What would you do if you were instantly cured of your dysautonomia? One of my answers is, I would ride a bike, everywhere. I’d damn near stop driving altogether. It’s always been one of my goals.
I remember learning to ride a bike when I was a kid, it required a lot of faith. My big sister put me on the bike and pushed me and said pedal, so I did. It was not lost on me that I would soon crash but it worked out in the end. Learning to do anything is mostly like that. You just do it and you’re horrible at it until finally, you stop sucking at it.
For
quite a while I sucked at being ill, meaning I ate a terrible diet and
drank lots of beer and as a result, spent most of the day lying in the
bed in pain. I stayed in my room and closed the door, paid my half of
the rent; I mean I was conscious of not putting my problems off on other
people. It just seemed to my
family like I had become an agoraphobic, which is a respected position
in my family since in any generation, a few on my mom’s side are
stricken with an inability to venture out into the world. It becomes a mysterious and spiritual position. I’ve
heard that also happens in Jewish families, the mentally ill are
sometimes seen as having a special connection to god or to spiritual
things. It’s a sensitivity they have, we have, that does in fact, in many cases, lead to an expanded spiritual sense.
Maybe that lead me out of my torpor. I
always had the sense that I needed to be moving forward, even if I
could barely venture out of bed, so I hit the computer and the phones. Since I couldn’t work, I decided to help other people find work. I
helped land my brother and a friend good jobs through some connections I
had made online and that kinda catapulted me out of the worst of my
being disabled, seeing that even at my worst, I could still accomplish
something. One of the things I discovered that I absolutely had lost the ability to do was ride an upright bike.
My initial solution was to buy a recumbent trike off Craigslist and ride it. It was an amazing solution. You have far more leg power, strength, and endurance sitting down reclined on a bike than you do sitting up. I
could have ridden that thing across the city without breaking a sweat
whereas on a normal bike, I’m having severe chest pain in just seconds. The
recumbent trike I bought was made for the beginner, so it only cost me
$50 but the tires were tiny so I replaced then with normal sized bike
tires and created a nice hybrid that rode smoothly, to my surprise. It was also easy to put in my van and take out: all in all just a hell of a lot of fun. Poor Betsy has been lost to time now. I left her over an ex’s house and she fell victim to that woman’s need to purge any sore reminders of love lost.
This week I went looking for a replacement and recumbent trikes are not cheap, even used they will cost between $200 to $2,000. I don’t have the money these days and it surprises me that I once did. So, I’ve decided I’m going to attempt to ride an upright bike. My health has gotten much better due to diet and having found a good doctor. I have almost no chest pain now and little orthostatic intolerance. It might be time for me to venture out from home, not be the family agoraphobic. A
regular bike need cost no more than $200 and there’s lots to choose
from, it’s totally not like trying to buy a recumbent trike which is
difficult and expensive. There are many many great reasons to ride a bike, and only a few drawbacks but we’ll discuss those later. Now it’s time for me to browse my options and find the bike that is right for me. Happy Friday yall.
--DF Seldon
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