Dear Family,
Crystal learned this month that if you need a good spine surgeon, it’s really helpful to be Roland Kent’s sister.
If you are a faithful reader of my letters (and have a good memory) you already know that Crystal’s back surgery last spring — performed by a surgeon more conveniently located to us than Roland, who lives in North Idaho — did not produce the desired outcome. Crystal is no longer in constant pain. But her nerve impingement clearly persists, evidenced by her noticeable limp and continued foot-flopping.
Her local surgeon felt that the surgery was successful because it had alleviated her pain. I suppose there is some truth to that, but Crystal was hoping for more than that. And not surprisingly, when her brother looked at her post-surgery MRI, he very diplomatically (without casting any aspersions on Crystal’s surgeon) suggested that it looked to him like “a little more could have been done there.”
In addition to running his own spine practice (I’ve been there — it’s an amazing place), Roland regularly crisscrosses the globe teaching other spine surgeons how to be better spine surgeons. Consequently, he knows who the best ones are, and he referred Crystal to a guy he knows and likes at the University of Maryland. Roland told Crystal to call the guy’s office and to use his (Roland’s) name.
Crystal called and told whoever answered the phone that she was Roland Kent’s sister and needed to make an appointment. The scheduler replied that the calendar was “locked” for the next several weeks, that the doctor would need to personally approve any new appointments, and that she would need to call Crystal back.
She called back about two minutes later, offering Crystal an appointment the following day. From that point forward, Roland Kent’s big sister Crystal started getting the full Taylor Swift treatment.
The main campus of the University of Maryland is in College Park, about 20 minutes from here. But the University of Maryland’s medical school and hospital are in Baltimore, about 40 minutes from here. Not super-duper close, but close enough.
Where in Baltimore did Crystal need to go, exactly? Well, you’ve probably seen the place. The doctor’s office is located inside that giant, iconic converted warehouse behind the right field wall of Oriole Park at Camden Yards.
Any doctor with office space that cool has to be good, right?
(Incidentally, if you’re ever in town, there might not be a more beautiful setting for a baseball game than Oriole Park at Camden Yards. I haven’t been to every Major League Baseball stadium — not even close — but I have been to games at Yankee Stadium and Fenway Park, both of which are awesome. Camden Yards is just better.)
Anyway, Crystal arrived for her appointment and was initially told she wasn’t on the schedule. She explained that the appointment had been made only yesterday and pointed out again the fact that she was Roland Kent’s sister. The receptionist disappeared into the back and reappeared a short time later with a series of people who took turns speaking of Dr. Kent in adoring, almost mythical terms. The doctor described Roland as a “wizard” with the robotic arm they use to perform surgeries. He initially wondered why Roland didn’t want to do Crystal’s surgery himself, but then surmised, “He doesn’t do little surgeries like this anymore — he just takes big whacks.”
The doctor agreed with Roland’s assessment that more could be done and suggested a second surgery be scheduled. His office is currently making appointments for February, but they basically told Crystal she could book it whenever she wanted. There’s some question as to whether to do it before or after Sophie’s wedding at the end of December. Crystal is currently leaning toward after.
We’ll keep you posted.
Unrelated to Crystal’s back, on Saturday the 9th, the two of us went to see the Ridgeview Middle School production of Charlotte’s Web in which two of Crystal’s students performed. The play was pretty good, but mostly I was excited for the excuse to see Crystal’s new classroom. Isn’t she pretty?
Orthopedic issues of my own
Years ago, I started wondering what I would write about in these monthly letters when the kids were grown and gone. Recently, it has occurred to me that I will probably be able to fill the space with tales of mortality and our deteriorating physical bodies.
Because who wouldn’t want to know everything there is to know about that?
I recently made the mistake of complaining to one of my fellow temple workers about the physical limitations and other annoyances I’ve started noticing in my early 50s. The 86-year-old literally burst into contemptuous laughter and almost shouted in response: “YOU HAVE NO IDEA!” (It probably only seemed like shouting because we were in the temple, where even normal speaking voices sometimes come across as too loud.)
He was right, of course. He then reflected wistfully about his 70s and how easy everything seemed back then. He gets around somewhat more fluidly than my 82-year-old father, but the two men emerge from chairs with similar difficulty. My instinct is to offer them a hand when they are struggling to stand up, but Dad seems find this gesture more annoying than helpful. It’s like he’s saying, “This is something I can do. Let me do it!” My temple worker friend is exactly the same way, and so I’ve stopped offering any elderly person a hand when I see one slowly working his way out of a chair. At some point, I’m going to find myself in a position where my inaction will be perceived as cold or unfeeling. (I expect at some point I’ll find myself struggling to get out of chairs myself.) But what are you gonna do?
But anyway, back to my current problems.
As of this month, I have now registered to run the Richmond Marathon three times, started it twice, and finished it once.
I “successfully” completed it in 2012. Successfully is in quotes because I should have done better than the 4 hours and 8 minutes it took me. But I finished, which is more than I can say about the next two times I signed up for Richmond.
In 2022, I broke my toe seven days before the race and didn’t even start. (I’ve broken three bones in my life — all of them in 2022.)
My 2024 experience was even more depressing. For two or three weeks leading up to the race, I’d been experiencing pain that seemed to migrate around various parts of my lower body — from my hips to my glutes to my hamstrings, before always seeming to settle in my right lower back. I’d always been able to run through it — somewhere between miles 5 and 8 of any given run, everything would more or less settle into place, and I’d feel okay.
That is until the Saturday before this year’s race. I was doing one final 10-mile run (as one typically does the weekend before a marathon). At no point during it did I feel good. I got through it, but when I finished, my lower back hurt so badly that I could barely walk. Ibuprofen solved it. Which is to say, ibuprofen allowed me to walk with only minimal discomfort, but something was still obviously off.
It was too late to defer my race entry to next year. And so I picked up Crystal from school on Friday afternoon and we drove down to Richmond together. Maybe, I thought, I’d somehow miraculously be able to get through it.
The Richmond Marriott, where we slept, was just a few blocks from the starting line. It was chilly at 7 a.m. and so I wore lots of clothes into the starting corral. Then, maybe 30 seconds before the gun, I stripped off everything except my shorts and racing singlet and handed it all to Crystal. She gave me a kiss and an “I believe in you” look. Her faith in me at that point was considerably greater than my own faith in myself. I responded with something like an “okay, here goes nothing” expression, and we said what felt to me like fateful good-byes.
The race started and I slowly made my way through the first mile. I didn’t feel great but good enough to make forward progress. By the second mile marker, my hips were starting to hurt some, but no big deal. By the end of mile 3, the sharp lower back pain had returned.
I knew I wasn’t going to make it another 23 miles and so I just started walking and moved off the course and onto the sidewalk.
I don’t usually race with my phone, but I’d decided to carry it this time in case I needed help mid-way through. At this point I was only a little more than three miles from the hotel, and so I figured I could just walk back. But within half a mile, my back was really hurting and I was starting to shiver (I was dressed for running, not walking). I pulled out my phone, found a Bird scooter a couple blocks away, and rode it back to the hotel.
Richmond law requires electric scooter riders to 1) wear a helmet, and 2) stay off of the sidewalk. These laws are adhered to by precisely no one. I would have worn a helmet if one had been provided, but I’m not in the habit of starting marathons with a helmet. I tried to stay off the sidewalk, but the road was choked with people running the race. I guess I could have taken a different road back, but I was too cold and miserable to figure out an alternate route. And so I alternated between dodging obstacles on the sidewalk and dodging race participants in the street. Only the very slowest runners and walkers were still on the first two miles of the course by that point, so it wasn’t that big a deal. And I didn’t really care, anyway. All I cared about was getting back to the warmth of the Marriott lobby.
My extremities were numb from the cold by the time I got there, but I made it. In hindsight, an Uber probably would have made more sense, but where would the adventure have been in that?!
Crystal and I hung out in the hotel room for a couple of hours before walking down to the finish area where I picked up my finisher hat and blanket. (I experienced an ethical quandary over whether I was, in fact, entitled to these “finisher” items. I decided I was since I had paid for them, after all. I did not cross the finish line and pick up a finisher medal, however. That’s where I drew my ethical line.)
Crystal and I then did a little cheering of other runners and spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around downtown Richmond and mostly binge-watching Netflix in our room.
We spent Saturday night there but had to leave at 6:00 the next morning in order to get home in time for the 8:15 a.m. final rehearsal of the youth choir I was directing at stake conference later that morning.
(On a side note, directing that choir was, musically speaking, one of the funnest things I’ve ever done. Just a wonderful, wonderful group of kids. It’s corny to say, I know, but the future of the Church really is in good hands.)
But back to my deteriorating body…
I got in to see the first orthopedist I could get an appointment with. X-rays of my back, hips and knees were followed by what sounded mostly like conjecture and supposition on his part. A knee specialist, he diagnosed some mild arthritis in both of my knees, which didn’t surprise me. I feel it when standing up and when walking up and (mostly) down stairs, but it’s nothing debilitating. He told me I “still have 80% of the tread left on the tires” and didn’t seem overly concerned about it.
I asked if there was anything I could do about it.
“Try not to bend your knees so much.”
Thanks, doc.
He did not attribute it to running or even suggest that I stop or limit my running (at least not for my knees’ sake). So I was happy about that.
But my knees weren’t what brought me there.
When it came to my hip and back pain, an obvious explanation seemed to elude him and he was clearly grasping for something. He thought he saw some narrowing in my spinal column at L4-L5. Only a small amount of narrowing, he said, but he nevertheless hypothesized that it could cause a pinched nerve when inflamed and actually wrote radiculopathy on my chart. That concerned me, but I honestly don’t think it’s that. Radiculopathy is what Crystal has, and what I’m experiencing is nothing like what she’s been suffering from. I can sit, stand, lie down, and bend in any direction without any nerve pain — I only experience pain after running a couple of miles, and it’s confined to my hips and lower back, rather than shooting down my legs. I don’t know anything about anything, but that does not sound like a nerve impingement to me.
The physical therapist’s working hypothesis is that it’s muscular, which sounds more plausible to me. He did some dry needling on my right piriformis (a muscle that, until recently, I didn’t know I had, but that now seems to be at the heart of most of my problems) and prescribed a bunch of exercises I’m supposed to do twice a day. I don’t enjoy them, but I’m strongly motivated to do them because not being able to run long distances is horribly depressing.
Hopefully I’ll have better news next month.
I’m supposed to take the next 3 to 4 weeks off running, but I made an exception to run a 5K under the holiday lights at Seneca Creek State Park last Saturday. I only did it because I was pushing my friend Ryan for Athletes Serving Athletes, and the joy I experience racing with an ASA athlete far surpasses the pain my current condition brings me.
Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving managed to unite most of our scattered family — the only exceptions being Hannah and Emma, who spent the holiday with Emma’s family in Mapleton, Utah.
The Thanksgiving crowd at Grandma’s house numbered 29, crowded around 3 tables, and included Sophie’s fiancé Luke Wonnacott and his family, who live a stone’s throw from Ridgeview Middle School in Germantown, where Crystal teaches. Also with us were two of Grace’s SVU friends from Texas. Sophie and Luke flew into town on Wednesday afternoon — taking the new Breeze Airways direct flight from Provo (yes, Provo) to Dulles. Until recently, I had never heard of Breeze Airways and didn’t know that Provo even had an airport. Now they have a direct flight to D.C., and it’s a great time to be alive!
Dinner also included the usual suspects: Peter, Coco, and the East Coast members of Matthew’s and Andrew’s families.
Having the girls around the house this week has re-awakened our piano to what seems like near-round-the-clock usage, which makes me happy.
And speaking of music…
Grace got paid one Sunday this month to fill in for the organist at the Buena Vista Presbyterian Church.
It was a pretty cool opportunity for her, which she enjoyed, and it got me to thinking that I could probably make a decent side hustle as a fill-in organist at churches around here if I applied myself to it. I guess the hardest part would be figuring out how to make it not conflict with my own church services (where I magnanimously play the organ for free).
Unrelatedly, I lifted from Grace’s Insta the video below of her practicing for her conducting midterm (and getting frustrated — Grace expresses her frustration in a more amusing manner than most people).
Also, this is my last chance to remind you to come hear Crystal and me perform with the Washington DC Temple choir in two weeks! You really should come!! The whole program is a lot of fun and the arrangements of Silent Night and The First Noel that we’re singing are new to me and two of the most hauntingly beautiful things I’ve ever heard. (There’s a streaming option on the flyer below, but believe me when I tell you that the sound quality on the audio stream always sucks, so come hear us in person!)
And last of all, Sophie’s Utah bridal shower was this month. It touched my heart that so many of my Willis cousins (and one aunt), several of whom are pictured below, were able to come.
Sophie’s Maryland bridal shower is next month. I don’t think I’ll go to that one, either. (I’m pretty sure I’m not invited.) But I imagine it’ll be a blast.
With each passing year, I grow ever more grateful to be part of such large, warm, loving family.
May the holiday season bring you boundless joy!
Love,
Tim
Managing Editor of The Famlet Monthly