Bumping this up and offering a major update:
A lot has happened since I had last posted here.
On August 11, 2007, I did my first ride on the bike. I did ok considering that I hadn't ridden for so many years, and I did have a lot of fun. It was also quite an emotional time for me as well, as I was looking forward to racing again and winning one for my dad who passed in Oct. 1999. He loved watching me race back in the '90s.
Well, the day after that ride my left calf was hurting pretty badly. I had thought it was just a strain or muscle pull from not stretching properly. It would hurt a lot, then settle down, then hurt more at random.
On August 18th I was working in my garage when I felt a weird sensation, twice, in the center of my chest. I paused and checked my pulse, it was normal, I wasn't sweating and had no pain. Very odd.
On the 22nd I was at work when my left calf suddenly felt like someone had stuck a knife in it, savage intense pain. I was tired that day, hadn't eaten lunch, and was stressed about work. So I went home early to grab some food and relax. When I got into my apt. my cat greeted me at the door, then rubbed my left leg, then folded his ears back and started growling. He followed me around growling the whole time.
I called my neighbor, who is a nurse, and told her what was up. She took me to the ER where it was discovered that I had a severe clot in my left leg (DVT) which had broken off and went thru my heart (twice) (the weird sensation I felt on the 18th) and landed in both my lungs. (Double PE)
The doc said over 95% of people that happens to don't survive. They had me in for three days, then I had two wweks of twice-daily shots and then took blood thinner meds since then.
I was just released from the blood thinners a few days ago, so we'll see how it goes.
In the meantime, much to my doctor's chagrin, I had continued to ride (only four rides since my incident though, work and money conspired to slow my plans.)
Well, I continue to ride when I can, and hope to get more ride time so I can hopefully race this coming winter (only a year later than I'd planned, but hey I'd already waited 14+ years).
The pic in the avatar is me and the bike on my second or third ride a while back.
Meantime, I'm glad to still be around and had to resume my visits here on ECN!!