Never Underestimate the Staggering Drawing Power of the Garden State

After 2000 miles, 31 hours, nine states, and five and a half boxes of cheese-based snack foods, we arrived safely in New Jersey shortly after 3 AM on Monday night. None of it would have been possible without a truly heroic effort from my brother-in-law Rob, shown here shortly before getting smoked by yours truly in the 2005 Lake Lenape triathlon.

Rob left New Jersey at 3 AM on Sunday morning, landed in Denver at 10 AM, and promptly jumped into a Subaru smelling of beef jerky and puppy for the next 48 hours of his life. He's a good man, but I knew that long before this trip.

Today was our first day at home, and like with a lot of things in my life right now, I'm dealing with some conflicting emotions. On the one hand, it's great to be back around family, and spending time with my nieces, who are innocently oblivious to my current medical drama, allows me a brief respite from the otherwise relentless thoughts that have dominated the past few weeks of my life. But of course, this comes with a price. Inevitably, the distraction ends and you're forced back to reality, and you remember exactly why you're home as early as you are. The more effective the diversion, the more painful that realization is.

My headaches have also increased in frequency, duration, and intensity, but I suspect they are tension in nature rather than being a portent of something more ominous. I've got to constantly remind myself that in the two weeks prior to receiving this diagnosis, I was feeling just fine; climbing and skiing and running and hiking without a hint of a problem. Then I got the news, and three days later I woke up to a pounding headache that has basically repeated itself every day since.

Now, when looking at this logically, it's quite easy to tell yourself that it's really not medically possible for the aneurysm to have fundamentally changed in that short period, particularly when the doctors tell you that the aneurysm has likely been with me most, if not all of, my life. But man, when your head starts ringing, it's rather difficult to trust in logic. It's much easier instead to convince yourself that something is seriously, seriously wrong, and that's how you end up with a panicked trip to the emergency room like we did on Saturday.

All the speculation and uncertainty should be over soon, however, as I have my first appointment at Thomas Jefferson Hospital in Philadelphia this afternoon. I have a sneaking suspicion that as soon as my surgeon looks at my aneurysm and tells me what he sees, a big part of this guessing game will be over and my headaches will decrease dramatically.

My father has offered to take Lauren and I into the city, which while a nice gesture, now makes the drive to the appointment somewhere between 20-30 times more dangerous than the aneurysm itself.

Lauren and Maci, shown here during simpler times, are doing great. My little girl has spent the past few days frolicking in the back yard, showing off her new tricks for everyone, and sniffing everything in the neighborhood. And Maci's been having her share of fun, too.

This is Spinal Tap

Ouch. I've got to tell you, when the ER doc told me today that I needed a spinal tap, I thought the experience would be fun and zany, you know, like that movie - Spaceballs. But instead it was dark and disturbing like that movie Spinal Tap.*

I woke up with a rather pounding headache, and when the pain didn't dissipate within a couple of hours, I got a bit concerned that something was amiss. So Lauren and I made our second trip to the ER in two months, just to make sure my aneurysm (or as one of Lauren's more charming kindergarteners called it yesterday, "that freaky brain thing") wasn't bleeding.

Rather than do a CT scan, the doc ordered a lumbar puncture, which while a touch uncomfortable wasn't nearly as bad as medical lore has it. After an hour of nervous tension, we got the news that everything was OK.

So we're off to New Jersey tomorrow. Thirty hours in the car, with Lauren looking to complete her quest from previous trips of eating at every Subway for 2,000 miles.

*joke borrowed and modified courtesy of The Simpsons

Thursday Update

Armed with the information acquired during the day from our visit with the neurosurgeon, Lauren and I sat in a Denver hotel room on Tuesday night prepared to plan our immediate future. This was to be a huge decision; one that we would likely second-guess and micro-analyze for the remainder of our lives, and if made correctly, could set into motion the steps necessary for me to beat this aneurysm forever. But then Teen Wolf came on AMC, so we bagged it and decided to wait until the next morning. Hey, we're only human.

So Wednesday AM, clear headed and determined, we surged forward. Now that we knew the aneurysm likely didn't present any immediate emergency, why spend the next week sitting around waiting for more tests when we could use that time to head back east, where we know we want any procedure to be performed?

To that end, we spent Wednesday confirming that we had an appointment with our desired surgeon for next week, and once so confirmed, we quickly decided to pack up our summer clothes and head home.

Aspen Elementary School has treated Lauren wonderfully from the start, and that continued on Thursday as they did everything in their power to make this transition as easy as possible. Today will be her final day, and we will be heading back to New Jersey sometime on Sunday.

Of course, that gives us only 48 hours or so to get the entire house prepared for a summer of vacancy, as well as get packed up for our trip. For me, this entails little more than shoving a bunch of shirts and pants into a hiking backpack. For Lauren, this could be a considerably larger project, as she still owns every article of clothing purchased since the seventh grade, and each piece plays a vital role in her wardrobe, regardless of season or climate.

To ease our 30-hour drive home, my brother-in-law Rob, seen here shortly before getting smoked by yours truly in the 2005 LBI 18-mile run, is flying out to share some of the driving burden. While this means the likely number of empty Monster bottles littering the floor of our car has just increased exponentially, I'm happy to have someone to listen to Howard Stern with, as Lauren still prefers that whole "talking" thing. That reminds me, when Lauren and I first drove cross-country, during August of 2006, I blogged about the keys to surviving such tight quarters with a spouse or loved one. Said advice can be found here, but is summarized below.

I’ve given this a lot of thought, and I think the answer is this. The problem with most marriages is communication. Too much communication. Lauren and I avoid it at all costs, and its proven to be quite effective in keeping us congenial.

Trust me, it works. So if all goes well, we should be pulling into the Garden State sometime on Tuesday, with a visit to the neurosurgeon planned for the end of the week. I think I heard somewhere that since we moved out west, New Jersey has managed to fix that nasty little "traffic" problem. That's true, right?

Hi Dr. Nick!!

We spent today in Denver, Colorado visiting with our first neurosurgeon. Though we know we plan on having any procedure done back east, we didn't want to make any decisions until someone smarter than the neurologist looked at the films and made sure this "aneurysm" wasn't just a chocolate smear from some snacking radiologist.

The surgeon confirmed that it appears there is an aneurysm, but an angiogram is necessary in order to confirm the size and shape, which in turn would determine the best way to attack this thing. We scheduled the angiogram for next Tuesday, but we suspect we will be on our way home before then.

For me, I'm just eager to get home, meet with the surgeon that I have earmarked to do any procedure that ends up being necessary, and take some of this burden off of my wife.

To be frank, I can be a bit of an emotional rollercoaster during the best of times; I can't imagine how she's managing me now. Her beauty belies her inner strength, that's for certain.

Many people have told Lauren and I that this experience will bring us much closer together, and give us a greater appreciation for the love we share and the days we have together. I'll tell you what: I don't need this experience to know that I would rather leave this world at 32 having spent five years of my life with Lauren than live to see one hundred without her.

She has been everything for me since Saturday morning, and frankly, I hate it. I am supposed to be taking care of her, and I can't wait to resume my rightful role and repay her.

I'm often asked by single friends what the secret is to a happy marraige. Now I know I'm only three years in, but I'm comfortable telling them this: marry the best human being you've ever met, and you're off to a good start.

She's smart, she's beautiful, she's selfless and caring, and her fortitude surprises even me. My man Paulie Bleeker said it best: I don't see what anyone can see in anyone else.

Thank You

When you're told you have an aneurysm in your brain, you can be confident that it will be a day you will never forget. You don't expect, however, for the days to come to be even more memorable, and for entirely different reasons.

Monday morning, after Lauren had dropped me off at work, leaving me for the first time since the diagnosis, I reached my nadir. I felt scared, confused, and alone; aware that I had to find the strength to start moving forward, but doubtful that I could.

I started to call some hospitals in the Denver area, blindly searching for a neurosurgeon, and the response on the other end only confirmed just how alone I really was.

"You mean to tell me you were diagnosed with an aneurysm in your brain, and your neurologist didn't set up a follow-up appointment with a surgeon for you?"

Uhhh...yeah. Is that bad?

By noon I wasn't getting far, so I took a break and walked over to a client's office. I figured I owed it to them to let them know what was going on, so we could both plan accordingly should I miss significant time at work.

As I sat down with my client, Tony, and explained to him what had happened over the weekend, I anticipated, and maybe on some level even craved, the sympathy that was sure to come. Only it never came.

Instead, Tony gave me the kick in the ass I so desperately needed. Instead of "I'm so sorry" I got "What are you doing to fix this?" If he didn't agree with my approach, he let me know it. If he thought I wasn't doing enough, he told me so. By the time I left him, I had my first real plan, the first step of which was to take advantage of working for a large firm on the east coast, and see if our network of clients and contacts could yield some breaks.

Back at my desk, I fired off an email to most of my firm, explaining what had happened and warning of my impending absence. At the same time, I called one of the firm's partners, Scott, who had made his mark working with the health care industry. Within minutes Scott had contacted a neurosurgery group in New Jersey, and they had graciously agreed to review my films if I'd overnight them over.

While this was going on, something even more amazing happened. In response to my email to coworkers, my inbox started to fill up with words of encouragement, promises of prayers and assurances that everything was going to turn out OK. While some of these responses came from good friends, the majority were from people I barely worked with, or in some cases had never met.

These people will never, can never, understand how meaningful their words were. Not simply for the message itself, but for what it meant as part of the bigger picture: I wasn't alone anymore.

Soon after, I received a call from another partner at my firm, Steve. A great friend as well, I knew Steve would be there for me, but what he had to say was completely unexpected.

"Steve Antico wants you to call him right away."

Now, Steve Antico is a friend of the firm, and by all accounts a great guy, but I couldn't imagine what interest he had in my plight. I had literally worked with Steve for one hour in my entire career, and much of that was spent arguing over the interpretation of the "service partner" exception to IRC Section 736(b). Thrilling stuff, sure, but not the type of conversation that typically builds a life-long bond.

I called Steve, and in his typical fashion, he hit the ground running from the second he picked up the phone. He was good friends with one of the top neurologists in the country, and he wanted to get me in touch with him asap. Steve even asked me to overnight my films to him, so he could get them over to his surgeon buddy as soon as feasible.

Within hours, I received a call from an unknown number, answered it, and on the other end was one of the nation's foremost aneurysm experts, all courtesy of some attorney that barely knew me. That conversation was the turning point in this whole process, as it was the first time a neurosurgeon heard my story yet assured me: you can beat this. And I owe it all to a collection of people who had no reason to give a shit, but chose to anyway. How do you repay people like that?

And then it just kept coming. Another partner at my firm, who had experienced his own adversity, called me and recommend a surgeon. But not just any surgeon, the guy. Perhaps the most respected neurosurgeon in the country.

So now I had a name, but how does a guy like me get a meeting with a top surgeon on short notice? Well, he doesn't, unless it turns out a family friend happens to be a hospital administrator at the same facility, and good friend of the surgeon. And that's where Huey Lavery came in, offering up his services to a kid 10 years his junior, who he knew mostly from flying past me during open-water swims off the 9th Street dock in Surf City.

Three miles away, my wife was experiencing the same phenomenon. More caring, more crying, more sharing, more inspiring.

I'll be honest: I've never cared much for humanity. I've always been that way; jaded, bitter, and cynical, I've lived much of my life by the mantra that the only way people won't let you down is if you don't expect anything from them.

The problem was, of course, that I had never experienced the inherent goodness of mankind first hand. I had only read the papers, watched the news, and as tends to happen, become numb to the evils people are capable of.

But that's the easy way out. Anybody can scour the headlines and write humanity off as a lost cause. But the things I witnessed on that Monday, the actions of people like Tony and Steve and Scott and Len and Huey and Dean and everyone that let me know they're thinking about me, these are things that don't end up in the papers or on the news. They are, however, the very best of what people are capable of, and I am genuinely ashamed that I needed to benefit from it in order to know that it existed.

Thank you all,

Tony and Lauren

Grey's Anatomy Plays A Lot Better As Fiction

Interesting week in the ol' Nitti house. As you may or may not know, I've been dealing with some frustrating headaches ever since the 24 Hours of Sunlight race on February 23rd. We're talking about a different brand of headache here, not the familiar and innocuous guess-I-had-too-much-fun-last-night kind of headache. No, this was an angry, vengeful pain, with no easily identifiable trigger like excessive exercise, an overload of work, or seven shots of Jaeger to point towards.

Things got so bad at the finish line of the America's Uphill Race on March 15th that a trip to the ER was necessary, as the last few minutes of the event had brought about a genuine concern that my head might actually explode, a la the opening scene of the Running Man.

This led to a month-long odyssey of radiation-laden tests, which left me with no answers, the new-found ability to see through walls, and sadly, as impotent as a Nevada boxing commissioner.

On April 17th, my neurologist surmised that I had developed altitude-induced migraines, which while sounding harmless enough, would put a rather large crimp in my spring ski-mountaineering season. So I went out the following day to test the neurologist's hypothesis by climbing to 13,300 feet, the summit of Hayden Peak, and sharing some turns with my idol, Lou Dawson. No headaches = good day. Pictures here and below.

As the days went on, I wrote off the headaches as pre-April 15th tension, and I was more convinced of this than ever as Lauren and I walked into my final appointment with the neurologist last Saturday.

And that's when my life turned into an very special episode of House. As I embarked on my long-winded pro-tension testimony, my neurologist kindly interrupted to inform me that my MRA had come back positive, and they had discovered a 5mm aneurysm near the front of my brain.

Honestly, I don't remember much more than that. I would love to tell you I pulled it together, made immediate peace with the diagnosis, and threw out an inspirational "How do we beat this thing, Doc?" but that couldn't be farther from the truth.

I cracked. My wife, God bless her, did not. Lauren pulled out her pen and paper, and quickly started firing off all of the questions I should have been asking but simply couldn't muster the strength to.

When we left the office, there was much crying, followed by the obligatory phone calls to family and friends. For the remainder of the ride home, all I can remember thinking was, "There is NO WAY this is real." They say denial is not just a river in Africa, and I'd have to agree.

Again, I'd love to tell you that after an hour-long ride home riddled with self-pity I gallantly forged ahead with a bravery only seen in after school specials, but again, I'd be lying.

I was pissed. Angry at everyone: the doctor, myself, God, you name it. This shouldn't be happening to ME, not when I had so many plans and so many dreams and the energy, enthusiasm, and determination to see them all through to fruition.

And why now? It had taken me 31 years to figure it out: find the right girl+ take the right job + move to the right town = unadulterated bliss. And dammit, I had it. And I was not someone that didn't SEE what they had, didn't fully appreciate the good fortune afforded to them in life. I saw it, loved it, and celebrated it. I can clearly remember standing at the base of Aspen Mountain on a cold December night, fireworks illuminating the mountain sky, with my arms wrapped around my wife. I leaned in to her and whispered, "I am absolutely certain that life will not always be this way. We will have struggles, and we will face adversity and, inevitably, tragedy. But at this moment, right here, right now, life is absolutely perfect. I never want to forget this feeling." I think I even blogged about one of those moments here.

So why? Why take all of that and strip it away in 20 words from an apathetic doctor? What had I done wrong? And thus began the existential crisis I suspect anyone with a surprisingly awful diagnosis, particularly one as weak-minded as I, undergoes. Was God trying to tell me something?

Passion has always been both my greatest strength and most glaring weakness. Say what you will about me and any perceived selfishness, any construed ambivalence to much of the world, but the things I love I LOVE. Anyone who has ever shared a bike ride with me has thought, "I'm enjoying this, but not nearly as much as THAT GUY." Same goes for skiing. Or lifeguarding on the ocean. Maybe my mother puts it best when she says to me: " You've just always really loved to live."

So what's the downside? When I find something I love, I tend to immerse myself in it; dive into the culture, learn every possible nuance, and so on... Cycling, running, skiing, climbing...they become obsessions; no longer something you do, they become who you are.

Then something like this comes along and begs the question: Did I need this? Did I need to re-prioritize my life? Was I being too selfish? Could I have been a better husband, a better son, a better friend? Those are hard thoughts to ponder at a time like this, I can promise you that.

More than anything, however, I was terrified. Not scared, not frightened, not concerned -- freaking terrified. Faced with my mortality for the first time, I let my mind slip into some dark, dark places. What if this aneurysm bursts? The pure numbers are awful: 40% of people with a ruptured aneurysm don't live to see the morning paper. How do you make peace with that?

Even worse, what would happen to Lauren? As anyone who knows me well already understands, I honestly believe that the single reason I was put on this earth was to find Lauren, marry her, and take care of her for the rest of her life. It just has to be that way. There is nobody that can love her the way I do, the way she NEEDS to be loved, I am certain of that.

Before I knew it, I had stopped asking how God could do this to me, and started asking how He could do this to her. It wasn't supposed to be this way. We were supposed to start a family, grow old together, and continue this fairly tale we've been living since that night in December 2002 when I saw her at a Christmas party, exchanged five words worth of pleasantries, and returned to Denver telling anyone that would listen that while she didn't know it yet, I had met the girl I was going to marry.

I spent the better part of a day thinking about death and not much else. Then my brother Dave called, and as he's apt to do, put things in perspective for me. He reminded me that even with a diagnosed aneurysm, the odds of it rupturing are roughly 1% per year. What were the odds of me not coming home every time I went out and skied in avalanche terrain? Five percent? Ten percent? Why would I treat a 10% risk of death as an afterthought just because I was in control, yet let a 1% risk take over my life merely because I was not? It was a great point, and frankly, I haven't thought much about the negative possibilities since.

It has taken some time -- much more than I am proud to admit -- but I think I am starting to get it. As usual, I was looking at things all wrong. If there's one person on the planet who should not be asking "why me?" it's me. Cliche as it may be, why not me? Who has had it easier than I? I come from an amazing family; the type that sadly, simply doesn't exist anymore. I know nothing of adversity, or hardship, or tragedy. Life has come entirely too easy. As if it weren't enough to get the girl despite long, long odds, she loved and trusted me enough to take a chance on a different life, and move to a town that we knew would bring ME happiness, but must have filled her with doubt and insecurity. As if it weren't enough to get a job doing what I love with a great group of people, learning and growing every day, they respected me enough to take a chance and let me move 2,000 miles away to chase a dream they probably couldn't fully grasp.

So when approached from this angle, why shouldn't it be me? I've got the perfect wife, the perfect job, live in the perfect town. Who should get the aneurysm? The guy with the broken marriage and the miserable job? Struggle should be meted out evenly in this world, and I imagine it's long been my turn to shoulder some of the load.

On Saturday morning, I wouldn't have traded my life for anyone's on the planet. Why should an aneurysm change that?

K-9 Uphill

On Sunday, I took a much-needed break from the relentless tax work I've been dealing with to join the rest of my family for the K-9 Uphill Race at Buttermilk mountain. Buttermilk closed last weekend, which left the mountain free for 200 and some odd owners and their dogs to hike, frolic, and poop where they may (the dogs, not the owners).

Here's Lauren, getting Maci ready to roll. Maci has probably summited Buttermilk over 20 times this winter, so she didn't have much in the way of nerves to deal with prior to the race start. She knew the course well, was adequately hydrated, and her resting heart rate of late has shown that she was fit, strong and tapered for race day.

Some joker thought it would be funny to sneak a horse into the race. Wait....what? A dog? Really?

Mommy and puppy at the starting line. Maci relieved to have avoided being selected for random pre-race drug testing.

As the gun goes off, Lauren and Maci sprint to the front of the pack. I, on my skis, languish 50 yards behind. The look of disgust on my wife's face as she peered back to check on me was one I won't soon forget.

Lauren getting pulled uphill by Maci, who is, uh, "checking out the competition."

In the deeper snow, Daddy takes over and leads his puppy through the steeper section of the climb.

After I gave Maci back to Lauren, a rather large and unleashed Burmese mountain dog decided to walk over, draw a deep breath, and promptly go to sleep on my ski tips. It took us a couple of minutes of cajoling to get Otis moving again.

At the top. Unfortunately, Lauren's old war injury starting acting up late in the climb, and we were barely edged off the podium by 200 or so of the 22o competitors. Maci was so embarassed by Lauren's effort she couldn't even bring herself to look at her.

At the finish line, Maci finally got to make the acquaintence of the freakishly large Great Dane. Here she is, cowering like a Frenchman.

Once at the top, Maci and I ditched Lauren like yesterday's newspaper in order to ski down. Here's an idea of just how much snow remains on April 13th of Aspen's greatest ski season on record.
Back at home, we rewarded Maci for her efforts by letting her pick a treat of her choice from the pet store. Click on the picture if you can't read the letters.