Coming Back to Life

The title seemed apt for a couple of reasons. 

It has been many years since I wrote and this is an attempt to get back into writing, hopefully more regularly. Secondly, there have been several "back to life" moments through the journey of life in the recent years that I will try and recount here. Thirdly, It also helps contextually that Pink Floyd's "Coming back to life" is one of my favourite running songs.

Fast forward from 2012 to now (early 2020), and several thousands of kilometers to the south and east, to the other end of the habitable part of the planet. We have now been in Melbourne for about a year a half. After several months, and many stuttered attempts, I got back into running recently and am hoping to keep this going, targeting a few 30-50k trail runs in the next few winter months, health and other factors (like covid-19) permitting. Before the shutdown started here, I managed a few weeks of good short runs during my lunch break along the Yarra river. It is a beautiful trail sandwiched between MCG and Rod Laver Arena on the left and the Yarra river and Botanical Gardens on the other. 

Some pics from local runs here in Melbourne:

Yarra river trail, MCG / Rod Laver arena on the right

The path leading upto the Federation Bells

 

Fall colours in Mt. Macedon

A local trail near home

For several years of running, I had gotten used to running without any music, and just observing the trails, the forests and the rivers, but somehow now I needed the company and perhaps the push. "Coming Back to Life" has been a prominent song during these runs (the others being a random mix of poetry, devotional, instrumentals and golden oldies), primarily due to its lyrics and cadence. In this approximately 6:30 minute song, the first ~2 minutes are slow, followed by a ~4:30 minute stretch of good lyrics and fast paced music, which seems to help me stick to a  walk / run cadence (about 160 steps per minute) and a decent pace (I am a slow runner). 

Eight years. That is a little over 20% of my life so far. Many exhilarating runs. Nice and memorable trips. Good long book reads during interminably long plane journeys. Emotional upheavals. Excruciatingly painful moments, intense health situations and tragedies, some remarkable recoveries. The kaleidoscope of life...In this post, I will try and summarize the last 8 years of "life", keeping the topic of books/reading to a separate post for later.

For readability, I have separated some accounts of trail running that I did between 2011-2015 into separate posts:

Trail running in the Himalayas, Marin Headlands

Annapurna Ultra 50K

Bangalore Ultra 50K 

As recounted in the trail running posts, during the 4+ years between 2011-2015, I did some lovely runs in the Himalayas, Western Ghats (many of these were with Kanishka and Santhosh), up north of San Franscisco in the absolutely gorgeous Marin Headlands area (mostly alone), and some amazing treks in the Indian and Nepal Himalayas (with a larger group - Savitha, Prasad, Shailesh, Kanchen).

Back in Bangalore, Kanishka, Santhosh, Prasad and I would dream of running/trekking many parts of the Great Himalayan Trail (that stretches about 3000km+) over the next few years, writing about trail running in the Himalayas, doing the basic mountaineering course at the Himalayan Mountaineering Institute before I/we turned 40, and quit our tech jobs in a few years (Santhosh had already taken this plunge in 2008, starting Runners High and volunteering full time for Asha-funded and other schools/organizations), and just run more..

We just did not know that a series of avalanches were just around the next few bends and life was about to have a laugh at our plans. 

Life (2014 - 2018)

A lot of things started happening at an insane and accelerated pace the next few years. 

Jan - Mar 2014

During most of 2011/2012, mom was having issues with breathlessness, and related symptoms, which was finally diagnosed in 2012 to be irregular heart beat and atrial fibrillation. It was to be maintained and controlled with regular medication and blood thinners. It was getting better slowly until she went to the US to be with Savitha who was in New Hampshire for work. That winter was one of the most brutal winters in the north east. I went from Austin (where I was at work in Dec) to visit New Hampshire in Jan 2014 amidst snow and incessant cold (it used to regularly be around -30C, plus windchill). That really threw mom's heart into a congestive heart failure and huge fluid accumulation in the body. We had to hospitalize her for a few days, and after a slow recovery, I got her back to Bangalore (Savitha had to stay back in New Hampshire for another year and a half). She took the next few months to recover slowly. 

Jan - Jul 2014

Another story was evolving rapidly in the background, almost in parallel. Towards the end of 2013, my dear friend Kanishka started having constant coughs, lung infections and incessant fever. It was about a month after we had both paced a few runners through the night during Bangalore Ultra, and after a Himalaya trip that he did later in Nov. We were both in Austin in Dec 2013 on work, and had done a few runs together as well. After a long period of tests and checks through Jan-Mar for pneumonia, tuberculosis and many other things, doctors pronounced the much dreaded diagnosis - Advanced Stage 4A Hodgkins lymphoma. He writes about this in detail here and here. An urgent surgery was critical - the surgeon had to remove his entire right lung (he said before the surgery that he can only tell how much of the lungs he can save on the surgical table), followed by even more urgent chemotherapy to cut down the spread of the cancer. The next 3-4 months saw several excruciating moments, many trips in and out of ICU as he struggled through post surgery complications, pulmonary embolism (clots in the remaining lung), meningitis (an inexplicable infection of the brain, extremely hard to cure), followed by a remarkable recovery. 

His son Ishan had just been born in Feb, so Santhosh and I were with him and his wife Ranjita through this entire 5-6 month period. The danger of him catching an infection was so great that doctors forbade any other visits except Ranjita. We camped in hospital from April till early July. I told my manager at work that I will need to work from hospital for a couple of months, and started doing 6am - 6pm shift with him in the close-to-ICU ward, and Santhosh would come in at 6pm and stay till 6am.  After the surgery, he developed clots in the remaining lung (pulmonary embolism), which caused complications and had to be taken into the ICU for a few days. He barely had come out and started recovering when his chemotherapy was started. 

There were many poignant and heart breaking moments - a couple of days after his first chemo, I got a call at 5am one morning saying he was having seizures and urgently needed to be moved to ICU. I rushed to the hospital, and by 6:30 he was in ICU. Subsequent diagnosis revealed that it was a very rare meningitis, infection of the brain, almost impossible to cure. I remember those moments vividly. Santhosh and I went to the doctors cabin around noon or so, he told us how hopeless the situation was and that they did not know what to do. He said that we just have to wait and see if the body manages to fight back. He then left us alone. Santhosh and I just hung onto each other and cried. What would we tell Ranjita? We spent a very stressful 72 hours praying...During those 3.5 months, I don't think I went home except to have dinner with mom and grandmom and get some sleep. I would usually be one of the first to park my car in the parking lot by 5:45 AM or so the next morning. On many days, it seemed hopeless - we used to sit in the coffee shop and hear the doctors discuss Kanishka's case and how hopeless it was (without them being aware we were around). Our hearts would sink. His case was discussed far and away by doctors in Stanford, as it seemed like it was a unique case medically.

The remarkable fellow that he is, Kanishka recovered over the next few days. He came out of ICU, was moved back into a private room, and our shifts started again. After a few more weeks of slow recovery, he seemed to be on the road to recovery. Soon, doctors allowed visitors, and the entire Runners High running gang started helping out - spending a couple of hours with him, bringing in much needed energy. I managed the entire visiting schedule and was poked fun at for my meticulousness :). His parents were then constantly visiting, bring in good home cooked food, his chemotherapy started again, he soon started gaining weight. He moved back home in early June and recovered slowly after that. 

I feel honoured to have spent those months with him constantly, sitting with him through his entire time in the hospital and all his chemotherapy sessions, seeing what a remarkable person he is and how he fought those times with positivity. He learnt yoga and pranayama techniques, and doctors recently said that his left lung has improved its capacity to compensate for the right and it was like 1.5 lungs now. We slowly started running again together. It really was a "coming back to life" experience!

He went back several more times to his beloved mountains, and we did a recent trip in March 2018 to the relatively remote and extremely beautiful Langtang Valley in Nepal. Kanishka blogged about it here, and some pics are here..Our running/trekking life came back to life...

The full gang at Langtang

Sep - Nov 2014

I was just trying to get back into a routine and then Mom developed a pinch in her cervical spine and could not move her neck even an inch. We consulted a couple of doctors who suggested physiotherapy and surgery perhaps if it does not improve, but that was too painful for her and she just was not improving. I then managed to find a highly sought after acupressure doctor in Bangalore. He said that this will take some time improve, but needs constant sessions. She was in terrible pain for the next few weeks, it was heartbreaking to see. But the promise of recovery was helpful. The next 3+ months were busy - I would wake up early, cook for both of us, and we would leave by 6:30 AM to the doc; I would then drop her back home by 8:30, and then drive to get to work by 9:45/10AM. Fairly long and tiring days / weeks. She finally recovered by late Oct / Nov after about 12-14 weeks of constant therapy. 

Jan - Dec  2015

The next thing was just around the corner. Mom had gone for a walk in early Jan, and fell down. Thankfully I was working from home that day. I rushed her to a hospital within the next hour and she was put in ICU as she had a head injury as well. The doctors said we have to wait for 48 hours due to the head injury. Thankfully it was not serious, but she had a hip fracture. No surgery to be done but bed rest for 6 weeks and slow recovery after that. Savitha rushed from the US and we both set her up at home. I could manage the cooking and taking care of the house, but a nurse was necessary. I worked from home again for the next few months. I have been very lucky to have had extremely supporting managers and workplace.The routine was again similar - wake up by 5am, cook breakfast and all meals for both of us (and the nurse and maid), I would then start working by 9am, do chores in between as much as I could, continue working and making sure mom had her good share of nutritious meals and supplements as she recovered. She recovered well soon after, but it still took her about 3-4 months followed by acupressure for another 2 months.

Somewhere during this time (I think it was June), my dear friend Santhosh's brother passed away when he was alone on work in the UK from a sudden cardiac arrest (he was my age). The next couple of weeks were again very hard. A bunch of us close friends came together to figure out the next steps - Santhosh dealing with medical authorities in the UK to get the logistics of his brother's body back, some of us working with the Indian consulate in the UK, and I was working with Indian authorities in the airport for the final journey home. It was indescribably hard to see his mom, dad and sister-in-law. Thanks to my sister's friend's husband who works in the Bangalore airport, Santhosh and I were able to finally receive his brother, take him to the hospital late in the night, dress him up for his final journey, and finally went early morning to the crematorium. I think I went home quite exhausted. 

Soon after, another close friend's mother went through her final fight with cancer; I spent several days with him in the hospital as the family went through some heart breaking moments, eventually having to decide to stop ventilator support. Such a hard decision for anyone to have to make...Gosh..

In just the next week or so, Savitha's doctor in the US diagnosed her with cancer after one of her routine checkups, just a couple of days before she was due to return back to India. We discussed it and by the time she reached Bangalore, I had set her up with a couple of oncologist appointments. The oncologist suggested immediate surgery, but we sought a second opinion. The next couple of months were again spent in multiple doctor visits, second and third opinions, more tests and MRI and other scans. It took another 5-6 weeks before it turned to be just a scare. Whew..

We then made a celebratory trip to Europe in October for about 2 weeks. We planned it all ourselves, kept it very leisurely and did lovely train rides through Switzerland (Lucerne, Interlaken, Zurich), Salzburg, some parts of Germany (Heidelberg), and Brugges (Belgium). 

Wengen, a picturesque, no-car town in the middle of the Swiss Alps

Pretty hamlets seen from the train

Salzburg

The Sound of Music palace, Salzburg

Brugge, Belgium. The Venice of the North

A random castle somewhere in Brugge

Brugge, Belgium

2016-2017

I tried to get back to running next few months, but slowly some problems started creeping up and steadily worsening for both me & Savitha. We would be more tired and fatigued, hardly feel fresh in the morning, my cholestrol was on a constant high and required medication, we were gaining weight in spite of a highly controlled diet (we had moved to completely organic food about 10 years ago). We were sleeping hardly 2-3 hours in the night. We started seeing a few doctors, and one of them suggested a sleep test. It is an overnight test done either at home (wearing a device that monitors different parameters) or done in a hospital (we did this twice too, one in Bangalore and one in Delhi). 

Turns out it was a combination of several sleep disorders. We were not sleeping for even 3-4 hours medically, which can be quite disastrous in the long run. Firstly, we both had severe sleep apnea (the windpipe collapses when the body relaxes into sleep, causing oxygen cut off and forcing the brain to wake up). This was happening about 30 times an hour, so about once every two minutes. Medically it was in the "high" bucket. Secondly, I had what is called "restless leg syndrome", where the nerves do not relax and keep jerking the mind out of sleep (in ideal sleep, the amygdala blocks out all muscular movements, but lack or imbalance of some chemicals can cause this dysfunction). Additionally, Savitha's REM and non-REM sleep cycles were completely out of synchrony, which are most essential states for deep or restful sleep (and for the body to clean out toxins). There were other issues too - insomnia (trouble starting to fall asleep), trouble staying asleep, poor sleep perception, etc. We did a lot of research - books, doctors, Google... We were to start using CPAP machines during the night to force the windpipe to stay open. It was quite tortuous, and it took us many months to find a mask that was just manageable. The mask itself would be so uncomfortable that we could not fall or stay asleep. We were also put on sleeping pills, with the plan to wean off them in a few months. These central nervous system suppression pills are not a good idea; they have a lot of side effects - mood swings, clinical depression, nausea, and many others. Some medications (like the one Savitha had to take for her sleep cycles) is extremely hard to get out of. But we had no choice but to do this for some month (as it turned out, it took us a good 2+ years to stop all these chemicals). Long story short, we did a lot of research, consulted with our naturopath, took 2 months off from work in Jan 2017, did a cleansing and detoxing therapy at home for about 6 weeks. Very slowly, we started recovering, sleep got a bit better, and over the next 5-6 months we reduced the drugs for sleep and weaned off the CPAP machines (we still keep it around just in case).

Sleep is still tricky for us. We follow a very strict routine, sleep hygeine, and follow many text book methods and are almost maniacal about diet, lifestyle and managing our weight (as extra weight around the neck can cause the windpipe to collapse again). Maybe it is something we just have to learn to manage. 

There were emotional upheavals as well during these years. It is a strange analogy, but I think it is apt. When the body is confronted with an extreme situation - for example, intense cold high up in mountains in what is called the "death zone" (above 24,000 ft), and the climber is faced with having to survive a night or two, the body is faced with a big decision. Stripped down to the essentials of survival, the body starts to sacrifice the extremities (limbs) to preserve the most important core. Likewise, I had to make some hard decisions to walk away from one possible path of life, to keep my core intact.

Looking back, it almost seems like this long roller coaster of a journey, filled with introspective and exhilarating runs, memorable trips, intensely emotional, poignant, and heart breaking experiences, is really perhaps, a long walk within myself. The journey of life is a long one; even longer is what is beyond this life, and the hope is that we prepare our bodies and souls for the road ahead in the quest for the Eternal Truth.