Oklahoma City man with CMT pedaling back to life

[Guest guest]

Oklahoma City man pedaling back to life

Mountain Biking City man takes up sport, overcomes physical challenges

http://newsok.com/oklahoma-city-man-pedaling-back-to-life/article/3391257

(photos there)

BY DAVID ZIZZO Published: August 10, 2009

No way, his friend said, betting two cheeseburgers that Jeff couldn't

barefoot water ski all the way from that bridge over Lake Eufaula to the marina

several miles away.

ate well that night.

Still in his 30s, the soccer player and former wrestler was at his peak.

was lifting weights and training to compete in long-distance barefoot skiing, a

specialized subset of extreme water sports that takes strength, guts and a dash

of crazy.

" He was kind of the talk of the lake, really, " said his wife, .

Then the back pains began. Tests showed he had four crumbling spinal disks, too

many for surgery. took another blow. Experts diagnosed a weakness he had

begun noticing in his left leg as Charcot-Marie-Tooth (CMT) disease, a

hereditary progressive nerve disorder that can cause loss of muscle and

sensation, and " claw foot. "

" From my knees down, my legs lost all their size, " he said. " It's just mainly

bone down there now. "

The Oklahoma City man sold his " Barefoot Nautique " ski boat. He gave up working

out and running his own small construction company. He hit bottom.

" I was pretty much done and down on life and everything, " he recalls.

Remembers , a registered nurse: " He was kind of really depressed. "

Jeff searched for a solution to the frequent and debilitating pain. Chiropractor

Dan Norris recommended back exercises, which reduced the pain. But muscle loss

in his legs made it hard for Jeff to walk any distance without an ankle rolling,

causing him to fall.

One day as Jeff was driving to his home near Lake Hefner in Oklahoma City, he

noticed guys riding into the nearby woods on bicycles. " I thought, `Shoot, that

looks like fun.' "

Desperate for any physical activity, he talked into dusting off their old

Schwinns and giving it a try. Having hardly ridden for years, the two flipped

over the handlebars of their bikes several times on the narrow, twisting,

roller-coaster dirt trail.

" We just had a ball crashing and killing ourselves, " Jeff said. " I thought I'd

never get her back in there. "

But back they went. They got better bikes. And they got better.

And despite the CMT disease, for some reason Jeff could ride. When he clipped

his biking shoes onto the pedals, the circular motion and strength from his

thighs and hips seemed to compensate for lost muscle. " If I stay clipped into

the pedals and make all the climbs, I do pretty well, " he said.

His competitive spirit returned. He entered a mountain bike race in the beginner

class and talked into it, too. " I won, so, of course, it was great, "

said. Jeff struggled in his division but relished every minute.

" I was always in the back, but I just loved it, being able to compete again and

do something with normal people, " he said.

Both were hooked. continued her success, moving up the ranks and into the

expert Category 1, in which she won several championships. Jeff's progress was

slower, but he even entered extreme distance off-road races of up to 50 miles,

despite the few trail sections he had to cross painfully on foot while hoping

his ankles didn't " lock up. "

" As long as I'm on my bike, I'm great, " he said. " I can even feel bad during the

day from walking and get on the bike and ride, and it relieves everything

almost. "

A broken hip during a crash during the grueling Hills of Hell race near Lawton

set him back, but he rebounded to become state champ in his division last fall.

Now 48, Jeff, who manages a landscape company, has moved into the expert

category. He even tried barefoot skiing again this summer. If he faced forward,

he found, his feet folded up, so he skied backward.

But he won't get back into that activity. Jeff will stick with the biking that

pulled him up and now takes him and across the country in search of new

trails, from the Womble in Arkansas to Slick Rock in Utah. The guy who hit

bottom can't wait for the next mountain to climb.

" That's what really saved my life, " he said.