Two cyclists just made my day!

[TxDoc]

What a day yesterday!

First, Fabian Cancellara manages to turn around his 2009 season by winning both the final ITT of the Tour de Suisse and the overall. Congrats to Fabu, 2009 TdS Champion!

Second, Lance Armstrong wins the Nevada City Classic after a successful breakaway. Congrats to Lance for his first comeback victory! Now let's go take back the Tour

Thank you guys - I've been waiting to see these images for the past six months!

[kermit]

Glad to see Fabian made a comeback after all the illness. He is the time trial machine. Lance is just a freak of nature! Can't wait for the tour.

[alpinerabbit]

I don't know about Cancellara and the Tour and I definitely doubt Lance is up to it. He looks too old and frankly, to scared.

[ny biker]

Astana will ride for Contador unless something goes wrong for him. I could see Lance trying to get a stage win, and but most likely he'll be a super domestique. Even he has admitted that he's a longshot for the yellow jersey.

But I gotta say, finishing 12th in the Giro is impressive given his age and the fact that he retired for 3 years and broke his collarbone a month before the race.

[arielmoon]

Awesome for both!

[SadieKate]

. . . and I definitely doubt Lance is up to it. He looks too old and frankly, to scared.

Up to what?

[ZenSojourner]

Too SCARED?

I'm sorry, that's just totally off the wall. The man beat brain cancer that spread throughout most of his body and continued to compete during the process. Pardon me, I think that was prostate cancer that spread to the brain and other places, but either way is just as bad.

You don't get to call him "scared". I'm willing to bet you haven't got a clue of what he's already faced and survived.

My dad beat cancer 4 times. It took 3 simultaneous cancers at the age of 89 to finally take him out. I don't think you know what courage is.

[Possegal]

Just to clarify, he never had brain cancer. He had testicular cancer that metastasized to the brain and lungs, which is a very different thing. Testicular cancer responds to treatment far better than brain cancer does, so it really is a different thing. Sorry - I work in oncology, it's a little pet peeve of mine. Not that I'm not a big fan of his for all he's done for cancer awareness, I most definitely am. But even he says something in that stupid movie "dodgeball" about having brain cancer. He did not have brain cancer.

I see you edited while I was posting. But again the "either way just as bad" isn't true. All stage 4 cancers are not created equal.

Personally, I am looking forward to watching him in the tour and am a tad annoyed that I bagged on planning a trip to France to watch because cousins told me they were coming to visit in July and this weekend they told me they can't. Don't think I can pull off a trip at this point. UGH. So I'll be watching Lance on Versus and enjoying my July anyway. I'll have to buy some stinky cheese and good wine to enjoy while watching!

[tctrek]

We know that Lance came back to ride for his Livestrong cause, which is great. He's not even getting paid!! But we just can't stop cheering him on to WIN. I just think it's incredible after all he's been through that he's riding at all. He is an amazing person.

[SadieKate]

Cheering him on to WIN the TdF????? I think he's going to ride in support of Contador. A win for him is getting Contador the yellow jersey again. He's been pretty frank about this.

[ZenSojourner]

I see you edited while I was posting. But again the "either way just as bad" isn't true.

Sorry, whether you work oncology or not, you're just wrong. In fact, the fact that you claim to work in oncology scares the living crap out of me.

Terminal cancer is terminal cancer is terminal cancer. I've spent the last 2 years devoted to keeping my father alive, despite the nay-saying of oncology "experts".

The kind of cancers that Lance Armstrong was fighting are VERY bad. You can play ontological games with what is "bad" and what is "worse" til the cows come home, and sometimes (to quote Huey Lewis), bad is bad.

What Lance Armstrong was facing was VERY bad. When cancer spreads, it's worse. I'm sorry if I wasn't up to remembering the EXACT circumstances when I wrote the post, but since my dad just died 12 days ago, I'm still struggling. It doesn't help that medical "experts" killed him by putting him on morphine when he already had COPD and congestive heart failure "because he said he was in pain".

Yeah. You know what pain he was talking about? I do. Because I asked. Unlike the medical "expert" who put him on morphine and killed him.

He had an incipient bedsore over his tailbone. That was one pain he had been complaining about for 2 weeks before he was murdered.

He had a bleeding sore on the bridge of his nose, caused by a respiratory therapist putting a CPAP mask on him for HOURS that was patently too small. The nurse on the floor - and the nurse supervisor - both REFUSED to have the mask changed "because the seal is good". The thing was making his nose bleed and it was falling into his mouth because it was too frickin' small. I had to call my son in another state from my cell phone, get him to find the number for respiratory therapy at that hospital online, find the person responsible ON MY OWN, and make them come down and change that mask MYSELF, because medical "experts" couldn't be bothered.

That was pain #2.

And now for the best part. Pain #3. You know what pain #3 was that made the "oncology expert" think he needed to be medicated to death?

His mouth was dry from the frickin' CPAP. They refused to take the mask off long enough to let him suck on foam straws to moisten his mouth. So when the frickin' ghoul who called herself a doctor came along when I wasn't in the room and asked if he was "in pain", and he tried to explain, instead of trying to understand him (how understandable do you think an 89 year old man with no dentures, wearing a CPAP mask, with a mouth so dry his lips are chapping and bleeding, could possibly be to someone who just plain isn't interested in his true condition?) she just dosed him up with morphine, called me AFTER the fact and tried to scare me into making him DNR, then gave me some crap about how he's "struggling to die", THEN, when I dragged her back to his room, she stood over him like a frickin' VAMPIRE asking over and over and over and OVER again, "Are you having any pain?" EVEN AFTER HE SAID NO REPEATEDLY?

NONE of that is pain requiring the administration of opiates.

The expert mentality is extremely dangerous. A truly knowledgeable person in ANY field acknowledges that they don't know. Reconsider your status. My father was killed by "experts". The final straw was when they put him on a frickin' morphine DRIP (again when I wasn't there) because a nurse asked if he was in any pain, and he said, "I don't know. Something hurts. It's EVERYWHERE."

And that, my friend, is what he ALWAYS says when he's sick and needs to use a frickin' BEDPAN. And after 3 days with no bowel movement, how likely do you think it was that what he needed was a BEDPAN, and not a morphine drip? I can tell you this for certain, he hadn't been offered a bedpan, and nobody called me to help before they did it.

"Experts" killed my father. People who "work in oncology" caused his PREMATURE death. He was going to die anyway and it was VERY clear that as far as they were concerned, a few weeks, a few days, a few hours, it didn't matter to them.

It mattered to my father, and it mattered to me, and it mattered to his son and grandchildren who didn't get to see him before he'd been drugged into oblivion.

Are you sure you want to claim "expert" status here? "I work in oncology and this is a pet peeve of mine" - you don't use the word, but the implication is there. Sorry if you're "peevish" about what are life and death issues to the people actually struggling with it!

I have NOTHING but respect for Lance Armstrong, and the fact that he was successfully competitive in a highly demanding sport despite spreading cancer. I know I couldn't do it. He's a bigger person than I am, not because he rides a bike better, but because he fought for his life and refused to give it up under circumstances that I can't even begin to imagine.

It's not just that he lived. It's that even when he was sick, he LIVED.

[ny biker]

Okay, I just watched the final stage of the Tour of Switzerland. Cancellara really was amazing. And I love it when the winner cries at the end.

[Tuckervill]

ZenSojourner, I'm very sorry for the tragic loss of your father. You are obviously still processing what happened. Maybe you should take a break from the forum while you attempt to heal?

With utmost respect and condolences,
Karen

[ilima]

I don't know about Cancellara and the Tour and I definitely doubt Lance is up to it. He looks too old and frankly, to scared.

If Cancellara wins the prolougue he'll probably be in yellow for a week before any significant bumps show up. Nobody expects him to contend for the overall.

[Possegal]

I am truly very sorry for your loss.