It’s a world of difference, turning 70. In 2013 I wrote a remembrance of growing up, maturing and turning 59. But, life kept moving. Suddenly, things have radically changed. I decided to retire at the end of a long career in general surgery. While working, I always had to squeeze in the time for training for half and full marathons, several shorter races, and for my annual cycling vacation with friends in Northampton, Massachusetts. One of my favorite cartoons shows a peasant training for a marathon. This cartoon, by Frank Cotham, publishedin The New Yorker 3/12/2018, captured my style. (My wife bought a print for me for Christmas and I have it hanging next to my race medals).

After 59, I still had room to improve. Almost 61, I ran my half marathon PR, at the Caesar Rodney half in Wilmington, March 22, 2015.

I was doing pretty well the next few years, at work and at play. My good friend Brandon, with whom I’ve run many training miles, often told me that once I retire, I can train even harder and really do great things.

Due to unanticipated problems, that didn’t happen. Or, at least, not as I wished. We experienced the covid pandemic, but I cannot say that affected me personally, too much. People still needed surgery, so other than three months in 2020 when we postponed certain elective procedures, we still worked. I got my vaccines when they became available. Running, though, was a great way to get outdoors, mask-free, and enjoy nature. But a couple of problems came up. Two years ago I was out for a run and got a shearing pain in my right calf. It came on suddenly, like a knife wound. It turned out I had ruptured a Baker’s cyst, which is a thinning and bulging, then tearing of the joint capsule around the knee, releasing joint fluid into my calf muscles. I had an MRI of the knee which also showed A complete tearing off of my medial meniscus. Consulting with three orthopedic surgeons, they all came to the same conclusion. Surgery won’t help, you are kind of old. I attribute this condition not to running, but to standing hour after hour in the OR, constant pressure on the joints, and hyper-extending my knees to be able to get procedures done. This waylaid me for months. After about four or five months I tried running again, very gingerly. While it felt okay, I was still limping and had some pain in the knee. Also, no running for that long makes getting back into fitness a big challenge. Slowly, I hauled myself back, into running and cycling. Yet, I found myself going much slower than before.

Over the next year, things slowly improved. I felt fitness returning. I signed up for a 100 mile bike ride in London, the London-Essex 100, put on by the London Marathon Association and scheduled for the end of May, 2023. I got in some good training, including the Delaware Gran Fondo, a 65 mile ride with 5000 feet of climbing. The London ride went great! I had a good ride, finishing under six hours.

It was then I decided it was time to retire. Work was as busy and satisfying as ever, but taking call, having to wake up in the middle of the night multiple times, sometimes having to go to the hospital at night and still work the next day, was too much. I gave my six months notice. At first, six months seemed like a long way away. As time went by, though, my wife and I had to start planning for Medicare and Social Security. It turns out, there is a lot to do for both those items. The last two months of my employment we spent deciding on things like a Medigap plan and Medicare part D drug coverage. Up to late August, I didn’t need drug coverage. But my blood pressure got the best of me and my friend Glenn, cyclist and physician, started me on a pill. Then, when that wasn’t enough, he switched me to a pill twice a day. Still, not too bad. But in early November, I went for a run after a day in surgery. I got a tenth of a mile and the muscles of the front of my left thigh, the quadriceps, became painful. I stopped, and the pain went away. Being obstinate, I did this numerous times, but had the same problem repeatedly. I tried again the next morning, a Saturday, but still had the same result. When I got home I noticed my left leg and thigh were swollen and bluish. I can recognize a vein thrombosis when I see one! My wife took me to our ER, where I entered like I usually do, the back way, and chatted with the ER doctors. They set me straight, got some imaging done, and discovered I have a condition called May-Thurner syndrome, or a thrombosed left common iliac vein. I was started on heparin, a blood “thinner”, and the next day had surgery to open the vein. Since then, I am on an oral blood thinner which happens to be very expensive. So, now I need that Medicare drug plan. On the positive side, I’m able to cycle and run again.

There is some pressure applied when one retires. Many of my friends have said they are eagerly waiting to see what I do in retirement. They predict all sorts of great projects and activities. That’s a lot to live up to. Right now, I have taken a week off to visit my daughter’s family in Texas, and help my brother-in-law work some calves and cows on our ranch in Oklahoma. But this feels like a regular vacation, as if I’ll return next week and have a full schedule in the OR. Nope. But I will be starting a teaching job at our med school teaching first and second year students. This means I have to relearn all that I learned in med school plus all the new information discovered the last 40 years. I will have more time to run, though….