Wednesday, May 18, 2011

A Black Eye


There you have it in all of it's splendor -- a tough bar fight, if I've ever been in one.  You should see the other guy!

Well, not exactly. 

Three weeks ago tomorrow, I was six miles into an evening ride with my group from the bike shop and a the concrete jumped up and wrestled me to the ground. 

Well, not exactly.

I rode right into an uneven pavement joint.  Three back in the group, I never saw it until it was too late.  Went down -- hard.  Surprisingly, concrete is pretty unforgiving.  I was sure my left shoulder or collar bone were broken. 

In addition to the six other riders along who stopped, one cardiologist and two nurses also stopped to help.  One nurse lived near by, went home to get her triage kit and came back to bandage me up.

The damage:  No broke bones!  The black eye you see, six inches of torn up elbow, jammed middle finger, a very sore shoulder, some rib pain, and a nasty hematoma on my hip.  (Best guess is that the middle knuckle went into my eyebrow, turning it purple.)  I knew I'd be okay when I started worrying about my bike ten minutes after the fall.  As for the bike: a bent front rim and torn bar tape.  All in all, could have been much worse!

As of today, I'm dealing with the shoulder and the hip.  Waiting for the MRI results to come in.  The hip will just take time.

I spent a week off of the bike, then took it slowly.  Back riding now.

Thanks to my old buddy Aaron for reminding me about this old blog.  Aaron is another formerly fat guy with an incredible weght loss journey.  Check out his blog by clicking his name above. 

L'Chaim!