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[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] each other after the Ride was over. We would exchange e-mails a lot, and talk on the phone, and find excuses to meet now and then beyond foundation meetings. She continued to come to the weekly gatherings at my house, and one night she stayed after everybody else left. It was just the two of us, sitting in my living room sipping beers and talking. I remember thinking, What am I doing? Why am I here alone with her? She was thinking the exact same thing. Finally, she stood up to call a cab, and I offered to give her a ride home. We drove through the empty dark streets, not saying much of anything, but feeling a lot. There was something there, but neither of us was ready to touch it yet. So we just drove. BY SPRING OF '97, I WASN'T EXACTLY READY TO GO out for margaritas. The medical uncertainties were still a constant, nagging worry. "What's it going to be?" I'd ask Dr. Nichols. "Am I going to live or die? What?" I felt pressure to get back on my bike, and yet I was unsure of my body. I counted and recounted my financial assets and sweated every mortgage payment, wondering if I would ever make another dime from cycling. Finally, I decided to at least try to race; I could still lock Cofidis into the second year of the contract and relieve myself of financial worries if I appeared in four events. I told Bill, "Let's find some races." A month after leaving the hospital, I'd flown to France to appear at a Cofidis press conference. The team officials were shocked that I showed up, but I wanted them to see that I was not the pale, bedridden victim they had left in Indianapolis. I told the Cofidis people that I wanted to try to come back in the spring, and I even spent a couple of days riding and working out with the team. They seemed pleased. I began to train seriously, riding four hours a day, as much as 100 miles over some of the old routes I used to love, ranging from Austin to Wimberly, to Dripping Springs, to New Sweden, towns with nothing but cotton fields and tractors and solitary church steeples in the distance. But I didn't like how I was feeling. Sometimes I would ride for an hour or so, just a little cruise, and it wore me out and I'd have to take a long nap afterward. I rode at a moderate pace, only about 130 heartbeats per minute, but I would feel strong one day and weak the next. I had a vague, run-down sensation that was all too familiar: it was the way I had felt before the diagnosis, I realized, with a knot in my stomach. Then I got a cold. I was sleepless and paralyzed with fear for an entire night, certain the cancer had come back. Before the illness I had never been susceptible to colds; if I was coming down with something, it had to be cancer. The next morning I raced to see Dr. Youman for a checkup, certain he would tell me I was ill again. But it was just a common infection that my body wasn't strong enough to fight off. My immune system was shot, and I was what the doctors called "neutrophilic": my white blood cell count was still down, which meant I was susceptible to every little germ that came along. My X rays had not entirely cleared up, either. There was a spot of some kind in my abdomen. The doctors didn't know quite what it was, and decided just to keep an eye on it. I was a nervous wreck. That was it. Dr. Nichols recommended that I take the rest of the year off, and I agreed; there would be no serious cycling for me in '97. I was still convalescing, Nichols explained, and my immune system hadn't fully rebounded from a chemo regimen that had been far more strenuous than I realized. My lack of fitness was in no way related to lack of will, Nichols said, it was a simple matter of how much the illness had taken out of me. My friends and colleagues felt like I did, nervous. "Look," Och said. "Whatever you decide, make sure the doctors know exactly what you're doing, training-wise, how much you're working. Give them the details so they can make the determination as to how hard you should go." I had to admit it: I might never legitimately race again at the top level. Maybe my body just couldn't deal with the rigors of a full-time training regimen. Chris Carmichael called me and wanted to know what was going on. "Chris, I'm scared," I said. "I'm scared to train. I'm scared if I push myself too hard, it will come back." IN AN ODD WAY, HAVING CANCER WAS EASIER THAN recovery at least in chemo I was doing something, instead of just waiting for it to come back. Some days I still called myself a bike racer, and some days I didn't. One afternoon I went to play golf with Bill at a local country club. We were on the fifth hole, a par-5, and Bill hit a beautiful six-iron for a chance at eagle. "I'll be able to do that some day," I said, admiringly. Bill said, "It's going to be a while before you play enough golf to hit a shot like that." "Bill, you don't get it," I said. "I'm retired." Bill and I had this argument all the time. I vacillated one day I would plan my big comeback, and the next day I would tell him my career was over. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] |