Denver to Washington, D.C. 2026 - Aftermath of cancelation

It's been eight weeks and three days since I canceled Denver to Washington, D.C. 2026, and exactly six weeks and three days since I was scheduled to depart for that trip. During the first two weeks after I canceled the trip I was at peace with my decision to cancel, although disappointed I would not take the trip. In this post I write about my experience since canceling.

Sleep apnea

In Denver to Washington, D.C. 2026 - Canceled June 10, 2026, I wrote about problems with my sleep for the prior several months. In March of this year I told my friend Harold Rosenthal about my sleep trouble and he said it sounded like sleep apnea. I realized that my awakening a few times each week startled was actually an episode in which I was gasping for air.

Lori told me that I stored only when lying on my back. So on June 10th, the day I cancelled my cross-country trip, I did the following as preparation for sleep:

Lie on my back
Say to myself: If I find myself in this position tonight I will roll onto my left side...
Roll onto my left side
Roll back onto my back
Say to myself: ...or onto my right side.
Roll onto my left side

The next morning I woke refreshed, in stack contrast to my experience during the previous few months. I repeated the procedure described above every night for the next week or so. Since the first night of performing the procedure I have awakened in the morning refreshed, and have not once awakened in the night gasping for air. Sleep apnea fixed without drugs or any device, just self-hypnosis!

Back pain

I have a practice of taking a walk through my neighborhood while I enjoy a bar of Lindt chocolate with 90% cacao. I put on my shoes after gently squatting onto a step about 10 inches high. On the morning of June 24th, the day I had been scheduled to fly to Denver, I experienced a sudden sharp pain in my lower back as I was putting on my shoes. The pain persisted at varying intensity over the next few days and then disappeared, only to return again and last a few days. This pattern continued for the next few weeks, with various sorts of back pain, including sacral, lumbar, and sciatic. But on the weekend starting July 17th I felt so good that on Monday the 20th I went for a 13.7-mile bike ride, my first since June 26th. I enjoyed the ride so much that I thought maybe it was time to put the Denver-to-Washington trip on my calendar for next June.

On Tuesday the 21st the lumbar back pain returned and got worse every day through the rest of the week. It became more and more difficult for me to go from sitting to standing or standing to sitting, and on Friday I started using a walker to get around my apartment. I spent a lot of time lying on my back, which was comfortable, but being upright was difficult, and leaning forward even a small amount, such as to wash my hands under a faucet, provoked a spasm. At about 4:00 in the morning on Sunday, with great difficulty I got up to pee. Even with the walker I was unable to get to the bathroom. After I had been stuck for a few minutes Lori asked whether it was time to call an ambulance and I said it was.

I somehow managed to get from our bedroom to the open space of our studio where I knew it would be easier for me to get on a gurney. While standing waiting for the ambulance I started to feel faint, and somehow managed to get to my Feldenkrais table, sit on it, and lie down. I immediately felt much better.

The paramedics arrived some time after 5:00. They took my blood pressure (it was a healthy low, as usual) and checked my heart with an EKG (all fine). They explained the options I had, the first of which was to stay home and wait it out. The alternative was for them to give me a drug (fentanyl was one possibility) that would reduce my pain, and take me to a hospital. They said that at the hospital I might see a doctor or I might not, that I might get a scan of my back or I might not, that I might get a referral or I might not, or that that might send me home. Given all that uncertainty, and my ability to now sit and stand, I decided to stay home.

I slept well through the rest of the night and late into the morning. I felt better after I woke up and managed to get around with the help of the walker, and continued to improve throughout the day. In the evening, when Lori was cooking, I startled her by coming into the kitchen without the walker. She exclaimed "What are you doing!". I told her that I had improved so much that I no longer needed the walker.

On Wednesday the 29th I had an x-ray for my sacrum and another for my lumbar spine. The x-ray of my sacrum showed no anomalies, which is what I expected because my sacrum had felt stable since at least July 17th. The x-ray of my lumbar spine shows that L5 was 1.6 cm (0.63 inches) behind L4, which is what I had expected because for years I have felt the spinous process of L5 sticking out to the rear. How does my spinal cord travel between L4 and L5 with that deviation between the two disks? I'm guessing it was having trouble doing that for the past few weeks.

Acupuncture and Tui na massage with Cynthia Hewett every Monday from June 22nd through July 3rd has been helpful through this difficult time. On July 30th I had a Feldenkrais lesson with Anastasi Siotas in which he helped me learn to perform nutation of my sacrum, the movement of tipping my sacrum forward into my pelvis. After I do that movement for a minute I feel relief in my lower back, and now the spinous process of L5 is sticking out to the rear is somewhat less. Each day I feel and move a little better than the previous day. I had another lesson with Anastasi on August 6th, and I'll probably soon have at least one more with him, maybe including having him observe me on my bike.

I look forward to getting another x-ray of my lumbar spine in a few months to see how far L5 has moved forward relative to L4.

In June 7, 2026 - High Falls, NY, to Garrison, NY, I wrote that "During the last few weeks I had been learning to let my pelvis move more freely so that I would not have a habitual pain in the right side of my lower back. On this trip I felt no such pain." So I find it ironic that just two and a half weeks later all this back pain started, and on the very day I was scheduled to leave for Denver. Double irony!

I bought a NeuroMD device for back pain which arrived on July 27th, a week and a half ago, which I have yet used because I've been so busy. I'm optimistic that it will be helpful. At my request, my primary doctor, Polina Liss, wrote me a prescription for physical therapy. Anastasi Siotas recommended I see Dariusz Jarzabowski, who is a Feldenkrais practitioner in addition to being a physical therapist. I have my first appointment with him September 14th.

Regarding my back pain I am applying the principle of Zero Tolerance for Anomalies from my Aphorisms and Exhortations:

If you notice that something is off, do not ignore it.
Instead persist until you resolve the anomaly.

I'm confident that I'm on a path of resolving the trouble.

Would any of this back pain have happened if I had not cancelled the trip? Did I dodge a bullet or did I fire one?

I haven't ridden my bike since July 20th, the day before the I experienced five days of the worst back pain, but I'm looking forward to going for a short ride soon. I've also planned a 149-mile three-day trip on which I would take an Amtrak train to and from Albany.

Continuous glucose monitor

For the last few years my average glucose level, as measured by A1C, has been borderline high. I had my my primary doctor, Polina Liss, write a prescription for a FreeStyle Libre 3 Plus continuous glucose monitor so I could see how I responded to various foods. Because I’m not diabetic, Medicare would not cover the cost, but the person who sold me the monitor at Walgreens found a coupon so that two 15-day monitors cost me a total of just $83. While using the first monitor from July 11th through the 26th I kept a log of what I ate and what my glucose levels were before and after eating. You can see that file here.

As you can see in the file linked above, I have learned so much about how I respond to various foods. The biggest surprise was my response to all-you-can-eat sushi (the rice is the culprit). Below is a screen shot from my phone of the day I had the sushi, July 23rd. I was able to see the spike on the graph grow during and after eating the sushi.

I’ve already made significant changes to my diet, which are listed in the ACTIONS section of the file you can find here. Since starting to use the monitor I’ve happily lost about seven pounds, maybe mostly because of the elimination of a daily slice of pizza for lunch which I had been having for the last several months. I have not started to use the second monitor because I want to see how I respond to various foods, and to sustained exercise, while I’m on a three-day bike trip.

I don’t know of any better way to learn how one responds to various foods than by using a continuous glucose monitor. My FreeStyle Libre 3 Plus monitor required a prescription, but there are other monitors for which no prescription is needed. If you want to improve your health by optimizing your diet, I urge you to get a monitor.

A1C is a measure of average glucose level over a three-month period. There’s not even a measure of variation accompanying it, so it doesn’t distinguish between a relatively constant level and one that swings wildly, and it provides absolutely no information about which foods are problematic. But a continuous glucose monitor shows one’s response as it is happening. How cool is that!

* * *

How much of an adventure can it be if everything goes according to plan?

I had been planning for several months to ride during July and August from Denver to Washington, D.C., the portion of the trip that I missed in 2024. By now I would probably have nearly completed that trip. Instead I have made tremendous progress with regard to my sleep, my lumbar spine, and my nutrition. I've been on an amazing adventure since canceling my trip on June 10th, and I look forward to making further progress, especially with regard to my lumbar spine and my nutrition.

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