Addiction To Exercise Changes Life
Craig Clauson’s pectoral muscles bulge with new-found health under his T-shirt. He smiles shyly about that. It’s a development he didn’t expect from pushing his wheelchair uphill a dozen times every day.
“I’ve grown two shirt sizes. It’s a real bummer,” he says, as surprised as a 12-year-old at his body’s changes. “It’s real hard finding shirts.”
Craig, who’s 42, expected only pain from his body. His spine was crushed in 1978 when his car hit black ice on Coeur d’Alene’s French Gulch Road, plummeted over the road’s edge and flipped several times.
He was a softball player and concrete contractor.
His legs were useless after the crash. He could hardly use his hands. His muscles were so spastic they’d suddenly fling him out of his wheelchair. Doctors finally severed the nerves from his spine that control his legs to quiet some of the spasms.
Intense pain followed that surgery. Doctors managed it with narcotics, increasing Craig’s dose over weeks than slowly decreasing it, for 14 years.
“I was addicted all the time,” he says.
After surgery to remove his colon last year, Craig went to the University of Washington pain management program for help. Doctors there tried several drugs with no success, then offered him an experimental non-narcotic medication that slows the heart.
Within a month, his pain decreased. He could get out of bed, watch his son’s college wrestling matches. He admired his son’s integrity and self-discipline as an athlete.
“I realized I wasn’t even trying at self-discipline,” Craig says, still saddened at how he’d let himself go.
So he started working out in his ultra-lightweight wheelchair last summer. A friend pointed him to a 150-yard hill on the Centennial Trail. Craig went every day.
At first, he had to rest three times on his way up. He worked up to 15 trips uphill - a two-hour workout. He pushed past the muscle soreness. He went at sunset, 2 a.m., in rain or snow, whenever he needed it.
The upper body spasms that had shaken Craig for so long gradually subsided. He began playing the flute. His pain decreased without narcotics. The strength in his hands doubled. Doctors couldn’t explain what was happening to him, but encouraged his new addiction to exercise.
“I wasn’t doing anything and now I’m doing everything,” Craig says, overwhelmed at the change his life has taken. “An endorphin high might not work for everyone, but I know every part of me is better now.”
It’s about time
Hayden Lake’s Nancy Piscitelli keeps waiting for her neighbors, Pat and Louise O’Brien, to haul out their thick yellow patio chair cushions. That’s how Nancy says she knows it’s spring. She’s ready, guys. Anytime.
That old time rock ‘n roll
Your teens pick on your music? Adopt some students from Coeur d’Alene High. Those kids see money in yesterday’s hits.
The high school has recruited former Rare Earth lead singer Peter Rivera, Sugarloaf singer Jerry Corbetta, Iron Butterfly singer Mike Pinera and Cannibal and the Headhunters’ singer and bass player Dennis Noda to play a concert to benefit CHS’sathletic department.
The concert’s March 16 at NIC’s Schuler Auditorium. It costs $12.50. Call 664-4500 for tickets.
The good life
Hayden’s Kathy Baker says the workplace doesn’t come better than Post Falls’ Prairie View Elementary, where she teaches sixth grade. She says her students and their parents are incredible, her boss encourages creativity, her co-workers are like family and home-baked cookies usually are in the teachers’ lounge.
What does your workplace give you that you can’t get elsewhere? Athlete’s foot? Major discounts? Spill the beans to Cynthia Taggart, “Close to Home,” 608 Northwest Blvd., Suite 200, Coeur d’Alene 83814; Fax to 765-7149; or call 765-7128.
, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo
MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: ROCKING OUT The concert’s March 16 at NIC’s Schuler Auditorium. It costs $12.50. Call 664-4500 for tickets.