Steve Tilford

Yesterday, I felt good enough that I went over to Lawrence to watch many friends and team mates race the 360 Cup Cross race. First of all, I realized that I was bummed that I wasn’t suited up and racing. It was a nice day to race cross, temperatures in the mid 50’s and sunny. It was funny how cold that 54 degrees felt to me standing around.

A big surprise was the my team mate, Brian Jensen and his wife, Michelle, were at the race. I guess Brian was doing some wind turbine work north of Lawrence and is going to be here until Wednesday. Then back to Colorado.

Brian was a big surprise, but the biggest surprise was that USADA had two tents set up and had been doing drug testing the whole day on most of the categories. This is a first that I can think of this happening. This was a pretty small, local race. I know that USAC has this new Race Clean program going now, but I can think of a lot of events that might prove more productive.

I’m wondering if that USAC was there for one guy? Seems like they have been pretty good at catching riders that are pretty obviously taking drugs to race. I don’t know that guy here. I very much doubt they are going to catch someone. I know just about everyone that raced and not one of them is on my radar screen.

Anyway, I’m not against USAC showing up. The more testing the better. I think all the amateur guys that are doping to race aren’t nearly as advanced as World Tour guys, so the chances that USADA cleaning up the local and regional scene is much higher. It just really surprised me this is the event they picked.

I was only there for the Elite 1/2 race. And even though I was only gone from home for 3 hours, I was done. It was the longest I’ve stood up in the last 5 weeks. It is amazing to me how out of shape a person can get for normal daily things in such a short time.

The race was good. My team mates all rode at the front the whole race and all finished great. I’d loaned my set of race wheels to Joseph Schmalz, and after getting a mediocre start, he eventually rode to the lead and won the race. So at least my wheels are getting to race some this fall.

The course was tricky with a lot of tight turns that demanded acceleration after. I liked the course a lot. I raced the event last year and finished 2nd to Joseph. It was a bigger course, more open, but still tricky.

Anyway, I’m going to try to go to more races on the weekends, if I have the energy. I need to get out more. I walked 2 miles last night before going to bed. I find that if I walk, or ride the ergometer, after dinner, I have a much higher chance of sleeping over 5 hours. These head injury deals are peculiar.

I’m heading to KU Med, in Kansas City, in a couple hours for a ton of appointments. My first appointment there is a MRI at 10:15 and the last is with my neurologist at 3, so I’m going to be beat again. Hopefully I get some more answers to a slew of questions that I have. I tried to get the answers on the Internet, but TBIs are hard to get specific answers about. I’ve really improved a ton, at least feel better, the last two weeks, so I’m hoping that makes my doctors happy. It makes me.

Shadd, Joseph and I before the start.

Brian, Trudi, Tucker and I.

Joseph running the logs.

Garrick running the logs.

Shadd, Finn’s dad, riding the logs.

And here is FInn, who showed up everyone. He won the Junior State Championships and is a super bike handler.

The podium - Joseph Schmaltz 1st, Garrick Valverde, 2nd, Shadd Smith, 3rd, Brian Jensen, 4th and Britton Kusiak, 5th.

The podium – Joseph Schmalz , Garrick Valverde, Shadd Smith, , Brian Jensen, and Britton Kusiak.

Tucker met a new friend, Max, at the race.

He was as done as me last night.

The Wizard of Oz was on last night. I love that movie.

Yesterday I spent most of the day in Kansas City at KU Med. I had appointments scheduled from 10 to 3, so it was always going to be a long-ish day. At least for me, in my current broken state. I didn’t really run out of energy until I got back into the car to do the hour plus drive back.

Anyway, everything went pretty well. First I did a MRI on my neck. If you haven’t done a MRI, it’s a trip. Don’t do it if you don’t like being confined in a tube or loud noises. Even though you are wearing headphones, the noise that a MRI makes is loud and weird. I don’t mind it at all, so I actually fell asleep some.

When I got out of the MRI, the technician was a nice woman and, out of the blue, she asked me if I had used a shaman to address my broken skull issues. I told her no, that I was sticking with conventional medicine as of now. I asked her if there was one here at the hospital. She said no.

Then I asked her if she knew one and she said no again. So I asked here why she suggested a shaman and she said that another cyclists had done a MRI and that he felt his best improvement was by the use of a shaman. I’ll stick with what I’m doing now, but keep the shaman deal for backup.

Anyway, after the MRI, I went to the spine area and did an EMG on my arms. I’ve had some tingling issues with my hands since I cracked my skull, so they wanted to test the nerves to make sure that it wasn’t in my arms or neck.

Basically a EMG is being mildly electrocuted multiple times and recording how fast the electricity travels through the nerves. I guess the number is approximately 50 meters a second. I’m sure that isn’t the measurement they use, but that is the average healthy speed.

After they shocked for a while, they took a 26 gauge needle and stuck it into a bunch of different muscles, from my forearms to my back. I’d go for lots of MRI’s before I’d do that again. Skip it if you have an option.

Last, I saw my doctor, Dr. Nielsen. She is great. She is the reason I’m driving 2 1/2 hours to KU for treatment.

She gave me a pretty optimistic, upbeat report. She was happy how things have been going the last two weeks since I saw her last. I had a slew of questions to ask and she answered them easily, with good options.

She had already looked at the results from the MRI and say that I “have a beautiful neck”, which was nice. She showed me a picture of it and that the spacing between the vertebrae was perfect. Plus, nothing was broken. She said that my neck issues are muscle, not bone, which is always a good thing if you get to make a choice.

Anyway, I negotiated a little more exercise. Actually, my exercise schedule is what I can handle. I’m going to up my max heart rate 10 beats every week or two for the next month. I’ll keep doing that as long as I don’t feel any worse at all when I’d training. No worse headache or dizziness. Last night I rode an hour at 250 watts and felt alright. My max heart rate is now around 130.

Okay, that was about it. It is going to be a slow process, but I think I’m doing alright considering. I don’t have another doctor’s appointment until right before Christmas. Dr. Nielsen told me that she classified my injury as a mild to moderate TBI, with complications. I know that doesn’t sound that good, but considering how much worse it could have been, I’ll take it.

So, I’m not going to be racing anytime in the next few months. I shouldn’t, or more accurately, can’t hit my head anytime soon. And by soon, I mean for a few months. I can ride outside when the majority of my symptoms are gone. So that means, way fewer headaches and little to no spinning. I think I can take care of the dizziness/vertigo deal the next couple weeks. I’m thinking it is an ear issue, but it also could be some brain input too. I’m hoping fixing the ears will do the trick.

Anyway, that is the report. I’m sleeping somewhere between 5 and 6 hours now. If my ears weren’t ringing, I could sleep more. It is going to go away slowly, I’ve been told. It already has. I guess that is the speed of this whole ordeal. I guess I’m lucky it’s November. I’m not much on sitting around, but if I have to, then it should be over the winter I guess.