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I've been using twitter, mostly related to biking, for updates, thoughts, sharing links, etc.
www.twitter.com/ti_leg

Don't Come Back

I went to see the bone doc on Tuesday and she told me not to come back. She said something like, "Go away and resume normal activity. Pretend this never happened."
With that, I shook her hand and left.

See ya!

Frozen Mud

This is the time for frozen mud. Frozen mud is great fun to ride and opens up otherwise nasty spots. We just had a week of 0-10 degree weather so the ground ought to be great... but then yesterday a little warm up and this morning only down to 34 degrees and, damn, I finally get to get out and it's not going to be frozen. Crap.

Buoyancy?

When my alarm clock goes off in the morning, the leg is stiff and a little sore.
For the first time today, I jumped out of bed to turn off the alarm and the leg didn't hurt or give me that tweek feeling at all. Cool.
You see that news about the plane that fell into the Hudson river? Of course you did. You ever see Dave do the Will if Float bit?

Will my femur float? Another reason to stay away from business travel?

5 weeks and 2 hours later...

Back on the bike. Damn, I'm happy.
Not knowing what to expect, I got on the fixed 29er today, set at 32x18 and hit the road. My leg felt great so kept going and ended up doing about 2 hours including a fair bit of not technical dirt. My god that felt terrific. Just being back on the bike and feeling the motion and realizing that this big thing was going to heal and that, shit, I might even be strong for it. What a great ride.
I've never had such a great casual ride before.
Crap, I shouldn't have bailed on Ouachita.

Stair Steps to Karma

I don't believe in Karma. It requires I think there is some controlling force out there making decisions and I've never seen evidence of any type of external spiritual anything. That said, I'm not immune to a little superstition now and then. Though, I think superstition is more about convincing yourself of something then it is appeasing an angry spirit.
Two days before I busted my leg, I was being a smart ass with one of my work colleagues, who is herself a serious marathoner. I was making snide remarks about lazy elevator riders.
I work in a corporate 5-story building. The staircase is directly adjacent to the elevator, the door is big and always wide open and everyone must walk past the stair case to get to the elevator. It's always been amazing to me to watch how many people take the elevator just one floor. So, with my work buddy, I was being a jerk and insulting the "lazy" people I work with. Two days later, I was exclusively taking elevators.
Should I see karma in this? Maybe so. Though now, as I relearn to take the stairs, I'm back to glaring of people. This is probably just evidence of my core selfishness, and maybe evidence that I'm a slow learner.
This morning, I walked down a flight of stairs to get coffee. A co-worker, who sits right next to me, took the elevator down. We got there at exactly the same time and all I could think was, this person is a big sack of lazy.
If I only think insulting thoughts and never say them out loud, will Karma leave me alone?

Four Weeks

Pretty sore this morning. Yesterday was the first day in over a week not doing either yoga or working the training bike. I also did not take any Non Asprin yesterday, to see how it would feel. It hurt enough that I finally broke down and took the pills after dinner. It's bearable though and the soreness is related to workouts, so I think its all for the good.
Back to the office today.

Insurance

Got the bills. $33,000 roughly for ER and Surgery. My part is $200.

And that folks is why so many people can't leave the corporate jobs. Every family member has to have (solid) insurance or face getting wiped out when accidents occur.

On the plus side, apparently this economy is our parents' fault. So we can blame them. That feels better.

New Competency

I need to update my resume to include my new skill. I have developed an expertise on pain relievers.

BBB - Before Broken Bone, I was an Aleve (Naproxen) believer. I took it for most aches and pains.

This fracture and the recovery have given me a nice long term template to experiment with, in terms of pain relievers, and it turns out the best for me is not Naproxen.

Regular old Extra Strength Tylenol is the ticket.
Pop two of the store brand "Non-Aspirins" and 30 minutes later the pain is nearly invisible. Acetaminophen. Love it.

Naproxen works okay when the leg isn't very sore, but never as well as Non-Aspirin, and never as long as advertised.

Oxycontin just makes me sleepy and aggitated. I'm like the Angry drunk when I take that stuff. It does stop the basic pain though.

The good news is the cheapest stuff is the most effective stuff.

Down time

Kansas City is ride-able almost 52 weeks a year, if your willing to enjoy a little dark and a little cold in the winter. I love riding in the dark and can tolerate the cold. I really do plan to ride all of each Winter, "start the season strong...set a Spring goal to keep motivated," but almost always end up with several weeks where dark and cold and holiday lethargy combine to make me fat and slow. Then its rebuilding in February/March/April to ride strong in the Summer.

So, if I'm honest with myself, the time I'm forced to sit on my Archie Bunker chair this year is not in net much different then what I do to my self in less motivated years. The bummer, of course, is that I was entering the Winter very strong (for me) and looking forward to actually riding all Winter.

But, the more you expose yourself to the possibility of acidents, the more likely they are to happen evetentually. I could have been in bed that cold Sunday morning sleeping in, like the rest of Mohawk Drive, and if so I would be fine now. But that drive to do things...interesting...is necessary and so, here I am.

Thursday afternoon now, nearly 5PM. Happy New Year. I guess I should go hit the basement trainer - after I finish this beer.

YOGA!

This is a good idea. Spent an hour today at the gym stretching and posing in a yoga class. Got a workout, built strength and flexibility. Going to make a habit of this.

Aleve

Oh man, maybe an hour on the trainer was a bit much. How much Aleve is okay to take before your liver shuts down?

21 Days

21 Days since and feeling better each day...still. The last couple days have been walk and focus on not limping. Strange but I'm retraining my leg to walk normal. Did an hour on the trainer today too. It's less then fluid to get on and off the bike but once on the spinning motion is painless and I can get a nice workout on, which is good 'cause the left leg is visibly much smaller already then the right one.
Focused on being outdoors by mid-February and still thinking that is going to happen.
It really depends on stability more then anything.

Facebook

I've of course known about this Facebook thing for a long time but it sounds so superficial and like a giant time suck...while...at the same time I'm intregiued by being able to communicate, load photos and links I'm interested in.

Blogger.com or facebook.com?

Can't really be both.

Would I write different things? Facebook has a crap load of folks on it and will that just be a burden or a cool feature? I suspect I'm thinking about it too much.

We'll see where this facebook thing goes and come back later.

Doc: you're healed

Went to the bone doc yesterday for the two week follow up. Got xray'd, which makes about a dozen time my balls have been irradiated. Bone Doc says that I'm basically healed...that with that hardware in my leg, "it is much stronger then it ever was before and will not break.". So, my only limitation really is soreness, stiffness and weakness. And those are tackled with exercise.
I put the cane away. I limp a bit but now walk.
My plan to be on the bike by mid-February (2 months post wreck) now seem conservative. Amazing. Got to love science.
I wonder what my situation would be if this had happened 50 years ago. Probably life long problems. As it is, looks like all I'm going to miss is some winter riding...and the Ouichita Challenge.
I can live with that.

old habits are good habits

Just realized that I'm still in the habit of taking stairs.  I just
walked to the staircase unconsciously.  That's nice to know.  Got to
get this leg working better quick before my unconscious habits change.

Zero pain med's today

And walking with and with out a cain.
Not exactly fluid motion but it works for today.

Four days later

Home from the hospital for 24 hours and took the bandages off. This is my first real look at my hip. I'm told the rod was inserted from the lower incision after the Doc burrowed our the middle of my femur. The little bandage covers a small cut.
Bruising was gone three days later.

Gentlemen, we can rebuild him.

Do I need a better reason to start a blog then this?