by Lance Amrstrong and Sally Jenkins
and I decided LaTrice Haney was one of them. Outwardly, she looked like just another efficient, clipboard-and-syringe-wielding nurse in a starched outfit. She worked extremely long days and nights, and on her off hours she went home to her husband, Randy, a truck driver, and their two children, Taylor, aged seven, and Morgan, four. But if she was tired, she never seemed it. She struck me as a woman utterly lacking in ordinary resentments, sure of her responsibilities and blessings and unwavering in her administering of care, and if that wasn't angelic behavior, I didn't know what was.
Often I'd be alone in the late afternoons and evenings except for LaTrice, and if I had the strength, we'd talk seriously. With most people I was shy and terse, but I found myself talking to LaTrice, maybe because she was so gentle-spoken and expressive herself. LaTrice was only in her late 20s, a pretty young woman with a coffe-and-cream complexion, but she had self-possession and perception beyond her years. While other people our age were out nightclubbing, she was already the head nurse for the oncology research unit. I wondered why she did it. "My satisfaction is to make it a little easier for people," she said.
She asked me about cycling, and I found myself telling her about the bike with a sense of pleasure I hadn't realized I possessed. "How did you start riding?" she asked me. I told her about my first bikes, and the early sense of liberation, and that cycling was all I had done since I was 16. I talked about my various teammates over the years, about their humor and selflessness, and I talked about my mother, and what she had meant to me.
I told her what cycling had given me, the tours of Europe and the extraordinary education, and the wealth. I showed her a picture of my house, with pride, and invited her to come visit, and I showed her snapshots of my cycling career. She leafed through the images of me racing across the backdrops of France, Italy, and Spain, and she'd point to a picture and ask, "Whre are you here?"
I confided that I was worried about my sponsor, Cofidis, and explained the difficulty I was having with them. I told her I felt pressured.
"I need to stay in shape, I need to stay in shape," I said over and over again.
"Lance, listen to your body," she said gently. "I know your mind wants to run away. I know it's saying to you, 'Hey, let's go ride.' But listen to your body. Let it rest."
I described my bike, the elegant high performance of the ultralight tubing and aerodynamic wheels. I told her how much each piece cost, and weighed, and what its purpose was. I explained how a bike could be broken down so I could practically carry it in my pocket, and that I knew every part and bit of it so intimately that I could adjust it in a matter of moments.
(...)
"Don't you get tired of leaning over like that?" she asked.
Yes, I said, until my back ached like it was broken, but that was the price of speed. The handlebars are only as wide as the rider's shoulders, I explained, and they curve downward in half-moons so you can assume an aerodynamic stance on the bike.
"Why do you ride on those little seats?" she asked.
The seat is narrow, contoured to the anatomy, and the reason is that when you are on it for six hours at a time, you don't want anything to chafe your legs. Better a hard seat than the torture of saddle sores. Even the clothes have a purpose. They are flimsy for a reason: to mold to the body because you have to wear them in weather that ranges from hot to hail. Basically, they're a second skin. The shorts have a chamois padded seat, and the stitches are recessed to avoid rash.
When I had nothing left to tell LaTrice about the bike, I told her about the wind. I described how it felt in my face and in my hair. I told her about being in the open air, with the views of soaring Alps, and the glimmer of valley lakes in the distance. Sometimes the wind blew as if it were my personal friend, sometimes as if it were my bitter enemy, sometimes as if it were the hand of God pushing me along. I described the full sail of a mountain descent, gliding on two wheels only an inch wide.
"You're just out there, free," I said.
"You love it," she said.
"Yeah?" I said.
"Oh, I see it in your eyes," she said.
I understood LaTrice was an angel one evening late in my last cycle of chemo. I lay on my side, dozing on and off, watching the steady, clear drip-drip of the chemo as it slid into my veins. LaTrice sat with me, keeping me company, even though I was barely able to talk.
"What do you think, LaTrice?" I asked, whispering. "Am I going to pull through this?"
"Yeah," she said. "Yeah, you are."
"I hope you're right," I said, and closed my eyes again.
LaTrice leaned over to me.
"Lance," she said, soflty, "I hope someday to be just a figment of your imagination. I'm not here to be in your life for the rest of your life. After you leave here, I hope I never see you ever again. When you're cured, hey, let me see you in the papers, on TV, but not back here. I hope to help you at the time you need me, and then I hope I'll be gone. You'll say, 'Who was that nurse back in Indiana? Did I dream her?'"
It is one of the single loveliest things anyone has ever said to me. And I will always remember every blessed word. ...
Copyright 2000, 2001 Lance Armstrong
