Disaster!!!!

Noooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!

After such a good day yesterday, today completely destroyed it.  I was out for my usual bike ride during lunch, which today was a 20-mile round trip to a little lake along the Clear Creek Trail north of Denver.  It's about the right distance from the office, and has a couple tables along the shore.  I typically stop there for a minute, take a drink, and turn around.

Today, with about 2 miles to go, I grabbed my water bottle and sat up, taking both hands off the bars just to relax for a few seconds before the final push.  I'm not sure what happened, but the front wheel just whipped around and threw me off the bike.  I landed hard on my right side, and just laid there for a few seconds, trying to gather myself.  And swearing.  A lot.  Fortunately, I was on a bike path and not a road.  Of course, if I was riding on a road, I probably wouldn't have been riding with no hands.

I picked myself up, and gathered my crap that was strewn everywhere, like my water bottle and sunglasses.  A quick check, and it seemed like nothing was damaged.  Except me.

I had some bad road rash on my right elbow, some pain in my right shoulder, right thigh, and left thigh.  Everything on the right side was from me hitting the pavement.  I think my left leg just got tangled up in the bike.  Another quick look shown me that I had ripped a huge hole in my shirt at my right shoulder.  I gathered my stuff and picked up my bike.  That was when I noticed the pain in my right arm.  This wasn't the road rash, it was inside my arm.

I got back on the bike and started pedaling.  I realized I couldn't put any weight on my right arm.  This meant steering with my left hand, and no braking or shifting with my right.  I managed to pedal most of the way back, but eventually had to hop off and walk up a steep hill near my office.  By that time, I was back on the roads, and couldn't afford to fall over if I started having trouble getting up the hill.

When I got back to the office, I took my bike downstairs, and went to go jump in the shower really quick.  Although I had already decided I needed to go get an x-ray, I felt like crap and wanted  to wash off the sweat, stink and sunscreen, figuring that would make me feel better.  Well, I'm sure it would have, except I couldn't figure out how to get my shirt off.  So I just grabbed my work clothes and threw them in a bag, went upstairs to grab a few things off my desk, and left.  Fortunately, I drive an automatic, so driving wasn't a big deal.  I got myself to Kaiser, and had to wait a bit until they could see me.  So I grabbed a chicken pesto panini and an Izze soda from the in-house Udi's cafe there, and waited.  I had to make the guy at the register open the soda bottle for me.

A quick visit with the doc, a trip to the x-ray, and another visit to the doc told me what I already knew.  I had a fracture of the "radial neck".  Well, I didn't know that, specifically, but I knew I broke something.  It's essentially nondisplaced, meaning the broken part hadn't really moved, so recovery shouldn't be too bad.  The doc just put it in a shoulder-immobilizing sling.  I'm going to see the ortho doc next week.

I got home and really wanted to take a shower.  But I needed to figure out how to take off my shirt.  I decided since the shoulder was torn open, it really wasn't worth saving, so we just cut it off.  Oh well.  Too bad, because I really liked that shirt.  When we took the shirt off, I saw my I had that pain in my shoulder.  Some pretty good road rash there, too.

I look, and feel, like crap.

Tonight was supposed to be a swimming night at Lifetime.  Obviously, that wasn't going to happen.  So my wife went to her class, and I stayed home to make dinner for the kids, and watch the Amgen Tour of California.  Go Tejay!

Not sure what's going to happen with this blog.  I'm going to talk about my recovery, and how I manage to train and stay in shape while waiting for my arm to heal.  The big problem is that typing is a real pain.  Typing today's entry is taking forever.  Future posts may be short and sweet, until I can type with both hands again.

Food:

• Breakfast:  Fruit / protein smoothie
• Lunch:  Chicken pesto panini from the cafe at theclinic
• Dinner:  Chipotle steak fajita burrito.  Turns out unwrapping a burrito isn't easy with one hand.  Teeth were involved.

Exercise:

• Bike ride at lunch.  But you already knew that.

Today's weigh-in: 181.6