The image is a good friend of mine cranking some Austin limestone a few years ago (Forget it guys, she’s happily married). It’s good to remember, as the year draws to a close, what a person can do and the kind of things I used to do, casually, without thinking much about it. Climbing, skydiving, partying hard afterward, or less eye-catching but equally risky activity, you name it, it all seemed a matter of course. Spare me the jokes about jumping out of perfectly good planes — jump planes are a far cry from perfectly good!
But it was exactly one year ago when I felt a new, weird sensation in my upper gut, for a few moments it was almost like I got my wind knocked out. A lingering burning feeling just below the sternum persisted, it was initially diagnosed as an ulcer, then a torn diaphragm. It wasn’t. [Read more…]