On the right you can see how nicely things started, with Sundays’ ride to Pescadero. On the left, mis-matched socks and an r-rated x-ray.It’s odd, doing a post when there’s no cycling involved, when the time until I get back onto the bike is long enough that the most-interesting question is why, at this moment, am I not severely depressed. My mobility is extremely limited; I’m typing this from home instead of being at the shop and trust me, I really want to be at the shop helping people. Last night I realized how much I enjoy the time I spend washing the dishes with my wife, because I couldn’t. Today I had to call my oncologist’s office to consider rescheduling my Monday appointment because I wouldn’t be able to get a blood test today. It just didn’t seem reasonable to try and hobble in to the lab, when I’d have to do the standing, then sitting to wait, then back up and over to the lab to get it drawn, with the phlebotomist wondering whether my wincing was fear of the needle of the pain I feel getting up and sitting down. Once sitting, I’m fine, and once moving, I’m fine. But that process in-between, not so fine.
And there’s that thing where, sitting here, I honestly have no indication that anything’s amiss. None at all. Except that I’m sitting here at 4:32pm, possibly the busiest time of the day at the shop. And that when I have to get up for something, it’s going to hurt like heck for a few moments.
So yes, I’ve studied up extensively on my particular pelvic fracture, and have come to the conclusion that most of my pain might not be from the pelvis fracture or the bruising, but possibly an avulsion fracture where tendon or ligament has pulled away from the femur near the hip. Maybe. I’ll know for sure after Tuesday’s appointment with the Ortho doc.
In the meantime, there is some sense of not knowing what I’ve got till it’s gone. My Strava profile page shows a week gone bad. The photos from Sunday’s ride remind me how things started, how awesome it is to be out there on a bike. All that ended in an instant on Tuesday morning’s black ice. Maybe I’m not yet depressed because I’m in a state of shock. Guess my first milestone will be cleaning up after dinner.
The lighter oval section is the area of the slight fracture.Sigh. Crazy rain and wind, no problem. Snow, no problem. But a patch of black ice?
It started out like any other cold morning ride, and Kevin and I were actually thinking it didn’t seem quite as cold as advertised. We even got out a minute or two earlier than normal, so I’m thinking we can take it a bit easier to the start. Well, not when Kevin’s with me. As we headed over Jefferson past the Elks Club, I noticed that the little puddles of water along the side of the road looked a bit… funny. I was watching for ice, but they didn’t have that crusted-over look, but didn’t look normal either. I mention to Kevin to take it easy around that top corner.
And then, descending towards Canada, just before MidGlen, I watch Kevin go down. No warning, just down. Next came me. It’s possible that, had I not been watching him go down, I might not have crashed myself. But crash I did, really hard. 25 miles an hour onto black ice. Ouch. We picked ourselves up, tried to quickly assess if we were in one piece or not, but it quickly became apparent that I wasn’t going anywhere. Movement of my left leg was extraordinarily painful. Ideas of walking back up to the top of Jefferson and riding back home were gone. We called Becky (Kevin’s sister) to come get us and I gingerly squeezed myself into the car and headed home, a short stop to get rid of the bikes, and then on to Kaiser.
It was a long time there, and nobody brought up that we might be thirsty or, eventually, hungry. I was in so much pain at the time (and have been until very recently) that the combination of the pain plus hunger plus thirst was doing a number on me. It was an interesting experience feeling all that at once. Meantime I’d been wheeled into x-ray to check hips, femurs and pelvis. Eventually discover that there’s a small fracture in the pelvis. Kevin fared much better; just a bruised elbow, no breaks. Still we were both ready at about the same time, just before noon, so about 3.5 hours. Becky hasn’t billed us for the time yet.
Kevin will be back to normal in 4 or 5 days; me, not so sure yet. Have to talk with an Ortho (bone doc) guy and I suspect it’s going to be about a month. Could be worse, but I’ll be going certifiably nuts in the meantime!
