Category: Brian’s Journey

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The $17 Fix That Saved My Lawnmower

Brian’s fitness journal after a brain stroke

Lawnmower Control Bar Repair

It was a perfectly ordinary mowing day, until it wasn’t. Midway through my lawn routine, the control bar on my mower decided it had worked hard enough and called it quits. (For the uninitiated, that’s the bar you hold down while mowing; let go of it, and the motor politely stops. Great safety feature. Decidedly less great when it breaks mid-mow.) Now, I have to do our lawnmower control bar repair.

With the kind of determination that can only be described as stubbornness in the service of a tidy lawn, I finished the job by manually holding the release. Victory, but clearly a temporary one.

Afterward, I filled my wife in on the situation. She, being the far more practical half of this partnership, immediately went online and tracked down a replacement part. We weren’t even sure what to call it at first, but a little internet sleuthing revealed it’s simply known as a control bar. Who knew? The internet, apparently. Isn’t it something that you can find almost anything online these days?

Even better? The part costs about $17 with shipping. Considering that a full lawnmower replacement can run $400 or more, I’ll take that deal any day of the week. There’s even a schematic available online, so the repair shouldn’t be too complicated. I love fixing things, and I’m already looking forward to the project — even if smaller parts can be a bit tricky with my left hand, which hasn’t been quite the same since my brain stroke. I can still fix things, though. And I fully intend to.

The part won’t arrive until next week, so in the meantime, I’m keeping a hopeful eye on the forecast. I cut the grass nice and short before things went sideways, so even if the lawn has to wait a bit, I’m not too worried about things getting out of hand.

Our Other Home Maintenance Projects

My wife has been keeping herself admirably busy in the meantime; she tackled the gutters a few days ago and has also been waging her own personal war on the driveway weeds. Weekend mornings are her time for outdoor chores, and she approaches them with an efficiency I can only admire from the sidelines.

Tomorrow is looking rainy and chilly, but I still plan to get my run in before my dentist appointment. I’ll aim for late morning and just need to be careful not to dawdle so long that I end up dripping onto the dentist’s chair. A little soggy is manageable. A missed appointment is not.

Until next time, may your mower run, your parts be cheap, and your dentist appointments be mercifully uneventful.

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My Post-Stroke Fitness Comeback

Brian’s fitness journal after a brain stroke

This morning, I hit what I can only describe as a personal triumph, the kind that makes you feel smugly satisfied in the best possible way. I completed two full sets of 10 pull-ups, back-to-back, with only a few seconds of rest between sets. For most people, that might sound modest. For me, it’s a mountain crossed.

Let me give you some context. A few years back, my wife, a thoughtful woman that she is, bought me a pull-up tower. She purchased it about a year before I had a brain stroke. The machine sat in the corner for quite a while after that, patiently gathering dust while I did the rather unglamorous work of recovering. When a stroke takes you out of commission for three to four months in bed, your muscles don’t exactly hold a farewell party. They just leave. Quietly. Without notice.

But the tower waited. And eventually, I came back to it.

After hitting my 10-kilometer running goal, I decided resistance training needed to be part of the picture too. I rebuilt the pull-up tower, dusted off a set of weights I bought about fifteen years ago (they’ve aged better than I have), and my wife kindly agreed to get us a “Stealth,” a planking platform that doubles as a gaming platform. Yes, you read that right: you plank while playing a game on-screen. It’s either the best invention of the modern age or a sign that we’ve all lost the plot. Possibly both. Either way, my core is not complaining.

Consistency, as it turns out, is the real workout. In the early days, I was constantly juggling training sessions, appointments, and house chores. My wife handled nearly all the housework until 2020, when I gradually started taking over. These days, she handles lighter tasks while I tackle the most physically demanding one: mowing our very steep hill. If you’ve never mowed a steep hill, allow me to inform you that it is its own cardio program, and it does not care about your schedule.

For a while, the hill was winning. Fitting in full-body workouts and lawn mowing during summer without something slipping off the schedule was a puzzle, and it was always the resistance training that got dropped. Then, a few years ago, I cracked the code: spread the workout menu throughout the week so no single day feels overwhelming. Simple idea. Took me a while to get there.

And today, the plan paid off. Two full sets of ten. Clean. Done.

My run, on the other hand, had a bit less glory. I finished 45 seconds behind my target pace, which means that skipping my Saturday 10K did not, as I had perhaps secretly hoped, gift my legs with mysterious renewed speed. Wednesday looks promising: warm enough to head out immediately after waking up, though rain may have other ideas. The weather and I have a complicated relationship.

Still, today belonged to the pull-up bar. And I’m taking it.

Keep moving, one rep at a time.

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Appointments Galore: Living with Thalassemia and Kidney Disease

Brian’s fitness journal after a brain stroke

Mother Nature, apparently not done with her little games, has turned the thermostat down again. Because of the weather, my morning runs will once more be pushed to the post-breakfast slot next week. As if cold weather weren’t enough of an ambush, my calendar is also staging its own kind of coup. Next week brings a dentist visit on Wednesday, and then on Thursday? Thursday is what I’m generously calling “a double-stick special”: a hematology appointment that may be my last (fingers firmly crossed). Then, I have a nephrology lab visit. Two blood draws in one day. C’est la vie, or, as I like to call it, c’est ma vie.

Now, for those just joining this blog, here’s some context. When your kidneys decide to retire early, as mine did, anemia tends to show up as an uninvited houseguest. Add thalassemia into the mix (which I’ve carried since childhood), and you’ve got yourself a blood situation that’s, let’s say, medically interesting. I’ve been receiving treatment at the hematology center every two weeks, which isn’t exactly what you’d call convenient when there’s a lawn to tend and a life to live. But here’s the good news: it’s working. I’ve been running at a noticeably better pace lately, and I genuinely hadn’t appreciated just how much my blood condition had been quietly dragging me down until now. Turns out, healthy red blood cells are a bit of a performance enhancer. Who knew?

Living with Thalassemia and Kidney Disease

Meanwhile, my wife,  the unofficial research director of our household, has been diving into medical journals on thalassemia and its relationship to organ failure. She’s found some sobering material, particularly about how sickle cell traits can contribute to vascular blockages. As for why my own kidneys failed in the first place, that mystery remains stubbornly unsolved. I don’t smoke, I’m not a heavy drinker, we ate well before any of this began, and when the doctors ruled out cancer, we were left with a medical shrug. My wife keeps digging anyway. I think it’s her way of trying to make sense of something that doesn’t quite add up. I find it equal parts touching and impressive.

On a lighter note:

The intersection near the dentist’s office is finally repaired, which means the walk there will no longer require navigating a small construction labyrinth. Small victories, friends. And logistically, the routes to the hematologist and back from the nephrologist on Thursday should be a little less of an ordeal this time around.

Until next time,  may your week have fewer needle sticks than mine.

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Running Late on Purpose: When Life Delays Your 10K

Brian’s fitness journal after a brain stroke

Life has a funny way of rearranging your carefully laid plans, and sometimes, just sometimes, it gets it exactly right.

This week, my running schedule needed a little surgery of its own. Not literally, thankfully. That honor went to my wife, who had a post-op check-up to attend: sutures to be removed, surgical site to be inspected, the whole routine. She’s not exactly a fan of doctors (unless you count her dentist and GP, who’ve apparently earned some sort of special exemption). So, naturally, I went with her. That’s just how we roll.

The upshot? My morning run got pushed to the afternoon. And here’s the thing: as it turned out, running at that later hour was actually the right call. The earlier window would have been downright unpleasant. Sometimes the universe knows what it’s doing, even when we’re grumbling about it.

My speed, however, had not gotten the memo. I missed my target pace, which, I won’t lie, stings a little. But here’s the silver lining wrapped in a sweatband: I still clocked my 3rd fastest time ever. Third. Fastest. Ever. In the grand scheme of my running history, that’s genuinely impressive. The gaps between my top 10 fastest runs are fairly wide, so even when I’m not breaking personal records, I’m filling in those gaps, and that quiet, steady progress is the kind that compounds.

Tomorrow’s run is also getting the axe. My family is throwing a birthday party for me,  yes, me, over at my sister’s place. Could I theoretically squeeze in a 10k before the cake? Possibly. Would the timing feel rushed and vaguely ridiculous? Absolutely. So I’m giving myself full permission to skip it. A birthday is a perfectly acceptable reason for an unscheduled rest day.

What happens next week is anyone’s guess. Maybe the rest will recharge my legs, and I’ll fly down the road like a birthday-fueled rocket. Or maybe I’ll feel a little rusty and need to ease back in. Either way, I’ll be out there, slightly older, hopefully faster, and definitely better-rested.

Happy running (or strategic non-running, as the occasion demands).

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A Free Day, a Mowed Yard & a Wife’s Post-Op Checkup

Brian’s fitness journal after a brain stroke

There is something deeply satisfying about waking up and realizing: no doctor’s appointments today. Today, my wife had her post-op checkup. For the past few months, my calendar has been cluttered with visits to a hematologist across town, a 20- to 30-minute Uber ride that, thanks to Nashville’s legendary downtown traffic, somehow manages to swallow an entire afternoon. So, when do I get a free day like today? I guard it like a precious gem.

And what did I do with this gleaming gem of a day? I mowed the yard. Very glamorous, I know. But honestly? There’s something therapeutic about knocking a chore off the list. After breakfast and a brief, guilt-free sit-down, I fired up the mower and got it done. The rest of the to-do list is still waiting patiently, but I’m on schedule, and at this rate, I’ll be ticking everything off well before bedtime. Small victories!

Tomorrow is a different story. My wife had surgery exactly a week ago, and we’ll be heading to her post-op checkup. She’s been a champ in recovery, though not without some pharmaceutical drama. Tylenol 3, it turns out, came with an unexpected side effect for her: an absolutely baffling hunger that made her feel like she’d gone 30 hours without food. Which, for most of us, would be alarming, but for her, it was a recognizable sensation. She’s a seasoned fast learner who regularly practices 16-, 20-, 24-, and even 30-hour fasts, convinced (and she’s probably right) that it sharpens her mind considerably.

But here’s the maddening part: she had to eat something with her medication, because Tylenol 3 on an empty stomach is a recipe for trouble. So there she was, feeling ravenous for no medically valid reason, while rationing painkillers like a hero. Post-surgery, she took ibuprofen once for the initial pain and reached for Tylenol 3 only twice, both times when her incision started feeling warm. I call that impressive restraint. She calls it Tuesday.

She’s also asked me to come along to tomorrow’s appointment because, like many perfectly rational human beings, she finds doctors unsettling. I’m happy to be her support human.

My Plan

breakfast, accompany her to the appointment (which shouldn’t run too long), and then get my run in after we’re back. It’ll be a bit chilly if I try to go early, so the post-appointment window works perfectly.

Here’s to the quiet days between the hard ones, and to a good checkup report tomorrow.

Now if only the yard could mow itself.

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Running Faster After Anemia Treatment

Brian’s fitness journal after a brain stroke

Spring has technically arrived, though someone forgot to send the temperature memo. My personal policy is firm: shorts come out when it hits 65°F. This morning it was just a hair below that threshold, and I pulled them on anyway. Sometimes principles are more of a guideline.

And I’m glad I did, because today’s run was something special. For the second time this week, I beat my target pace. Twice. In one week. That’s not nothing. That’s something worth writing home about.

Here’s the secret ingredient: anemia treatment. I’ve been receiving treatment recently, and I can genuinely feel the difference. More hemoglobin means more oxygen, and more oxygen means my legs don’t feel like they’re churning through wet cement. I finally understand why some competitive runners go to such extreme lengths to gain an edge in their blood. I’m not endorsing anything sketchy, just saying: the oxygen, it matters enormously.

The funniest part? My wife pointed out that I had been running in “hard mode” this whole time, and I had absolutely no idea. How would I? The last time I was treated for anemia, I was still learning how to walk. My entire running life has been lived at low hemoglobin levels. That was just my normal. Turns out, my normal was secretly heroic.

One more 5k run this week, and if I match today’s pace, I’ll earn another success that puts me within striking distance of my end-of-year goal. Yes, summer is coming, and yes, the heat will slow me down, the laws of physics apparently still apply. But fall will come around, and I’ll claw back more successes then. Right now, I’m just going to savor this rare and golden alignment of being close to my goal and making rapid progress at the same time.

It’s a good day to be a runner with working red blood cells.

Until next time, may your oxygen levels be plentiful and your pace be swift.

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When Thunder Delays Lawn Mowing Plans

Brian’s fitness journal after a brain stroke

Thunder delayed lawn mowing plans. Mother Nature had opinions this morning. Loud, rumbling, electrically charged opinions. Our neighborhood woke up to a thunderstorm that had absolutely no respect for my carefully scheduled lawn plans or my wife’s morning run.

Speaking of my wife: she’s had a healthy fear of thunderstorms ever since childhood, when the harrowing tale of her aunt being struck by lightning took up permanent residence in her memory. So while I was grumbling about soggy grass, she was firmly planted indoors, which, honestly, is the sensible place to be.

Now, it wasn’t my running day, but the lawn doesn’t really care about my schedule. Since our property faces a forest, we’re in a constant, low-grade negotiation with weeds. The strategy? Keep everything mowed short enough that the weeds look vaguely intentional. (It’s a lifestyle.) The thunderstorm, however, had left everything thoroughly soaked, so I made the executive decision to wait until late morning for things to dry out.

Several Hours Later

Patience paid off. By late morning the grass had dried enough to proceed, and I got the mower out. I should mention we have an electric mower, environmentally friendly, admirably quiet, and possessed of a battery life that has strong opinions about quitting halfway through the job. That’s why we tackle this in halves: not because we’re strategic, but because the battery is.

Still, I managed the half I had skipped last week, and the yard looks respectable again, no small feat considering it slopes, which turns mowing into a mild cardiovascular event. My wife handles the edging and the side beds on weekends, squeezing it into her early mornings before her busy workday. She actually enjoys it. I find both admirable and slightly baffling.

The plan: mow the remaining half on Thursday, since no dermatology appointment is on the calendar that day. The lawn, the schedule, and the battery gods willing.

Until next time, may your grass be dry and your weeds be short.

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A Trim, a Run, and the Slow Art of Getting Better

Brian’s fitness journal after a brain stroke

Sometimes life hands you a haircut you have been putting off for a whole month, and honestly, my hair was starting to have opinions of its own. This morning, I finally made it to the barber.

The timing was opportune, because next week the schedule fills right back up: birthday celebrations incoming, a friend visiting, and simply no room left for personal grooming when good times are on the agenda. We seized the window.

While I sat in the chair, my wife was doing what she always does: maximizing every available minute. She camped out in the car with her books and notes, working through the appointment with the focused energy of someone who considers a parking lot a perfectly legitimate office. As she puts it, any time is time she could use. I love that about her.

Forty minutes later I emerged newly shorn, cropped short enough that I could feel the April air doing its thing against my face. A brisk thing, as it turned out. Today was decidedly chilly, and I couldn’t help lamenting the brief window of gorgeous high-70s weather we had a few weeks ago. It came, it warmed us, and it left. Classic.

The haircut did bump my 10k run to later in the morning, but that turned out fine. It’s still early enough in the season that the temperature hadn’t climbed to punishing levels by the time I laced up. Silver linings.

The run itself? Let’s call it humbling. I didn’t hit my target pace today, which stings a little. The good news is that my blood work has improved. My red blood cell count is up, and I’ve already factored those gains into my pace targets. The less-good news is that the easy improvements are behind me now. I still need to knock another 20 seconds off my target pace before the year is out.

But here’s what I keep reminding myself: slow improvement is still improvement. The low-hanging fruit is gone, but the orchard isn’t empty. It just requires a taller ladder. I’ve got the time. I’ve got the miles. Onward and upward, one slightly-faster lap at a time.

Until next time, your slightly windswept, perpetually-chasing-the-clock friend.

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From Stroke Survivor to 10K Runner: My Pace Story

Brian’s fitness journal after a brain stroke

Let’s take a moment to appreciate mornings when the universe actually cooperates. This morning was one of those rare gifts: perfect shorts weather, not a raindrop in sight despite the forecast’s best threats, and barely a whisper of wind. In other words, ideal running conditions. the kind that make you feel like you’ve got rocket boosters hidden in your sneakers.

And rocket-boosted I felt. My pace numbers agreed, which is always satisfying (nothing worse than feeling fast and then looking at your watch in despair).

I’ve been on a genuine upswing with my running pace lately, and I’ve been thinking about why. The answer, I’m fairly certain, is muscle conditioning. A few years back, I added strength training to my regular running, and, honestly, summers nearly broke me. Running, lawn mowing, and resistance exercise all at once? Even a machine would protest. So last year I got smart about it: I split my workouts into focused sessions — arms one day, something else the next. That small tweak changed everything. I was finally able to keep training through the heat without melting into the sidewalk.

The results have been real. My body fat percentage is now below 13%. I’m leaner. I’m stronger. I can feel it in the way I move.

11 Years Ago

Here’s the part of the story that gives all of this meaning: I had a brain stroke. When it happened, I was in a coma for the first 11 days, and then in bed for nearly two months, mostly sleeping, mostly still. By the time I moved to a long-term care facility, I had lost all the muscle I’d ever built. And I don’t just mean I was out of shape. I had to relearn everything: how to walk, how to move my hand, how to eat.

That first year, my wife and I walked every single day. I had a walker. I had to rest every five minutes. My wife pushed me, gently and persistently, to keep moving my legs. Slowly, those shuffling walks became a routine. Then a habit. Then 1.3 miles. Then, after my wife bought me my first real pair of running shoes, something that started to resemble actual running.

By the time we moved to Nashville, I was jogging, slowly, but jogging. Over the years that followed, I built myself up until I could run 10 kilometers. My wife told me I should be very proud of that, and she’s right. Surviving a brain stroke is something. Getting back to this is something else entirely.

Now I’m working on pace.

This morning, I finished 16 seconds ahead of my target. I then knocked out two sets of pull-ups, a set of 10 and a set of 8, which is exactly what I was aiming for.

Not bad for a guy who once had to rest every five minutes.

Keep moving, keep surprising yourself.

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A Small Win: My Hemoglobin Is Heading Up

Brian’s fitness journal after a brain stroke

Good news arrived at my hematology appointment yesterday: my hemoglobin is heading up! I’m still below normal levels, not exactly a cause for throwing confetti, but at least the numbers are trending in the right direction.

Here’s the funny thing: I haven’t actually felt any different. But I’ve spent so much of my life with what is essentially anemia that being anemic just feels… normal to me. I’d need a much more sudden and dramatic change before my body would bother sending me a memo. Fortunately, lab reports exist precisely because the human body’s internal reporting system can be a bit unreliable.

Background to My Anemia

A bit of background for newer readers: I have what is called Mediterranean Sickle Cell Disease. My red blood cells are misshapen, which can block blood flow and lead to complications such as anemia, pain crises, and organ damage. In short, my red blood cells aren’t great at carrying hemoglobin, and simply taking iron supplements isn’t a good solution for this condition.

This isn’t my first time managing this particular challenge. The first time I needed treatment was right after my brain stroke, when my blood count was already low from blood loss. With my existing condition on top of that, I developed severe anemia. That treatment stretched over several months. Now, ten years later, my hemoglobin has dipped too low again, so here we are, back to treatment.

I go to the lab and receive treatment every other week, with my doctor keeping a close eye on the reports. The good news is that this isn’t a permanent situation. If everything continues going well, I’m on track to wrap up treatment in May. (Fingers crossed!)

This appointment is just one more item on an already packed spring and summer schedule. I’ve been doing some careful calendar juggling to make sure nothing important gets skipped because of these treatment visits, and so far, I’m managing to keep all the plates spinning.

I hope I’ll be back to my best soon. As fun as anemia sounds, I really can’t recommend it.

Until next time,

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