Hubris - A Pretty Painful Passion

The week started off well. We fulfilled our volunteering assignment at the Huntsman Cancer Institute. While we were there, we were shown a video our primary care physician will be using sometime this month. He is speaking at a medical conference and included in his address a description of the program he has started. It is the use of volunteers in out-patient waiting areas to address problems the patients may be having, provide comfort, assist the staff in their duties, whatever is required. We were videoed a few months ago and segments of that interview appear in cobbled together tape he is using in his presentation. It is --- all sorts of emotions come to mind - humbling, an honor, fun, sobering, a little embarrassing. But the video is effective, we think. Judge for yourself.



Tuesday, we saw Dr Johnston for Kathryn's monthly infusion of placebo or miracle Alzheimer's drug and then participated in the once-every-three-months testing they do. The net/net/net of the session was that Kathryn continues to do very, very well. She asked Dr. Johnston what her disease path would be. He replied simply he had no way of knowing, but if she continued doing as well as she has been, he predicted many years of an enjoyable life lay before her. After thinking about it for a few moments, I explained I thought in that case the best possible outcome for Kathryn of the clinical trial would be for the trial to have been successful and Kathryn to have been taking the placebo. He agreed. We went home, packed our bags for a trip the next day and went dancing.

Wednesday we had a meeting with Peter Morse on financial matters and providing protection for what assets we have. After the meeting, we left for St. George. Our first stop was at Sand Hollow Reservoir near Hurricane, Utah. There, Sheri, Siena, Cara, Gordon and Debbie awaited our arrival. They had skied most of the day and we had arranged to get there in time to try our hands and legs at the sport once again. We both changed into garish swimming suits, mine red and Kathryn's purple. I donned a purple, Alzheimer's Memory Walk shirt to cover my aged upper torso. When she saw me, Sheri thanked me for coming, because now she had had a chance to see what her husband would look like in another 40 years. I think she was a little shocked by the sight and repulsed by the peculiar whiteness of old, old legs. Kathryn decided she didn't want to ski.

My time to ski had come. It was preceded by the long gestation and unannounced arrival of personal hubris, the defeater of most inappropriate dreams. My dreams were not of financial excess, political power, sexual athleticism, or social popularity. I imagined only that, waterskiing, like bicycle riding, once learned was never forgotten. In my day, I was good on a slalom ski. On the first day I ever went skiing, I stepped off the dock on only my second run and skied well on the then long, banana shaped slalom ski. I could jump. I could drench onlookers in nearby boats with spray generated by the wake of the ski. I could land on the shore after a long ski by stepping out of the ski onto dry beach at just the right moment. I loved it. I was admired. Of course in the world wide ranks of slalom skiers, I was nothing. But that didn't matter.

So, here I was, wrapped and strapped in a "shortie" wet suit (no leg coverings, so my intensely white chicken legs were exposed to the harsh glares of appalled onlookers), in a cool reservoir in southern Utah (water temp about 65 degrees), strapped into a couple of ski's and waiting behind the beautiful, powerful boat of my son's in-laws. We call each other co-laws. In my puffing hubris, I imagined being pulled up immediately, quickly dropping one ski and easing quickly back into the skills and performances of my youth. I was ready and signaled "Hit it!" In a moment, I was underwater, jerked over by the unfamiliar power of the boat and surprising strangeness of a sport I had loved 50 years earlier. Dream exposed. Reality re-engaged, followed quickly by shame and humility. Would I, could I get up at all?

I re-connected with the ropes and skis, not getting too tangled in the process, yelled hit it and this time popped shakily up out of the water. I skied for maybe 10 minutes, back and forth, back and forth across the wake, timidly at first and then with more confidence. But, I never could get to the point of lifting up one ski just to see if I could balance on one, let alone ski adroitly on one. When I got out of the water and climbed onto the little submerged deck on the back of the boat, they all were indulgently congratulatory of the old man with blanched chicken legs who had skied on two skis. I thanked them.

Others in the party skied on "boogie boards" and even a surf board. I tried the boogie board but couldn't get my feet in the "boots" fastened" to the ski. It was too painful on my gimpy left knee. So we gave up on that. After watching Gordon and Debbie and Angie on the surf board, I was seduced by their words. They convinced me that surfing was the easiest of all of the rides behind a boat, except perhaps riding on a raft. So, I decided to try it. I got dressed in the wet suit again, got in the water, positioned my legs on the board as instructed, crouched behind the board and signaled go. It did not come naturally to me at all. The resistance of the water and the power of the boat pulled me painfully over and I felt the dreaded pain/twang/shock in my lower back, a feeling I've not had for years.

Hubris, my personal hubris, had resulted in a destroyed dream and a pretty painful injury. The Larson's and Kathryn's saw me as a game adventurer, but I saw myself as a bit of a fool. What was I thinking? I had skied two times in the last 50 years. The skill did not come back like bicycle riding. It came back like a car wreck. Today is Saturday and the lower back is still painful. It is easier to walk, but difficult to sit down or stand up. One small part of me, guided by the little guy in the red suit standing on my left shoulder, urges me to try again next year. The little guy in white on the right shoulder smiles and gives me a reminder poke in the butt, just below the pain and the apparent, exact location of my brain.