Flying in V Formation

Last week, my son and I bicycled 70 miles over three different days. He's a strong rider and he also tends to push himself. This is a kid who biked 20 miles when he was 6 (he'll correct me and say he was 5 years old.) But I do want him to conserve some energy.

So, I was trying to teach him to draft. I learned drafting from my husband, who, long ago, before we met, used to race and ride with a team/club. Basically, it's the same type of thing that birds do when they fly. There's a leader, who is strong and removes some of the drag from everyone else, who follows in his or her wake. Think of it as rollerblading right behind a moving truck (but don't try it!) The moving truck would cut the wind, and its movement alone would suck you in a bit so that you had less work to do in terms of using up energy for movement.

The problem with my son is that: 1. He's 12 and a little impulsive (think: sudden stops.) 2. He does not have shoes that click into his pedals yet, although his dad and I think he's ready for them. 3. He's faster than I am on the uphills and slower on the downhills.

The sudden stops aren't that much of a problem anymore. Years ago, on a "warm" February day, I toppled into a watery ditch because I was following him a little too closely and couldn't unclip my feet from my pedals when he came to an abrupt halt. 

The shoes, the shoes...he's expending a lot of extra energy by wearing regular sneakers and not being able to pull up on his pedals. Toestraps would help a bit, but he tried them and didn't like them (they're not like good shoes anyway.) Being that he's an avid rollerblader and skateboarder, he has good balance and should be able to handle clipless pedals without taking more falls at stopsigns than I have. 

I would very much like to get him kneepads for that day, though. He'd never wear them. 

Perhaps I need them more! I admit it. I have either forgotten to remove a foot or leaned too far over on the side in which my foot is still clipped in. The other day, and I don't think I can claim "Lyme-brain" for this, I shifted up instead of down while going up a steep hill--a shift I've done so many times correctly and automatically--and I could not keep my bicycle rolling. Oops. Crash.

Back to drafting. While teaching my son to draft, I got to thinking that the only way we've all gotten through these years of PANDAS and Lyme is through drafting. My husband and I are a team and we take turns being in the lead. We each have our tasks. I don't write a lot about my husband, as he is very private, but we had days when I wasn't sure the marriage would last. There were a few months in which I thought that if we did not have kids, I would have been outa there. Of course, many of our problems stemmed from these kids. And how we handled the issues.

We're moving torward our 15 year wedding anniversary. We have come through horrendous times when no one believed our son was physically sick. We have survived not giving or getting good gifts for previous anniversaries, not going away alone for a week or even a weekend without kids--ever. But that's they key phrase--we have survived. We have done so by drafting off one another.

When we're both tired and stressed, we run aground. We don't have a lot of family around who can step into any type of lead position. But we have other people who have assisted--our doctors, our educational advocate, friends, a camp scholarship for my daughter that was suggested by a colleague of mine. This is our team, and we carry ourselves like one of the finest bicycling teams sans steriods. 

[After all, steroids suppress the immune system and allow borrellia to live strong and prosper.]

Everyone going through this type of ordeal needs a support system, a team. Everyone needs to take a breather for at least a minute, an hour, a weekend? I don't know how some of the single parents in our PANDAS support groups make it through--but they do--they find an inner strength. And someone to draft off of, even for a few minutes.

For me, I am happy to come home to my husband's dinner. I am relieved that he remembers the appointments that our kids have. He is happy to leave the letter writing and the calling of doctors to me. We trade off, and when complete fatigue or PTSD smack us hard, the other one is ready to step in. 

Someday, my son will need to handle whatever medical conditions remain with him. We will teach him slowy to plan out his meds and to follow routines. But in the meantime, we'll teach him how to get his front bicycle wheel close to our back tires without bumping us, so that he can aerodynamically slice that bike through the air and fly.

Summertime

by George Gershwin

One of these mornings
You're going to rise up singing
Then you'll spread your wings
And you'll take to the sky

But till that morning
There's a'nothing can harm you
With daddy and mamma standing by