose and B vitamins, and I was so hungry I shook, but I couldn't force food down my throat without gagging on it. I watched the sky turn from black to gray to pink. Every pop of rafters, every rustle of grass I sat up, thinking it was him. At 6 o'clock, I was back up, bundled in fleece and driving around Keystone and Summit cove, and up to Montezuma, calling him. Bobby had called back and we had cried some more, wishing we at least had the closure of knowing he was dead and not lost and panicky and cold and hungry. I had just parked at the Keystone Lake and was walking in to go check some more of his favorite haunts about 9am when my phone rang. It was Keystone Inn. The only dog-friendly hotel in Keystone. "I think we have your dog", a woman's voice said, and I decided it must be a hallucination from too little sleep or food. All the same, I raced to the Keystone Inn, and there, behind the inn, under a flight of stairs, sat a shivering pile of dead leaves, dirt, mud, and yellow fur. His tail was between his legs, and his head hung to his straggly chest, and he was shying away from the hands offering him doggie treats and water, growling a half-hearted warning that was more "I'm scared" than "you should be scared." I rushed him, and cried all over him, and he tried to crawl in my lap and turn himself inside out, then righted himself and began snarfing doggy treats and water from the strangers he had been growling at a moment ago, and I thanked Kassandra from the front desk about a hundred times because I swear she grew a halo, or maybe it was just my low blood sugar. And then I called Bobby and we cried some more, and swore to never let him out of our sight, and to stop loving him so much because someday, we will lose him for real and we don't ever want to have another night like that one.

The rest of the day, Andy slept, and while he slept he whimpered. Not the usual dream-whimpers that must mean he is closing in on the squirrel as his paws twitch and he smacks his lips, but long, keening sobs that broke my heart and made me wake him up with a kiss and a cuddle just to show him that he was home with me.

The following days were full of activities, courtesy of my friend's boot camp. My friend Annie represents the vitamin and antioxidant company I mentioned earlier, which makes high-quality liquid antioxidants and multivitamins, as well as several other extremely healthy options for high-performance athletes, such as energy drinks and shots and electrolytes that rely on healthy ingredients instead of sugar. She had been bugging me to try taking it for a while, and I finally gave in, telling her I would try it since everyone had such good things to say about it, I didn't expect to see great changes. Turns out, after two weeks on it, Mother Nature's monthly present didn't keep me on the couch. I was hooked. I had better energy and less bonking. I had a clear complexion. I sailed through two weeks in an office full of sick people, flying snot and wet, phlegmy coughing and had nary a sniffle, even though I had as little sleep and as much stress as the rest of them. I called Annie up to tell her that, and she invited me to spend the weekend with a group of people who, she said, have literally had their lives changed by this product, and represent the company along with her.

I had my life changed by them. All of them have an incredible story to tell, about personal anguish and physical devastation. They have come to realize, as I have, that life is about the people you share it with, and that health is about giving our bodies the best possible fuel. There was Don and Chris. Don was infected with HIV in 1981. For the last 15 years, he has had full-blown AIDS. In 1995, he was lying in a hospital bed with less of an immune system than a newborn baby, and he had a dream that he would live to educate thousands of people about HIV so they would never have to go through what he was. The AIDS cocktail came out in '96, and he was able to get out of bed. He went home and began trying to live his life. He'd get up, eat breakfast, try to do some work and pursue his dream of spreading AIDS awareness, but by 3pm, he was back in bed for the rest of the day and night. Until someone talked him into trying Vemma. Within two weeks, he had stopped taking naps and now, although he only has the equivalent of one lung and is still battling AIDS related cancer, his immunity is that of any other 60 year old man. He comes to the mountains every year from Kansas City every year to hike and bike at 11,000 feet, and his book, My Dream to Trample AIDS, is coming out soon. His partner, Chris, is also HIV positive, but the two of them show such a cheerful face to the world it was a joy to spend a weekend with them. There was also P-nut, the deaf Olympic wrestler, and Gene, who's legs are solid scar tissue from being run-skidded over by a car when he was four, and Brian and Clem, who are so freakishly fit they gave me a run for my money, and I am used to the altitude! And Eric, who is a bike racer, and with whom I instantly found camaraderie. And several others, all of the same mind, all as worshipful of good nutrition and as grateful for good health as I am. I went home after that weekend exhausted. It was an exhaustion I couldn't quite shake after my 36 hours without sleep during Andy's lost-and-found episode. It hung with me- that tired, dizzy, coming-down-with-something feeling that had me juicing carrots, eating apples, drinking caffeine, and running and biking harder than ever trying to shake it, since sleeping in didn't seem to be fixing it.

A week later, it rained in Kansas, and Bobby wasted no time coming home. True, he wanted to see me, but it was Andy, lost and found, that he couldn't wait to see. They tumbled about together, paws and tongue and flopping ears and happy whines and pet names and ear-scratching and belly-rubbing. A man and his best friend. I worked at the bike shop that night and the next night, and the next afternoon, we drove up to Steamboat springs and spent the evening soaking in the hot springs up at Strawberry park, hanging out in a shallow rock alcove as the water ran through it and cascaded trhough the rocks into a lower pool. I propped my feet up on a big rock and leaned my head against Bobby's shoulder, looked up at the stars above us, bright in the absence of lights (Strawberry park is mostly off the grid, lights there are solar powered and dim)and reflected on how divinely happy I was, and how alive I felt. We drove our relaxed, smiling selves back down to town and found our cabin, left the lights off and relaxed on the front porch, a few feet from the bank of the Yampa River, the lights of town reflecting off low hanging clouds, making them look oddly sci-fi and beautiful. Eventually we got cold, so we dragged blankets out to the porch and lay under them and drifted asleep. Some time later, a car pulled in to the tent site next to us, waking us up, and we moved inside, the three of us, boy, girl, dog, falling asleep in a big pile under the blankets on a cheap blue plastic mattress.

The next morning, the pain in my innards I had been registering all day the day before and blaming pizza for woke me up. My back hurt, but I blamed the hard matress, and squirmed about until I woke Andy up and he vacated the pile for a cooler spot on the floor. I finally woke Bobby up, and we lay there chatting for a while, until I finally pulled the covers off of him and forced him to get up. We ate a fast food breakfast on our way out of town, and that apparently added to the pizza/cheap mattress discomfort, and I squirmed all the way over Rabbit Ears Pass. On a whim, we took a side trip over Ute Pass, and by them time we got home, my tummy was complaining and I wanted to go back to bed. I was beginning to wonder if mother nature had bumped up her schedule.

At five o'clock that night, sudden pain shot through my left side, between belly button and hip. It shot down my leg and curled me right up where I sat. I started breathing raggedly, and B asked what was wrong. My leg, in the vicinity of femoral artery, was cramping so badly I could barely stand. Now, one doesn't experience a best friend dropping dead from a pulmonary embolism without spending the rest of one's life having the word "blood clot" pass through one's mind every time one has unexplained leg pain. I tried to walk it off, but walking was a bit of a problem, given the pain level. I called the doctor. I know they would tell me to come in, and the clinic was already closed so it would mean a trip to the ER, but I called anyway, but by that point there really wasn't a rational thought left, just irritation that it was taking them so long to ask for all my history. They, of course, told me to waste no time coming in, and the trip to the ER is a hazy memory of feeling the air conditioning fan my sweaty face and clutching the top half of Bobby's cheese and cracker's tray under my chin, because the pain had make me nauseus and I was fully expecting pancakes and maple syrup to make their forcefull escape at any moment.

Just as he was squealing into the parking lot, I felt something give in my innards just behind the jutting bone on my front left hip. The pain subsided the tiniest fraction. I staggered through the door and explained my woes while holding onto the nurse's station white-knuckled, and soon they had shoved a percocet and a cherry-flavored anti-nausea pill down my throat and were wheeling me places. And then-could this day get any better? I was sitting in blood and they were drawing blood and they finally informed me that surprise, this is what a problematic pregnancy feels like.

Our mouths, naturally, dropped open. We looked at each other for a moment. I had been assuring them that there was no way I could be pregnant, after all, half of that equation had only been seen once in the last four weeks, and the timing was all wrong for that, and Mother Nature had been right on schedule and since immaculate conception had aready been copyrighted, we were going for "not possible". And great, was our first thought. Our insurance covers accidents and emergency room visits, not pregnancy. They probably wouldn't be amused if we tried to call it "accidental pregnancy". Of course, the chances of the pregnancy surviving an ordeal like that were slim to none, so after the first flip-flop of the stomach at the words "You're pregnant", the goofy grin that I felt spread over my face that surprised the heck out of me and I immediately tried to blame on the percocet making me loopy, we immediately proceeded on to "Not anymore".

We drove home slowly, with glazed eyes, afraid to ask what the other was thinking. It was one thing to decide we might be ready for a kid. I mean, we're closing on a decade together. We don't even know if we can have kids. I still dream of adopting. We had thought it would take us a while. We could stop the careful planning we put into preventing one and just let it run it's course.. But it's another to have it happen so soon, only to be gone again so soon. Now I just felt annoyed at the waste of time-annoyed that now I would have to actually try to make it happen again, and annoyed that if it had stuck, I'd be six weeks pregnant and know where my life was going and what I would be doing in eight months, instead of still asking that annoying question. I kept flashing back to that split second between "You're pregnant" and "probably not anymore", when that stupid grin forced itself across my face. What am I? Who am I? My clock's not ticking. At least I didn't think so. But that sudden wave of hope and happiness and fierce protectiveness for that thing inside me that at that point, was nothing more than an abstract notion of some possible future life, and that sudden feeling of loss for something I never knew I had made me scratch my head and get extremely quiet for the rest of the night. I'm still analyzing.

They told me to come back to the ER tonight so they could check hormone levels and be able to tell for sure that the pregnancy was terminated. Maybe it survived, they waggled their eyebrows, but I don't see how. I know what I felt. There was surely no way anything survived that. But I still hate that they gave me a tiny bit of hope, because I can't get it out of my head that maybe, just maybe... But I don't think I'll go. There has been no pain since, so I'm not worried, like they were initially, about an ectopic pregnancy. What difference does it make if I go in tonight so they can check my HcG level and tell me if I am or am not still pregnant, most likely not, when I can save several hundred dollars and go to the clinic when it opens again on Tuesday and hear the same thing? It's just another 36 hours, is all. Thirty six long hours with the tiniest glimmer of hope, and my brain trying to squash it. In the meantime, I have been ordered to stay quiet and not to ride bike or run or lift heavy objects or stress out or worry or any of my usuall coping methods, because apparently all of those things could compromise an already compromised pregnancy, and until I find out if things are hanging on in there, I have to live as if they are. Which means Bobby had to go ride Keystone by himself yesterday and came home smelling of outside and crisp fall air, while I sat on the couch with my Kindle and the TV remote and reflected on how silly this is, and how annoyed I am at my body for playing tricks on me, and if it's gonna do something, for Heaven's sake, get it right! And go for full disclosure! I don't want to be six weeks pregnant before I realize it next time, even though it saved me from heartbreak this time.

And after all that, with a new floor finally down in the bathroom, and a trailer load of stuff, Bobby had to head back to Kansas this afternoon. Now I'm back to being the me that I am when he's not here- the me who cleans because she doesn't like to watch TV or go out to eat or ride bike by herself. I have a bottle of Barefoot Moscato in the fridge and I want a glass. For an extra couple hundred dollars, I could go find out if I could have one tonight. I like Barefoot Moscato, but it's not worth that much.

And that is the story of the roller coaster ride that has been our lives lately. I'm still queasy from it. At least we'll say it was the wild ride...