2manybikes

Glad you are doing well. I wonder if the cat was inspired by "Higgins" from the TV show Magnum P.I. ?

Great photos.

Kabuki12

I am so glad you are doing well. The road back is worth the trials and effort along the way. Joe

davester

Just checked back in after a while and it is very gratifying to see Rowan and Machka on vacation having a good time. Happiness is what life should be about and you two are obviously back on track in that regard. Congratulations.

Hondo Gravel

Machka 

The world is not so big.

Machka 

Out of curiosity, I added up the total cycling Rowan and I have done since he started cycling again in August ....

467.88 km!!!

BobbyG

go, Go, GO!

2manybikes

That's great.

tmac100

Cannot resist this, but you and Rowan have incredible speedos/odometers with accuracy to 5 sig figs (or perhaps just to the nearest 10 m - sorry for the typo corrected here). Currently working with college students and having them use sig figs in their measurements. And here I thought that recording to the nearest 5 km was good enough for me when touring Australia.

Machka, you have raised the bar for my next tour this June-July

DeceptivelySlow

Well, as I know you would agree, I would say after what Rowan has been through every last digit is significant and perhaps none more than the first 0.01 KM. Now if you want to determine the sig digits of the distance of my last ride based on my odometer calibration; you could have a teaching moment.

PaulH

Way to go!

Machka 

That's Strava for you.

tmac100

Yes to the significance of each and every step on the journey that Rowan and Machka have done. There must be an odometer out there somewhere that measures to the nearest .5 meter. The actual journey Rowam is on must be a LOT more than 1000 km. Thus, Machka's number is quite understated.

Carry on with the progress, Rowan and Machka

Machka 

If you count walking too .......

tmac100

In any journey W = F *d. The distance can be done in any way you want FWIW, my pedometer says that I have walked from here in Doha to the Red Sea. But in reality with the blockade imposed on Qatar by the UAE and Saudi - well fake news is fake news

Carry on Rowan and Machka. I love hearing about the progress in the journey both of you are on

Rowan

Thanks tmac100 and the other people who have posted in this thread recently.

I am one of those typical men who couldn't really gather the fuss not very long after what happened, but I have been through a lot of medical treatment that has helped to cast the light on the extent of the damage and how darned lucky I have been to firstly survive and secondly recover enough to do stuff... including thinking seriously about return to work, and of course cycling.

The day-before-yesterday (or yesterday US time) was the 10th month since the incident that injured me. Had it just been broken bones (as has happened once before to me on the same machine) I would have been fully recovered within a few weeks. But that head/brain injury was a major occurrence, and on more than several occasions, as stated by people who are defined experts in their medical fields, I have made a remarkable recovery.

Some of that survival and recovery is due to an inbuilt fitness from the physical activity due largely to cycling and to a small extent the type of field work I was engaged in. It sounds holy, I know, as it's not meant to be, but the almost entire elimination of alcohol and the 15-years-ago final elimination of nicotine were two other significant contributions to my adequate fitness level for brain recovery.

And I will never forget the incredible job Machka has done to keep me focused why life is still more than what it could have been.

znomit

Bloody hell. That's probably more than me.
Well done, and great to see things are going so well.

Machka 

One year today!

bobwysiwyg

Rowan

I really do wish it was simple. But last weekend, I was admitted back into hospital in the neurology ward via ambulance after basically collapsing at home. A CT scan of my head showed that damage to my brain still exists and for the first time revealed to me, that is not ever likely to be any different; my brain and healing process has been such that I have been able to bypass that damage and make use of the rest of the organ.

What we did last Saturday is go for a bike ride and I did extremely well averaging over 18km/h. But I felt a bit odd in the stomach and didn't drink at all on the ride despite having plenty of fluid on the bike. I did whack a bit down after we finished, then Machka drove home where we were setting out to set up a brand new Concept 2 rowing machine. That's when I collapsed, and Machka called the ambulance.

I am now on a new range of medication to take twice daily to hopefully prevent something similar happening again. The important thing, though, is for me to keep up the fluid intakes, even if it means more going to the toilet to urinate. Sadly, I had also had done well enough in my recovery to be passed in getting my driver's licence back, but readmission to hospital and the cause has put that back six months. I did, however, get to see again some of the magnificent nursing staff who took care of me 12 month ago, and I was so grateful for them.

Machka sent me a piece yesterday that is the start of what she has written about this whole thing from a year ago. When the workplace accident happened, we were in the final stages of planning a 360km 24-hour Audax ride with a guy from the mainland for the next weekend. I so miss not being able to do that... but it is something that I hope can happen again in the future.

I also was due to make a very brief return to work -- unpaid -- during this past week at a golf course, but that has had to be put off until next month.

Of course, Machka has been the savior of my life yet again. And that is what counts the most.

CliffordK

Rowan

Thanks for that! Next week, we are going to stay several nights in a place that is safe for me to cycle. The place we stay is Brickendon, one of the historic farming properties in Northern Tasmania. A key character is Mr Higgins, a wonderful cat that is a little bit like the one in the picture. I really am looking forward to the weekend for (a) the cycling, (b) staying on a historic property and (c) meeting up with Mr Higgins again.

Machka 

He has a big seizure ... tonic clonic aka grand mal.

It was likely triggered by stress ... he had one of his most stressful weeks ... plus dehydration ... plus the flickering of the light in our basement when we turned it on.

We had gone down there after the ride Rowan mentions to build my new rowing machine. Flicked on the light ... and that was apparently the "last straw".

I am just glad I was here with him when it happened.



We're going to attempt to build the rowing machine later today.



And this is Mr Higgins.

Dave Cutter

As a mature man.... I have some first-hand experience with dehydration. It isn't something we generally talk about publicly. But staying properly hydrated can be difficult-ish for men 50+. I had a bathroom scale I used for a period that measured my moisture/hydration level by running a slight current/signal through my bare via my bare feet (it wasn't felt). I am not sure how effective it was... I still managed to dehydrate myself. I am sure Rowan will do a better job of meeting this new challenge than I have. I now count mileage, drinking every four miles (6.4K). Yeah... it means peeing more than I'd like. But that's not the worse thing to live with.

berner

I have a fondness for cats. There is way more to their personalities than they get credit for. So to inject a lighter tone and perhaps bring a smile I submit the following video.