The Crash and The Journey Back

WARM UP AND DRY UP PLEASE! I knew I should not have said a word about wanting to hike CRL once per week.  Today, when I got off work it was 39 degrees and the wind was blowing.  Too cold for me, so I headed home.  I will do a Zwift ride then maybe some additional hip strengthening exercises tonight. I had a bit of a realization last night watching an old mtb video of mine...  that is how much I stand up while I'm riding that bike especially on descents.  I guess I hadn't thought about it much until I started watching mtb videos.  SIGH.  Maybe it will warm up enough and stop raining every weekend for me to try to ride outside more. I'm really getting in the dumps about it.  I wanted to go do the shortest Storming of Thunder Ridge on my crash-iversary date, but at this point (less than 11 weeks out) I can't see it being a reality.   I've literally ridden outside 3 times this year (6 total since my crash) - nothing real significant....

It's funny how every January, just about every human decides on resolutions or goals for the upcoming year.  Like many others, I too had selected my 2018 goals.  It was to ride a century (that's riding 100 miles on bike, for the non-riding readers) and both days of the Shenandoah Fall Foliage Tour with my long ride being on Sunday and possibly as long as a Century.  I worked hard last winter riding Zwift or going outside and riding an hour per ride (on weeknights; longer rides on the weekends).  I spent a lot of time cruising the roads near my house and riding up and down hills.  I was having a good spring, setting PR's on segments on Strava and thoroughly enjoying my abilities.  I had ridden almost 1200 miles between January and April and had built a pretty good base fitness for road rides. I had previously ridden a century back in 2013 - Backroads Century - Berryville Edition .  It was a blast and beautiful roads.  There is just something abo...

This piece needs to go backwards Monday came and just like any Monday I was dreading the day. Nonetheless this was the hand I was dealt. We arrived at the clinic. Waited our turn. Soon we were in our room to wait some more. My poor stomach was in knots. My best recollection of the visit is that Jesse was an unhappy as us with what we were seeing on the CT scan.  In fact he looked mad. As he suspected the top part of my hip (femoral head and neck) was anteriorly rotated so the bone fragments indeed were not aligned. There was over 1.5cm of difference in them, and their best guess was maybe I had 20% bone to bone contact. Without more bone touching healing would be delayed tremendously and might not ever occur.  In that case, I might not ever walk again. In order for me to make the most well informed decision J sent Dr. S in to talk to me. I was truly on the fence about what to do until Dr. S came in. I’ve known of Dr. S for a really long time, I’ve seen him put some...

After being discharged from the hospital we had to stop at Walgreens to get my narcs, some aspirin and my poop thinner. We grabbed a bit of food then headed to the worst hotel in Townsend, TN. Mom and Dad had secured a room at Best Western as a place to stay since it was near the campground where my trailer was sitting. Dad was there one night then went home with my trailer in tow. Mom of course stayed behind to play chauffeur for me. The hotel was decent but turned out they had no sympathy for our situation. Their front desk person was horribly rude when mom went to get ice and discovered the 1st floor machine was out of order. She walks with a cane most of the time and was told she’d have to walk up the the 2nd floor to get it. No offer to get it for her, no offer to get some out of the nearby kitchen where the continental breakfast was prepared. Meh. Some people and places just suck. I think she ripped their customer service and we left some feedback on Google and Yelp. ...

If you’ve ever been in the hospital for an ortho issue or know anything about some hospital admissions, there are certain things besides going to the potty you have to do in order to get out. It’s like working parole. So my first attempts at physical therapy were miserable failures. I was taught how to do butt crunches (yea it’s a real thing), straight leg raises (really relatively speaking), heel slides (sure can’t bend my knee but if you say so) and I think there was one more but I can’t remember. My first attempt to get out of bed and walk was met with lightheaded and decreased BP. My second attempt was a rapid response. Third time was the charm. Hands on walker, right foot on the floor let’s go. Man that was hard, but getting out of that room was nice. Now I could see the hallway and the elevators/exits. I would soon be liberated from BMH. The therapist and her student were fantastic. The walker had wheels on the front, and the back walker feet sliding on the floor made a ma...

This nice young man came to fetch me for the OR.  After we went through a few awkward doors and up a floor on an elevator (I think I remember that right).  We arrive in pre-op.  I'm sorry, but all pre-op, ORs and PACUs smell the same.  It has to be the cleaning supplies, the paper products, the supplies or something; but I swear there is a unique odor.  It's not unpleasant, it's just different. Anyway - so here I am getting a bit anxious and still battling the nausea from the morphine.  Enter Patty the Pre-op Nurse. I guess Patty was having a busy day - three hips would do that to a person - I honestly didn't see anyone else around to help her.  I was the only patient and naturally my nosy self is looking around what's up.  I see the far other end of the area I'm in and wonder if that's PACU.  There are some doors to my left, to the OR - I think.  Meanwhile here I am in my once warm hospital gown, my sports bra still (no one has ventur...

In walks the ER doctor, “hey, what did you do, where are you from?” I crashed my bike, I probably broke my hip, I whacked my head but never lost consciousness ma’am. She, of course looked at my helmet - a few scratches, small dent but otherwise intact. Yay Giro for making good stuff and yay for a hard head. No headache so that was good. She checked other parts, nope nothing else just hip pain, some road rash on the same, both knees scraped a bit and a scrape on left elbow. During our meeting the doctor shared with me that she was a graduate of VCOM (the DO school in Blacksburg) and that she had done a brief rotation at CRMH where I worked for many years. Her name was familiar but we saw so many residents and students it would be impossible to remember them all unless they stood out for good reasons or bad. My old ER friends may remember her - Jessica Flinchum. She was super nice and friendly. Soon I was whisked away to X-ray by my ER nurse. I expressed to the nurse that I w...

Every ride like this has a director. They tend to be some of the nicest, hardest working people you will meet. It takes a lot of work and logistics to put on an event such as these. Meet the 2018 TdB ride director Eleanore. I had seen her picture on Facebook and spoken with her briefly on Friday to inquire how the routes were marked, but otherwise I didn’t know a soul at the TdB. Once I was hefted off the ground, plopped on the EMS stretcher and shoved into the truck I was in agony. Seemed no one wanted to listen that I was was an EMT in my past and a really experienced X-ray tech. I knew how I wanted to be moved, but none the less I made it into the ambulance and from what my nerves were reporting my hip was broken yet still attached. Mr Medic wouldn’t start an IV on the ground or give morphine before they moved me because “it’s not clean”. I was thinking you’re an idiot because I’ve started them in far dirtier conditions than this grass, but what could I do. I was at the merc...