Man, according to this article over at Cyclingnews.com, Cipollini used 25 bags of blood in 2002, before the Giro. Holy shit, that is a lot of needle pricks. Needles to remove the blood, needles to put it back in. The number is beyond crazy. That is something like a bag a week.

I sort of understand the whole idea of blood transfusions. I don’t understand how you could remove 25 units and then put them back, in such a short amount of time. Where is the time left for your body to regenerate its own red cells so you can reap the benefits of the process?

Cipo’s argument that the name “Maria” was not him was rebutted by the newspaper quite well. The phone number they used to contact him was the same number that was connected to the doping evidence. That is pretty hard to explain.

It must of been super stressful doing all this just to race bikes. All the worry. Every time he felt a little weird he’d have to wonder if he got a bad bag of blood. I don’t get it. Well, I sort of get it, but I do have some sympathy for all these guys in this regard.

The shit is just going to keep flowing. Rasmussen’s revelations haven’t even been made public yet. Man, don’t we have a lot to look forward to?

Arnold and Cipo hanging at the Tour of California.

Okay, hopefully this will be the last I post about anything to do with this stupid shoulder surgery for a while. These days are melting into each other and I haven’t really been reading too much cycling related news, plus my mind is a marshmallow.

Hopefully I have this gastrointestinal thing figured out and I’ll be on easy street today. It snowed up here in Summit County, again, so the “commute” over to Vail gets sort of ugly. They don’t use salt on the roads here so it is actually a little dicey even when it has snowed only a small amount.

Something that I didn’t even know existed and now use the majority of the day is this Breg Polar Pack I got from my friend Stacie in Louisville. They use Game Ready machines at the Steadman Clinic, but insurance doesn’t pay for it and the Game Ready machines are astronomically expensive. The Breg does all I need it for and it is super portable.

These machines are really just continuous ice packs. You fill them full of ice, with a little water, and they have a pump that circulates ice cold water to a compression sleeve, via insulated hoses. I’m obviously using the shoulder sleeve, but they make different sleeves for knees, ankles, wrists, etc. Anyway, you aren’t supposed to wear it all the time, but I’ve been wearing it on and off the majority of the day and nights, the past 4 days. The cold makes the pain much less, plus I suppose it aids in the healing process.

The physical therapist yesterday told me that 50% of the healing of this surgery occurs during the first two weeks, then 80% after 6 weeks and 95% at 12 weeks. I don’t talk to the doctor again for another week and a half, so I’m not sure what my schedule is as of now. The therapy is leaving me a little more zonked than I had originally planned for. I don’t know anything about this whole process, so I’m just doing what they say as of now. Hopefully I can convince myself to stay on this plan.

This is about the happiest picture I could take this morning.

IT’s just a little ice chest that holds ice and water, with a pump.

I carry it around with me everywhere.

This is Trudi in front of the skating ring by the Lion’s Head Gondola. There is usually a couple hours between PT treatments and the walking does me good.