I started biking after I was diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes at the age of 45.
A couple of years later I got into bicycling.

The first four years of riding, I was hit from behind three times. The first one was in November of 1986. I shattered the car's windshield and got up and walked to the ambulance. Two years later, October of 1988, the second car hit me. I ended up with a compression fracture of L2 vertebrae. I spent six weeks in a back brace. The fracture healed but it remained in a compressed state. That's what caused me trouble later because it wasn't sitting on the disc straight. One year later, October 1989, another care hit me, and I punched a hole in the car's windshield with my helmet. I got powdered glass in my eyes and down the back of my jersey. After they cleaned my eyes and checked me over, I walked out of the hospital.
Whenever I rolled over in bed, I had to pick my head up with my hands and place It where I wanted it. It was miserable.
My first back surgery, August 1989 was for a herniated disc between L2 and L3. At that time my lower back was showing signs of deterioration. I had my second back surgery in January 2001. After three tries, Dr. Stein of Wichita, got it to the point that he felt comfortable closing. He said it was not a healthy disc. In October of that year, I had to go back to him because I was in a lot of pain. He took x-rays and told me there was no more deterioration. I asked him if he was going to have to fuse them together. He told me that would not be possible because there wasn't anything to fuse it to. He said if everything was deteriorated, I would just have to learn to live with it.

About two weeks after my second surgery, in the middle of the night, I heard a powerful voice say, "Bruce, what do I have to do to get your attention? You have a story to tell." I gave my testimony in church the following Sunday.
Years went by and I continued to ride. I had been telling Derek, the Associate Pastor of New Community Christian Church (NCCC), my life story and how hard it was to get my biking legs back that Spring. My legs and back were giving me major problems. Every day as I was out riding, I would think, why am I doing this? Why don't I just quit?" The next day I would be back out there asking myself these same questions. Finally, things started getting better. My mileage and speed started picking up.
In August of 2015, when I went out for a ride, I knew that day I was going to reach 120,000 miles. I told God that I would make sure he got the credit. I wrote my story and put it on Facebook. The Salina Journal featured me with almost a full front-page article. It was in the Thursday, August 13,
2015, edition.

When Derek read it, he said "Awesome! He told you that you had a story to tell, and he kept you going so you could give him the glory".

In 2019, this is the year that God showed me three things. In the Spring, I was riding my bike on the wide sidewalk going North on Ohio. The bike swung to the right and dropped off the sidewalk until I fell. My riding partner, Brenda, was leading and did not see me go down. I laid there trying to figure out what happened. When I got up, I no more than stood up straight when I toppled over on my right shoulder. I tried two more times, and the same thing kept happening. About that time, I said, "Lord I need help". I laid there a little longer this time. When I got up, I managed to stagger over to a tree. I kept looking at my bike thinking that if I could get to it, I could use it for support. I got up feeling a little better and managed to get the bike up. We were close to a big church on Magnolia. When we reached that point, I told Brenda I thought I could ride. I was successful at getting on my bike and riding home. The next day everything looked good, and I felt good, so we continued our daily rides.
About mid-summer we were up North on Highway 143, While riding I kept getting a feeling that something or someone was trying to tell me something, Over the next few days I finally realized it was the Holy Spirit.
The feeling was coming from within. Over the next few weeks, I realized he was trying to tell me I should ride more. A lot more. I finally realized I had to learn to listen. It was on my mind continually. As I got stronger, I started adding Saturday rides. Brenda was not as comfortable riding that much.

So, she would head home when we got back to town. I would ride an extra mile or two before I went home. Later I started riding to and from church on Sundays.

The latter part of September we were riding on Magnolia, down by the soccer fields, when a car passed me and was very close. She did not hit me directly, but her side mirror caught me on the back of my shoulder, I saw her mirror go sailing. I wondered what it was because it did not have anything on my bike. That knocked me over onto the side of her car, which I polished until she got completely by. I was still straddled on my bike while it was laying on the ground. My first instinct was to kick the bike away from me. So, I knew my legs were okay. I then checked everything else and realized all was well. The driver had to cross the little bridge right there to find a place to park. She came running back very upset and praying all the way. When she saw me, she said, "Oh thank God". She was worried that she had hurt me or worse. When the ambulance got there, they loaded me up to treat all my road rash. The street crew had just oiled and chatted the street, the chat was very sharp. They treated me and wanted to take me to the ER. But I said no. We had a few words back and forth. I told them I was going to finish my ride. My bike was fine, I just threw the chain.

The gal that hit me was still filling out paperwork. She suffers from depression and takes medication for it. I was afraid I had set her back. After the trooper left, I gave her a hug and told her I was fine and not to worry about me, that she should just go on to work. Later when I got home, some flowers were delivered for me. She had them sent wishing me well. I called her the next day to assure her that I was fine and to thank her for the flowers. She was happy to hear from me. I had no pain at all from being hit.
At the end of the year, I always close out my logs, total them up. I had to go back several years to find a total that equaled as much as this year. My mileage had been fluctuating up and down from one year to another. He had enabled me to ride 3,723 miles. The whole episode with the Holy Spirit was to let me know he would be with me always.

In 2020, this was the year that things started going downhill as far as my physical health was concerned. On one ride we decided to ride out to the ZOO. As we were headed West on State Street, I started feeling weak and out of it. As I was pedaling, I lost the strength in my legs. I could hardly turn the crank. I told Brenda we had better turn around and head for home.
When we turned around, we picked up a little tail wind which helped me get home safely.

My doctor thought I should see a heart doctor. So, he made an appointment for me with Dr. Mikinzskie. After an examination he decided he would go through the left radial to get to the heart and put a couple of stents in. After getting in there, he said it was worse than he thought. So, he pulled out and called in Dr. Toon, a heart surgeon, to do the job. Dr. Toon was a retired surgeon from Wichita. He and another retired heart surgeon from Florida got together and decided they would still like to help heart patients on a part time basis. They took turns coming to Salina. They are both tops in their field. When I finally got in to see him, I told him about my bike riding. Dr. Toon said the issues that he was having was due to being a long-term diabetic. He said as active as I was, I should heal quickly.

Dr. Toon felt that the leaky heart valve was not supplying enough oxygen and caused him to pass out on that ride.
I had to do a lot of getting ready for surgery. When I was finally ready, he ended up doing a triple heart bypass with aortic valve replacement. Surgery was completed on June 9m, 2021. After I was in the recovery room, he sent his surgical team home. Then I started failing. Blood pressure readings were going down fast. My daughter Stacy was here from her home in Grand Junction, Colorado. She is the ER Manager at St. Mary's hospital.

Prior to that, she was a flight nurse. Dr. Toon advised her that they were going to have to take me back in. He asked her if she would help him until the team got back. The team made it back. They didn't have time to take me to the operating room and started opening me up in recovery. Once they opened me up, he lifted my heart out and the blood was running through it and blood was pooling in the chest cavity. They said I needed platelets. Dr. Toon got on the phone right away and called Wichita for platelets. They had run out at Salina Regional Hospital, so they had to get some from Wichita. Due to the shortage throughout the USA, Dr. Toon had to call Dan Diego for permission to get the platelets. As it turned out Dr. Toon knew the doctor in San Diego. He told Dr. Toon to call Wichita again and he would tell them to fly them into Salina. They were put in a warmer to keep my body from going into shock. My heartbeat rate was declining, and it was close to stopping. They got the platelets in, and Stacy agreed that things looked bad. She came out to tell Nancy how bad it was. Nancy had been praying and reminded God of the scripture that if you truly believe your prayer, it will be answered. At that time, she felt a sudden warmth from head to toe and knew God said OKAY. Stacy thought I was dying. About that time a nurse came out to tell us things had turned around and it looked like I would make it after all. I ended up being in the hospital about five days. On my first visit after six weeks back to the doctor, we were visiting about my bike. I told him I was riding a trike. He said if that is what I was riding I could start riding now instead of waiting another six weeks. Nickole, my granddaughter from Grand Junction, Colorado and Brenda rode 10 miles with me for my first ride. No problem. Glory be to God. Nickole drove back for one day so she could go with me on my first ride.
The following June, I had back surgery. The nerves that ran from L4 and L5 were being pinched off by arthritis. The surgeon had to go in and clean them out. At that time, he told me that I had arthritis in all my vertebrae.

They were at different stages. He picked the worst ones and operated on them. Which means more surgery in the future.
After all of this, I had a stroke which left some damage to my right foot. I can't walk very far without having to sit down. The Lord was good to me again. I can still ride my three-wheeler.

In 36 years of riding, God enabled me to ride 145,040 miles, which would be 5.8 times around the world at the equator.
When I started exercising because of my diabetes, which I kept up all these years, I concluded that once God got his hands on me, he wanted me to be able to prove my record because he knew people would not believe me. I even have trouble believing it myself.

If my story touched you, tell people about it. Help spread the word. I know my story is a little long, but I had a lot to share with you.

Thank you for listening and God Bless you.

• Bruce Whiteley