My Muscles are Revolting

Originally drafted 11/25 and magically not posted until now

No, I am not freakishly deformed (although the elbow is not particularly pleasant to view)…I just came back from a week off to do hill repeats with…dundundun…no cold weather gear! I know, some of you are reading this from the North East snowstorms thinking “what do these California people know about cold anyway?” Well, I think it is precisely that prejudice that made me think I could do yet another ride in sub 50 degree weather with nothing more than a pair of bike shorts and a long sleeved jersey…which, in turn, contributed to my leg muscles having a full on revolt after about an hour of riding. California isn’t supposed to be cold dangit! I am not a “winter jacket at 60 degrees” wimp yet!

Overall, hill repeats went well. Rather than doing our typical trips up and down Mt. Eden, Coach Don had us venture out the other direction and do a longer, rolling climb instead. I think it was intended to be a reward for showing up on a holiday weekend! The ride was nice; rolling hills, a stream, wildlife. Scenic. The kind of route that makes me wish I rode with a camera (but heck, if I can’t buy leg warmers…what are the chances I’ll bring a camera?). We did have to brave 5 wooden bridges, which were especially torturous on the elbow (10 really, since the route was an out-and-back), but other than that it was an enjoyable – albeit cold – trip.

I did have a bit of a scare on the return. Keep in mind that I am still pretty shaky on descents. My accident was on a downgrade, and this ride was the first real trip downhill I’ve had to do since then. Things started well. I got into the drops OK, and was pretty comfortable supporting my body weight on the crappy shoulder. I think I topped out somewhere around 25 mph (I know…I used to be such the speed demon…give it time), when I hit a giant seed pod from one of the trees in the middle of the road. Now, these pods are pretty large – probably 6 inches around – and are bright orange to boot…but my reaction time was slow and my front tire plowed into the thing. The bike shimmied and fishtailed, and I had a vision of flying over the guardrail (I was right next to a silver traffic railing over the stream), but ultimately I was able to stay in control. Woohoo!

And that was what put my muscles into full-on revolt mode. The cold weather plus that little shot of adrenaline, and I just couldn’t stop shaking. My legs started vibrating and no amount of long, deep breaths, counting, or logically explaining to myself that these things happen would make them stop. I managed to pull into the parking lot at the park and unclipped without issue. After a quick chat with Ron, I decided that I am probably not genetically deficient at biking and the cycling gods probably don’t really hate me. And the best way to prove that would definitely be to take the optional trip up Mt. Eden. Avoiding things doesn’t make them less scary, and there aren’t many bike trails that don’t have some kind of hills.

Only half the team set out to do the last (only) repeat (hey – Coach Don did make it optional), and I’m proud to say I was able to do the entire trip up without stopping. We recouped at the top and were chatting about spin class when we spotted the rest of the team rounding the last bend. It was definitely cool to see everyone voluntarily challenge themselves – even after initially planning to opt-out. One of those “Go team!” moments, for sure.

An uneventful descent, one dropped chain, and 4 miles later I was back at the truck and en route to Chipotle. Mmmmm Mexican food that I can honestly say I earned. Guess the season really has started! Gear clinic on Thursday, I promise to have all the winter pieces for the next ride.

FYI – The Garmin did make the trip. Distances and times to be updated once I get the darn thing outta the truck!

Update 12/11 – Woot for Data!
MotionBased Data: Hill Repeats 11/25

Total Time (h:m:s)	2:06:45	8:11 pace
Moving Time (h:m:s)	1:33:48	6:04 pace
Distance (mi )	15.45
Moving Speed (mph)	9.9 avg.	34.9 max.
Elevation Gain (ft)	+1,517/ -1,519

A Rich Man’s Sport

I already know what you’re thinking. It’s been almost two whole weeks since you were cleared to ride, and there have been no freakin RIDE POSTS since then. Annoying, right? Well, that ends today! Let’s do a quick rundown (ridedown? I think not). I finally got the bike set up on the trainer a week ago Thursday. Put on ye ol’ bike shorts, busted out the clippy shoes (which are hell to walk in on hardwoods), and hopped on the bike. And by hopped on, I mean struggled to fling my leg over the top bar and then struggled again to get clipped in. The climbing block that we bought makes the stupid bicycle tall!

I got my legs spinning for few minutes, clicked through a few gears, and quickly realized something was wrong. My right hand shifter thing kept getting stuck inward. On the upshift, this was fine; I could just push it back out. When downshifting though, I seemed to get these weird half-shifts, where the big bar came in and out but the little bar stayed stuck in. (I’m sure there are technical names for these parts, but damned if I know them). Still, I kept at it for a full Friends episode, trying to find that place on the saddle where my hiney is actually comfortable and trying to get used to that spinning motion again. The weight bearing on my shoulder/elbow wasn’t too bad, but the angle at which my left arm sticks out is dang weird. By the time credits were rolling, I had determine my bike needed to see the inside of shop. The shifter issue was driving me batty.

Two days later I took the beast into Palo Alto Bikes for repair. A quick inspection showed that my problem was “likely unfixable”. Apparently the shifter things is part of a whole unit that they can’t really pull apart to repair. The shop guy offered to try to bend the piece back straight, but if it failed I was looking at a $200-250 repair bill to replace the part. Eeeeep! To remind you, I had just replaced the rear derailleur on the bike the week before my accident at a cost of $200. $450 in parts in six months?? I really need to get this under control – the entire bike only cost $1400! (Seriously, who knew cycling was for the rich?) Twenty minutes later I received a call from the shop that everything was fine; the shifter was fixed. Woohoo! Only, after testing, it’s not really fixed. The plastic piece can be bent forward for a short amount of time, eliminating the clicking issue…but after a few shifts it reverts back to it’s normal (aka screwed up) state. Sigh. For now, I’m trying to just deal with it. Maybe Santa will bring me a new shifter (or a new bike?!) for Christmas! Hint hint.

So I brought my oft-abused bike home and planned to hit the road for real this week. I get everything ready to go, only to realize that I don’t own a helmet. At least not one without a giant crack in the middle. Well, crap. Off to Performance we go. I pick out the helmet that I want only to find that the Campbell store only has Mediums in bright-ass red and blue. Now, I try not to be overly matchy-matchy with my bike gear, but come on! I am peach/pink colored with red hair. My bike is silver, purple and black. In what world does electric blue match this?! The sales guy is awesome however, calls the Mountain View location, and secures me a white and silver helmet in my size. Woot! I head over Monday and pick up my new Giro Atmos helmet (which, conincidentally kinda matches my bike) at a 15% discount…plus reward points. Mind you, the thing still ran me well over $150 post-discount. As Charles said, “Well, it’s more incentive for you not to fall anymore.” Like I ever intentionally fell? Thanks hon!

Helmet in hand and bike in psuedo-repair, I was out of excuses (ahem…reasons) not to ride. Wednesday afternoon I suited up and hit the road. For real. And while the ride was ultimately successful, I can’t claim it was too exciting. Being that it was my first time out in months, I confined myself to a few trips up and down my street followed up by an exhilarating spin…around the block.

I did discover a few things on my ever so short trip. For one, I can’t easily switch my “default clip out foot”. I’ve always clipped out on the left, and I thought that with that being my bad arm, it might be easier to start out on the right each time instead. No go. My brain thinks about clipping out on the right, and then executes a left foot de-clip. Oh well, it was worth a shot. My overall comfortability and confidence on the road were pretty low; possibly lower than when I started fresh (after 12+ years of no riding) back in May. I’m sure that will get better the more I get out, but I was dang slow coming off stops and even going around turns. Sigh. Additionally, the vibrations from the road are definitely less than comfortable on the arm, most especially the elbow. Hopefully strength training and some additional rides help this out – and quickly! I’m going to try and hit up the pacelining clinic on Saturday and see how riding goes with actual people around on actual roads. Wish me luck!

5,000 Seconds

That is approximately how long it would take me to do every single exercise that my therapist has assigned me per day. Well, that’s how long it would take to do each exercise for 12 reps, holding for 10 seconds, with a 5 minute buffer in between categories, and a 30 second buffer between exercises. But that seems like a long time, right? That’s why I wrote it in seconds. 83 minutes isn’t actually all that impressive sounding. And yes, I really did do the math. If you didn’t know I was at least a little geeky by now, you haven’t been paying attention! Don’t believe me? Take a look:

Disclaimer: Yes, the following exercises all have technical names and were not simply invented by me. That said, I am not interested enough in being correct to go find the papers containing the titles. Plus my names probably give a better mental picture than “Shoulder Flexion (Assistive)” anyway.

Foam Noodle Fun (that surprisingly doesn’t involve hitting someone with said noodle, OR a pool…le sigh)

• Climb the Rope
• Shifty Arm Box – make a box with your arms, while laying on a noodle, and shift the box left and right. What would you call it?
• Swing the Arm Triangle – same thing, only a triangle this time!
• Rolling Pin Arm Desensitizer

Stretching with a Stick (again with the no hitting)

• Lay flat, raise stick overhead – simple, right?
• Lying Bicep Curl – oh, oh, I should have said “supine” like other people should know what that means!
• Use stick to push arm out to the side. Cry.

Pulley Exercises – yes, a real pulley is currently hooked to my front door

• Generic alternating arm pull up – just like you do at the gym, only with zero weights involved.
• Same thing, but out to the side
• Freakish stretch arm behind your back and up between shoulder blades (aka oooow)

Everyone’s Favorite Stretchy “Not-Level-Zero” Rubber-band

• Try to pull the arm straight – stand on the end of the rubber-band and let gravity (and some force) do the work. Apparently they aren’t working hard enough yet.
• Side Pull downs
• Standing Squeeze the shoulders together
• Rotator Cuff stretch (front)
• Rotator Cuff stretch (back)

No Cool Gadget to offset the pain for these Exercises (if you consider a pool noodle cool)

• Quadraped Weight Shift – get on all fours and put your weight on your bad arm. HA!
• Glenohemural Joint Greasing – drop your elbow to keep your shoulder lubricated (don’t ask me, I just follow directions)
• Lift the soup can to the front – ok, technically this is “Lift the 1lb weight to the front” but I don’t own 1lb weights, so a soup can will have to suffice
• Lift the soup can to the side (see above)
• Lift the soup can behind you (you get the idea)

All told?
20 exercises x 12 reps x 10 seconds per exercise = 2400 seconds

20 exercises x 30 second break between types = 600 seconds

5 categories x 300 second break between categories for setup and “travel” time = 1500 seconds

Inevitable falling off of noodle at least once due to dog interference and therefore necessary “beat the dogs and reset” time = 240 seconds

Grand Total: 4740 seconds daily!

Add to this estimate “time stopped to fast-forward TiVo”, “spacing out while watching tv”, and “randomly necessary Charles interruptions” and you’re over 5k seconds in no time. Throw in a weekly 45 minute long therapist visit, and I’m not really sure that I have time to eat or sleep. I tried using therapy as an excuse to get out of work, but that hasn’t gone over well…yet. So, in case you were considering it, don’t break your collarbone and elbow unless you have a spare 5,000 seconds each day to dedicate to boring, and painful exercises.

All Clear on the Arm Front!

Well, mostly.

The short version: As of my doctor’s appointment yesterday, I am cleared to start riding, running, yoga or any number of other physical activities at my leisure. No heavy lifting for another 2-3 months, but all other restrictions are lifted. Hooray! Let’s bust out the road bike tonight, right?

The long version: While my bones appear to be fully healed, my muscles are still…well, wussy. Two months of utter inactivity has left me with pretty nasty tendinitis in the area around my rotator cuff, and my overall arm strength is “not bad, but could be better.” Unfortunately, there’s no magic cure – just physical therapy. Up to three more months of it. Le sigh…it could be worse.

In other news, the bumps in my arm that I thought were bruises are actually the flippin’ wires!!! Apparently, my skinny twig arms paired with a general lack of muscle covering the elbows on humans allows me to actually feel my more bionic parts. All together now….eeeeeeeewwwwwwwwww. I guess it’s good that I’m not still horribly bruised, but …*shudder*. Also, the sensitivity of my forearm is due to the surgery, is normal and will eventually go away. The best way to expedite it? Rolling it on the stupid foam thing or massage. Any arm-massage volunteers? As expected, I scored worst on arm-straightening (insert frowny face here). Theoretically I should be able to get it straight using my own force (ow?) in the next couple weeks (I’m really close!), but the doc is ordering a straightening brace just in case. You wear it at night and some spring-loaded rubberband thing pulls your arm straight in your sleep. Assuming you can actually sleep with it on. Oh well, I’m willing to give it a shot.

Given all that, what’s the plan? Will this blog ever have ride entries again? Yes…just not this week. With the tenderness that’s still present in my elbow, I’m pretty sure that jumping out onto the road immediately isn’t going to work. I just think about the jarring bumps on Willow Street and cringe (shooting elbow pains while driving are still pretty commonplace – I’m guessing these would be even worse on a bike). So for this week I’m going to get the bike up on the trainer and see how I respond to weight on my shoulder and elbow when leaning forward. Hopefully we’ll have everything hooked up tonight and I can make some assessments before this weekend. Assuming everything goes well, I should be ready to hit the road for real by early next week. I’ll have to keep the first couple rides tame (and likely short), I’m sure, but I’ll be back in the saddle! So exciting!! I’m nearly jumping out of my skin at work with anticipation. Of course, that could just be the caffeine. Whatever.

Cue *Back in the Saddle Again* music…

You Can’t Sleep in the Hospital Parking Lot

Last week I showed up 15 minutes late for my physical therapy appointment. Not surprisingly, the desk clerk quickly turned me away as my appointments only typically last 30 minutes. While I understand the concept – show up on time or don’t show up – morning traffic on 280 is nothing if not unpredictable, and I was more than a little irritated to make the drive to the hospital only to be crisply rebuffed. To compensate, this week I got up a full hour earlier and was out the door for my 8:30 appointment by seven sharp. This put me in the Kaiser parking lot by approximtely…7:15. (Remember what I said about the traffic?)

What’s a girl to do with a full hour plus to kill in a hospital parking lot? Knowing that the office didn’t take latecomers, I assumed the runes would be much the same for early-birds. With my luck, turning around and going home would likely net me the same result as last week. So, I went for the next best thing. Sleep in the car. Mind you, sleeping upright for me is a challenge. Sleeping upright with a broken collarbone is even more so. Sleeping upright, with a broken collarbone, in a tiny Beetle convertible? Nigh on impossible. (Oh, and let’s not forget the fact that the sun is out and shining?) But I had over an hour to kill and figured, with any luck, I could net a full 10-15 minutes of sleep when you account for the time it would take to get to sleep and the time it would take to walk into the office. I even set the alarm on my iPhone in anticipation.

Back support pillow in place, windows rolled up, head lolling to one side, I attempted the impossible. Car nap. I tossed and turned a bit – as much as is possible in the front seat of a Bug at least – and eventually found a comfortable-ish spot. I started to doze.

Taptaptap.

What the heck? Must be imagining things in my pseudo-sleep state. Grunt and turn head.

Taptaptaptap.

Open eyes…slooooooowly

And there he was. Hospital parking lot security guy. He seemed friendly enough. Something akin to my grandfather when he was young-ish. I cracked the window.

“What’s up?”

“Are you OK?”

*Checks self over* “Yeah, fine. Just catching a nap before my PT appointment at 8:30.”

“OK, I just had to check because…”

At this point he launches into a story about how someone died (or might have died. He can’t really give details) in the parking lot of the hospital. They’d come for help, but couldn’t get out and the guards just through the person was asleep and never checked. It was hours later… And now the policy states that… and so forth and so on. You get the idea. And while I was completely sympathetic to his plight at having to follow policy (and was utterly polite during the whole conversation. A huge feat for pre-eight am talks), I have to confess to being just a twinge annoyed that I somehow missed out again on the elusive experience that is car nap. I tried (unsuccessfully) to reclaim the sleep that I almost had, but eventually gave up in favor of watching Hospital Parking Lot Security Guy interrupt other people’s naps. It sorta made me feel better to know I wasn’t the only one suffering.

And this whole story prefaces what was an otherwise uneventful physical therapy appointment. I started strength training, which involves me standing in different positions and pulling on an over-large rubberband. And, for the record, I am on the level ONE rubberband, which is not the level zero, which makes me feel better. The physical therapist can’t clear me to ride, but she did say that my progress is excellent. My arm is straighter than ever, and hopefully the strength training will bring back enough stability that my arm raises start improving. Overall, good news, but uneventful. Hence my lesson for the day instead – you can’t sleep in the hospital parking lot.

It’s Official!

Charles and my TNT registrations for Solvang have been processed. Yes, I have indeed convinced another participant …victim?… to sign up. Winter season training, here we come! (Is it too early for a “GO TEAM!”? I think so…) Note, I am NOT yet cleared to ride – heck I still can’t straighten my arm all the way – but registration fees were getting ready to go up so I decided to chance it. In theory, my doctors will clear me to ride sometime in November, which, at most, probably has me missing the first 2-3 rides. I’m hoping for none, but given my progress to date, I’m not holding my breath.

As mentioned, my arm still doesn’t extend all the way. Last measurement of my arm trying to straighten was -12 degrees (or 168 if you prefer), which is close to flat…but not quite. Flexing is easier; I can pull my arm all the way to my chest consistently. Woot! I can also pretty regularly lift my arm over my head, indicating that I’m getting some mobility back in the shoulder, but raising it out to the side makes me want to cry. One handed hair washing continues, unfortunately, to be the norm – but I have managed to wrangle my arm up enough to put up my own ponytail. Hooray!.

I’m still rocking the physical therapy thing once a week, and will probably start strength training this Thursday. In the meantime I’ve got a long list of exercises/stretches on a variety of nifty gear (aka a stick, a pulley, and a foam pool noodle) that I struggle to fit all of into each day. Seriously, 10-20 reps of a minimum of 9 different exercises takes a freakin’ long time. Especially when you have to “hold for 10-12” at the top of each stretch. Sigh.

Anyway, kickoff for winter season is 10/27, and my next doctor’s appointment is 11/5. Charles and I bought a trainer yesterday – hooray for Performance sales! We’re anticipating that I’ll being able to ride indoors (aka with little to no risk of falling and re-injuring myself) in the next couple weeks. Add that to the “impending” rainy season and the trainer seemed like a good buy. Weather won’t cause us to miss too much training dangit! We haven’t set it up yet, but I’m getting excited to get back in the saddle, even if only on a stationary basis. And the countdown continues…

Medically Sanctioned Torture

On countless TV shows over the years, physical therapy has been equated to legalized torture. Large women (usually Swedish) grab aching appendages and yank them into unheard of positions “for your own good”. Patients’ pleas for mercy fall onto deaf ears as these Nordic giants go unflinchingly about the business of rehabilitation. Only upon full recovery – miraculously achieved within a half hour episode – do patients see the light and shower their torturers with praise. Given such auspicious expectations, saying that I was unexcited about “torture-therapy” might be a wee bit of an understatement.

As such, I walked into the physical therapy office Tuesday morning with an almost overwhelming sense of dread. My ears pricked up waiting to hear the screams of fellow torturees. I finally decided that the PT office walls must be insulated in order to keep patients from fleeing before their appointments, thereby cheating Kaiser out of yet another $10 copay. After shading in a picture of “where it hurt”, ranking my pain on a scale of 1 to 10 (!@$#ing unimaginative ranking system!), and answering questions about my sleeping habits, a diminutive older Indian woman came to take me back to the torture chamber.

As she walked me through a series of questions and exercises, it became apparent that my fears of a bruiser-therapist were unfounded. Sort of. There is some truth to the thought that size does not equal power. While my therapist did not have the statuesque blondness or accent of those women on TV, her soft spoken, quiet demeanor was but a calm facade for her skill at pulling my arm into a variety of interesting, hitherto unimaginable(aka painful) positions. With weird plastic protractor in hand, the doc bent and flexed my broken arm repeatedly, noting angles which meant nothing to me but apparently spelled my imminent doom (or an obvious lack of flexibility…whichever).

We then moved on to the “How Many Hurty Exercises can Jamie Remember” Game, which I am expected to practice at home, at work, on the road, etc. I won’t go into all the details of the routine, but suffice to say there are numerous styles and iterations, and all are less than comfortable. After having one to many “I’ll do that one when my arm doesn’t hurt so much” thoughts, I came to the conclusion that I’m going to have to suck it up. Realistically there will never come a time when my arm feels good enough to do these exercises easily. That’s the point of physical therapy, right? Siiiiiigh. So…I’m trying, but it certainly doesn’t feel any easier yet.

There are a couple of bright points. For one, my PT doc was significantly more impressed with my range of motion that the surgeon which made me feels much better about my bicep curl progress. I’m also fully enjoying daily hot showers (minus any arm covering apparatus), which help relax some of the tension doing the evil exercises builds up. And lastly, for the next five days – starting tomorrow – I get to do this torture routine in between enjoying all the delights that sunny Hawaii has to offer. Yep, it’s time to head out and play cheerleader for my cycle crew in Honolulu (such a hard life, no?)! Wish us luck – GO TEAM!

A Newly Naked Arm

I guess you could say my doctor’s appointment on Monday went well. After a couple of x-rays, I met with my surgeon to begin the “bend the broken arm in as many painful direction as possible” game. It appears that my shoulder is not healing as fast as he would like – no connecting bone growth detected on the x-rays – but my forearm break looks good. Unless you count the flexibility tests.

Shockingly, after 7 weeks of my arm in a sling basically 24-7, interrupted only occasionally by the aforementioned Crappily-Modified Bicep Curl exercise, the range of motion in my arm and shoulder is, at best, severely limited. I wasn’t surprised by this little bit of information from my surgeon, especially when he jacked up my arm and I nearly passed out cold! I was a bit disappointed that he seemed underwhelmed by my bicep curling progress to date, but given my overly-lightheaded reaction to shoulder movement…I guess I can’t blame him.

The doc did declare both my sling and ace wrap off limits, and I walked out of his office with a naked arm for the first time in nearly 2 full months. Woohoo! I celebrated by going home and taking a trashbag-less shower. Ahhhhhhh, so nice. This was closely followed by several email experiments to discover precisely how much two handed typing I could manage with my limited flexibility (for the record – not that much, and my accuracy is shite). Now comes the fun task of alternately soaking and lotion-ing my arm to try and get all the icky scabs and dead skin off before overly grossing out too many innocent bystanders. Ewww. Don’t look too close! Seriously!!!

I also had a directive to start physical ASAP, which translated into first thing Tuesday morning. More on that in the next post. My shoulder is whimpering (or I’m whimpering for it…whichever), so I’ll keep this post short. Oh, but if you are wondering – very late October to November is the early “back in the saddle” signoff target. *Starts the countdown*

Progress and the Squeezey Squirrel

So the “aggressive” exercises two of my five doctors prescribed appear to be having an effect. To understand the progress though, you first have to imagine the exercise. Basically think of a bicep curl. Take away the dumbbell (no weight on the busted elbow). Picture curling your arm up. Now, instead, of releasing the tension back down, grab the injured arm with your good hand and *push* the bad hand back down. Apparently allowing the injured arm to come back down on its own could somehow shatter the spiffy wires you have tied around your bones. Repeat 10-15 times. Do all of this without moving your shoulder/collarbone area at all. Fun, right?

When I first started this exercise about 14 days or so after surgery I thought it was basically a lost cause. I could move my arm from the normal wrapped 90 degree angle up to…well basically an inch higher. And oh the pain! Not only was there the expected “you haven’t used these muscles in weeks” aches, there was also the extremely cool and highly unexpected “omfg my skin is splitting open” ripping sensation. Sweet! Forget gripping a bike again, I was pretty sure it would be months before I could reach my own shoulder.

Still, I’d been cautioned that abandoning my exercise now would lead to intense physical therapy later – so I stuck with it. Last Saturday I nearly yelped in surprise when I discovered that I could now curl up on the left side just as far as my right! Granted, it takes a good 6 or so reps to stretch out enough to accomplish the task, and it may still be weeks before I can extend my arm the other direction (I’m working on it, however the fear of popped wires is seriously limiting how far I’ll push myself on any given day)…but it is progress! Woohoo!

In other news, the busted black skin around the surgery site is starting to peel and itches like crazy. Supposedly, this is a good sign that everything is healing up, and I will soon be scab-less. I’m still not allowed to wash that arm, so if you catch me clawing my own arm worse than a cat with fleas – you know why.

I’ve also been making some progress on getting the strength back in my left hand, thanks to my very best friend – the Squeezey Squirrel. The spot where my elbow fractured apparently runs directly over one or more of the main nerves in my hand. This means that I’ve been basically relearning all the normal hand motions beyond “feeble finger wiggle”. To aid in this endeavor, I have employed a random Beanie Baby from my bookshelves as tennis balls turned out to be too hard to grip. In the weeks since I started mangling forest critters, I have managed to bring my fingers down to 1/3 their largest size and can now grip small objects with relative ease, I have also managed to severely disturb more than zero of my coworkers with my furry animal abuse around the office. So goes life.

Least exciting in the progress department is my collarbone. I’m not allowed to move it to see “how its doing”, so all I really know is that I no longer usually feel like I’m ripping through muscles when bending over. Yay. It still looks visibly swollen to me, and gives off a nastily persistent dull-ache, but I guess its healing. I hope.

The next doctor appointment is on the 24th; just before I leave to cheer on my cycle team in Hawaii. I’d love it if he’d let me out of the sling, but I’m willing to settle for a “Good Job” on my newfound arm flexibility. An all clear to ride by end of October would be even better, but I’m not holding my breath. We shall see in a week; I’ll keep you posted. Haha posted…bad pun for a blog!

The Collarbone’s Connected to…

Damn near everything, as far as I can tell. Yes, I know it doesn’t rhyme or make for a good song (the everything-bone?), but you’d be amazed at the things you can’t do while keeping your shoulder area immobilized! With that in mind, I’ve put together a little list – I like lists in case you couldn’t tell – to enlighten you on the ins and out of this craptastic injury so that you’ll be should it (god forbid) ever happen to you. And so I can vent…you know you miss my posts!

Little Known Facts and Random Observations about Broken Bones and Such:

• Collarbones are involved in basically every movement you make, and you will never appreciate them until one of yours cracked in half. Want to reach that toilet paper on your left? Nope! Think you can put on a shirt alone? Try again!
• Along that same vein, adult jeans and other leg coverings should come with a velcro option. It is slighty better to have coworkers wondering what the heck you ate as you moan and grunt in a work potty stall for 20 minutes than to actually ask them to button your pants for you. Slightly.
• You can’t wash a recently surgerized arm while it’s still healing. Annoyingly, you cannot wash/lotion up the non-broken arm alone either since you won’t be allowed or able to move the other side.
• Showering with a trash bag on is challenging. The things are like soap magnets making it impossible to rinse.
• Your body creates extra skin when it swells to 3x normal size without you ever realizing it. You then get to shed then new skin like a molting snake when the swelling goes down, much to the disgust of other humans and to the delight of dogs everywhere.
• There is no exfoliant known to man that will remove the now-dead skin in one sitting. Even if you spend $30+ on it.
• Fingers that once resembled sausages look more like shriveled, hyper-elongated raisins once the swelling goes down. In good news, these newly desiccated appendages can fit my shiny new engagement ring (just don’t look too close or you’ll be offended by the flaky skin textures).
• The white part of your sling starts to look brown after very few days when worn basically 24 hours a day. Whoever decided a sling should be white, even in part, should be beaten. Severely.
• Literally anyone you meet is authorized to ask you “What happened?” if you are wearing a sling. It’s kind of like being pregnant (or so I’ve heard), except it is accompanied by looks of horror.
• Answering a terse “Broke some bones” or “Bike accident” is not a sufficient answer to these queries. If you made eye contact, expect to the entire story, in detail – even to the gas station guy.
• The sole exception to the above rule is your company CEO. People like CEOs really don’t have time to do the pretend sympathy bit and will run away quickly upon a sling sighting.
• Everyone and their mother will promise you donations to your fundraising after hearing the “horror story”, How many will actually donate is still TBD.
• These same people all think you are crazy for daring to get back on a bike after such a fall. Obviously these people have never tried cycling!

Enough bulleted lists pretending to be real content for one night. I’m getting better at this one handed typing, but am still frustrated at my “desired blog posts” to “typing tolerance” ratio. So many ideas, such a tired right hand! I should hopefully have injury progress updates ready for tomorrow though…keep your fingers crossed!