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This will be short, but chance gave me the opportunity to hear two people get good news from their doctors today. One of them heard “It isn’t cancer.”
Those people were strangers, but you don’t have to be friends to know that reaction.
Seeing that relief and knowing that, no matter what else, you’ve got your health, that’s a great Monday. You can’t much improve on that, so let us leave it there for now.
To your health.
Guess what I did today?
I put my bike on the trainer today. So I turned a cautious wheel for the first time today, three weeks after I crashed and broke my collarbone and two weeks after surgery.
“How did you go from hurting to riding,” my lovely bride asked.
I’d just gotten so tired of hurting, that I wanted to try something else. So I rolled out the mat. I quietly put the trainer in place. I figured out how to mount the bike more-or-less one-handed. I put the front wheel in the plastic brick and had to really stretch my leg to get over the now-taller bike.
Clip. Clip. Pedal. I stood up and leaned over the handlebars. I could feel my collarbone — there is only one position I can be in where I don’t feel it right now — but it didn’t hurt.
Best 45 minutes of the day.
Now. If I can only shake this new crick in my neck.
The alarm went off, playing some carefully calibrated and focus grouped pop tune that I’ve already forgotten. But I had to figure out how to get to the alarm. You see, it was my wife’s alarm, on her end table. She’d already gotten up — she likes to scoop me on the planned news events. Since my left arm is kaput, rolling is not a good idea. Oh sure, I could get half a roll, and then be stuck in the middle of the bed, still listening to the carefully calibrated and focus grouped pop tune of imminently forgettable quality and unable to roll either direction.
So I waited. And after a moment she came back in and turned off the alarm, apologizing. Not to worry. The carefully calibrated and focus grouped pop tune that was already forgotten.
Also, Penn State, she told me, got hosed.
I could write a great treatise about this, but others have done that already. I’ll just keep it to four sentences.
The people involved are getting theirs as a virtue of the law, as they should. This precedent-setting action, based largely on a report that would get laughed out of court, is one other universities will come to regret when the NCAA comes calling. But congratulations, NCAA, you declared you are against sexual assault; very bold. This, meanwhile, simply punishes everyone else at Penn State.
I’ve been fighting headaches today. First a bad one that faded away with the necessary pills. It returned with an ice pick that could pierce both eyeballs. This required a dark room and a nap. At the end of which I had a dream about the world’s worst spy, who was trying to break into a family member’s home. I watched her every move, being about as obvious as possible, but the dream person never caught on. I woke up cautiously. Is this headache still with me? For the most part, no. I’m still not sure what the dream spy could have been looking for in that house, or why she was wearing teal and black and white socks.
Did get out of the house twice today. Visited the drug store to pick up a refill of medicine. A student pharmacist from the Harrison School of Pharmacy at Auburn handled the transaction. She needed to see my driver’s license, a new thing for this prescription, her supervisor told us. A brand new thing, because they didn’t card me last week. Why my driver’s license is an important part of this transaction escapes me.
I said, “You should see what we’re cooking up in our basement!”
The Yankee quickly said, “We don’t have a basement!” (Most places in town don’t, for some reason.) I wondered about this ID rule. If you can’t get your drugs without a photo ID, how do the politicians against Voter ID laws think their constituents are getting their necessary medications?
The student pharmacist interrupted the thought — the nerve of her! — and asked if I had any questions about the pharmaceuticals. Yes, how many are in there? She told me, and then said “I hope you feel better” in this soft and sympathetic way.
I’ve never heard an Ole Miss pharmacist say it that way.
After my second headache and my nap and my dinner we went out for ice cream therapy. The young man that served us was snappy, happy and eloquent. We were the next to last customers. They closed in 15 minutes and they were ready to clean up, but you couldn’t phase them. Pleasant young kids who seemed happy to work. What are the odds? I asked one of them about two different ice creams that I had no intention of ordering. I was pretty sure, but you still need the descriptions. He took it with ‘How could you know, otherwise?’ ease. And then I ordered something that wasn’t even on the menu.
“Not a problem.”
The Yankee and I meet smart and charming young men and women every year in our classes. They are optimistic and cynical. They are serious and silly. They never seem like the stereotypes you might read about or conjure in your mind about “kids these days.” One of them, at 23, is running for city council in his hometown. I read the story today. The guy gives good quote, as they say.
Anyway.
We sat under the umbrella at the round picnic table eating our waffle cones. I mentioned the waffle cone is disruptive to my ice cream eating system. I work my way around a round cone, to stay on top of any potential dripping issues. Waffle cones don’t have that perfectly round top, but rather taper into something that suggests hand-crafted with care and quality. So I have to come up with a waffle cone system, because the traditional method isn’t working here. Also, there was a lot of ice cream in this cone.
We talked about the Aurora shootings — bad, and too many journalists own jump to conclusion mats — and the Chick-fil-A non-controversy. I don’t know why any executive’s stance on any issue should carry weight in how you choose to do business with that company. Ask around and you’ll find someone in every business that supports something that you hate, no matter what it is that you like or hate. None of this changes the fact that the waffle fries are delicious.
[Strunk & White note: the phrase “the fact that” is regrettable, and should only be used when emphatically pointing out something requiring great attention (e.g. waffle fries are delicious).]
If there is a company, however, that explicitly puts revenue towards some cause with which you disagree, that is another thing. But, still, we must consider the quality of what they are serving.
The ice cream therapy worked, by the way. The pain is gone and you can barely see the incision! Why, it is almost like a carefully calibrated and focus grouped pop tune that I’ve already forgotten.
Until the meds wear off.
We few, we hungry few, can smell your raw food and processed snacks as well.
Midnight is the arbitrary cutoff for people who are going to take the big medicated sleep and these rules applied to me today. I wasn’t nervous about the procedure. It is an out-patient thing. And while he wasn’t blowing us off, I got the impression that my surgeon has done a few hundred thousand collarbones. The details were just things to him, variables to move on feel and instinct. But I’m a detail guy, especially when they involve me being cut. I’d become a little nervous then, over the last week, about my unknowns.
And so it was that I found myself eyeing the clock at 11:56 last night, focusing on that one detail I could see, pounding down grapes.
That sign, by the way, was in the first waiting room of the surgery center. There were three volunteers there, all bent to the task of trying to help one man get access to the WiFi. There were also two administrative people across the room. They had the volunteers walk through the long waiting room to call out patients. Not sure why the administrative types couldn’t do it. Maybe they were shy. Maybe they were union.
Patients receive a little badge with a color and a number scheme to preserve medical privacy. I was Red Number Thirty. They called me up for paperwork. They called me up to make my co-pay. They called me up for more paperwork. They called me up to sign something that was a receipt for something I hadn’t received. I believe I purchased property in Phenix City.
After a short while, though, Red Number Thirty was called for a fourth time. The volunteer then walked us to an intermediate waiting room. There are stages of waiting. In this second room there were fewer chairs, fewer people and the real understanding that we were all getting closer.
We stayed there maybe two minutes. The volunteer in that waiting room took a handful of us to our pre-op destinations in a large group. This was where I had to leave The Yankee behind. But I had a nice nurse to chat with distractedly. We talked about military service — she’d been in the Navy — and education and hemoglobin.
The surgeon, an older gentleman who clearly has it together, came by and I asked him a few of my scripted questions from memory. The most relevant: I won’t feel any worse after the surgery. This was purely for morale. We talked about arm movements and rehab. The anesthesiologist, a robust Englishman, dropped by. I asked for a double of everything; he promised to take care of me.
Somehow we learned that I’d be waiting awhile, so the very nice nurse who’s name I can no longer recall brought my wife into my littler curtained staging area. While we killed time chatting the nurse slipped me the good stuff without my knowing about it.
About four hours later I woke up. My tongue was two feet thick, making it hard to explain they’d managed to get the head of an ax stuck in my shoulder blade. This, boys and girls, hurt. After I said this three times some unseen soul understood and bade the post-operative drugs do their bidding.
They later sent us home where I settled into my chair for a nap before a late lunch of soup. Probably a quarter of my torso is covered in gauze and betadine. I dozed, which was broken up by sleep, which was often interrupted by dozing. I had pasta for a late dinner. My appetite is healthy.
We go for our first checkup on Wednesday, where I’ll ask the doctor more questions, including “Will the titanium plate in my shoulder set off medal detectors?”
Updated with higher quality images at the bottom. — Kenny.
Get up.
Get up, Kenny.
Get up now.
As my mind clears I find myself sprawled on the asphalt. Not lying. Not sitting. My bike was a few feet away. Getting up was hard.
There’s shade over there. Shade is a good idea. I can check everything out in the shade. I can’t put much weight on my left arm.
My ride is over. I know that before I reached the shade. I can feel my shoulder swelling.
A moment ago I’d been 29 miles into a 45-mile ride. I was riding along at an easy 18 miles per hour. There was a loud bang, a violent jolt and everything went white. I could hear my helmet disintegrating. The foam and plastic and rubber were ground up by the road.
The flimsy plastic top, the aesthetic cover of the helmet, popped off. It is upside down, coming to rest close to the chunk of wood that I hadn’t seen in the road. I bounced and slid maybe 20-25 feet.
I have to call someone. I can’t fish out my phone from the back pocket of my jersey because my arm doesn’t want to cooperate. When I finally reach it I’m relieved to see my phone still works. I get my wife’s voicemail.
“Call me back, please.” Details aren’t especially important in a voicemail. Over the next four minutes I slowly get my things organized for the walk out. My wife calls.
“I need you to come pick me up. I’m at the state park we were in, but I have to walk my bike out.”
I’m sore, but in no immediate danger. It is hot, but I have water. I looked at the odometer. There were 27 miles on it when I entered the park; there are 29 miles on it now. I have to walk two miles. Everything is fine.
I test my cognition and recall — years, presidents, names, tree species. I’m fine. I’m lucky.
She soon calls me from the park entrance and wants to know where I am. But I’m not worthy of a good conversation. I’m hurting and mad at myself.
“I am walking” I say a little too forcefully, “my bike out.”
Soon it starts to rain, a cooling insult to a painful injury. A few minutes later I see The Yankee under an umbrella. I’m walking with my hand pinned to my waist.
I admitted I was hurt by saying “You’re going to have to put my bike on the rack. I can’t use my arm. I think we’re going to have to find a doctor.”
Back at the condo I can’t raise my hand above my head. I get cut out of my cycling jersey. I wipe off two hours of sweat. We clean up the road rash on my shoulder, arm, hip and knee.
I suggest we carry my helmet in case a doctor wants to see it. I can’t get that grinding sound out of my ears, but I had not looked at it.
In the hospital waiting room we took this picture of the back of my helmet:
Always wear a helmet, kids. Always.
Tomorrow: the medical tale.
UPDATE: Two weeks later, I decided to take some higher quality pictures.
This is the back of the helmet, as seen from above. So you’d be wearing this and facing the top of the frame. Note the chunk that the road just sheared off. Part of that is resting beside the helmet:
Again the back, this time from straight on. See how the upper left and center of the back was ground away? Note the small cracking at the base of the helmet’s back as well. See that crack on the left side? We’ll get to that next:
Here’s that left-side damage. Hardly a hairline crack:
This is a little farther up the side, but still on the left. As you’re wearing the helmet this crack would be directly over the left ear. The fracturing only stops at the air vent. Who knows how far it could have gone beyond that in a solid form, like a skull. From these pictures we can surmise that, without the helmet, the crown of my head over to my ear would have been heavily damaged:
Finally, looking up into the helmet. That’s one-piece, molded crash foam. Look how much it separated:
