07/30/2024
Hi, all, just wanted to share with everyone a quick update on my health and my recently apparent societal sedation. The short story is that earlier this year, I encountered a pretty significant injury to my lumbar spine from hiking. After a robust amount of evaluation and some very recent surgical interventions, my doctors expect that I will make a slow, but full recovery, for which I am incredibly thankful.
I'll lay out a little bit more context below for anyone interested: a short highlight…with a tremendous amount of excitement and anticipation, late last year, I began planning a small team bicycle ride across the United States for Parkinson's awareness.
February (’24), I experienced a back injury treking down Mount Luxmore on the next to the last day of a bucket list trip to New Zealand. This resulted in an inability to walk even moderate distances, without Assistance or carry anything heavier than like a soda can. With the assistance of wheelchairs and a few other things, I carved my way back home where I was fortunate to have a orthopedic appointment the following day. Now under the guide of a orthopedic surgeon and a neurosurgeon, as the second set of eyes and opinions, I navigated through a series of several MRIs, nerve studies, x-rays, med packs, and epidurals resulting in a incredible body of information, yet, still not a 100% understanding of all the interactions, due to the very complex pathology of my lumbar spine
In May, despite the tremendous intermittent pain I was experiencing, I decided that if i was medically safe to do so, I would join the cross country cycling team, and while highly doubtful that I could cycle the full amount, I wanted to be there, to the very least, make sure the team made it to the end and if nothing else I could always change roles to be the documentarian. So with two very thoughtful, medical approvals and without further ado, we headed out from Yorktown, Virginia on May 1
You may be asking yourself how someone who can't walk, ride a bike every day across America. Well I certainly didn't expect to be able to do that, and believe me, I fell off my two wheeled bike numerous times trying to use it… and then I discovered the technology of a recumbent trike. It is not an understatement to say pretty much the only place on this earth I ever felt comfortable during the long ride was lying in that trike, because I can't stand or sit for very long.
Our team completed the long ride on June 30, 2024. It was an amazing journey with so many great people helping along the way ( I'm in the process of sharing a recap on that, so more to come).
My “experiences” during the last two months of cycling across the US and the third and final MRI upon my return, provided the remaining pieces of information the medical team needed and I had surgery a week ago Friday.
The orthopedic surgeon is extremely happy with the way the surgery went. The surgery was able to address several problems and therefore resulted in being comprised of several procedures. The only downside to this is a very slow recovery process for me. I won't be able to even start physical therapy for five more weeks.
So apologies for all the slow responses and correspondences and thank you for all the well wishes and notes.
I'm feeling better every day right now and as of this note, I can still properly pronounce spondylolisthesis, which is all I can hope for. Meanwhile, it's been inspirational watching what everybody is up to, this is one of the key drivers in keeping me motivated to recover as quickly as possible and I thank you for that. Keep up the good work out there. I'll see you guys soon out there on the road.
Best,
Bill Bucklew
