Life is Dangerous

injury, Mountain Bike | UltraRob | Thursday, September 14th, 2006 at 10:02 pm

Life is full of dangers even if you don’t participate in fun things like cycling. On my first project at HP, the technical lead always made sure my code was checked in before I left on Friday. She always said she didn’t know if I’d come back on Monday. I’ve always maintained that you can get injured or killed even if you’re a coach potato. You might as well enjoy life. At least that way you’ll have great memories and have something to talk about when you’re crippled. Fortunately I’ve always been able to show back up to work on Monday. I’m still aware of the risks while I’m out which is why I always wear my RoadID.

A few weeks ago one of my co-workers, we’ll came him Jack, didn’t show up to work. Nobody heard anything until afternoon when his son called and said he wasn’t able to come in to work but didn’t give any details other than his arm was shattered. After a few days, our manager got the scoop but was sworn not to tell us what happened. Jack didn’t come back to work for a couple weeks. In the meantime we properly padded his cubicle to make sure he didn’t get injured by bumping anything. Once he was back, I found out that he had been filling the bird feeder. He wasn’t thinking and stepped back right off a retaining wall. At least the only thing my co-workers here at Fluke Networks have done to my cube, is put up a banner welcoming me back after RAAM.

The worst I’ve done is crash mountain biking in Moab and limped around the office for a few weeks. I had just gotten a full suspension mountain bike and had never ridden full suspension before. Sure I had tested it a couple times on some local trails I new well but hadn’t done anything long or hard. I was screaming down Porcupine Rim with some other good Expert racers. One by one they had dropped off. We had hit the single track at the bottom a short distance from where you come out to the highway. I finally dropped the last rider that had hung with me. I dropped over a drop off. The rebound was set pretty fast on the rear and I wasn’t used to it.

When I hit a little rock, I got launched through the air. When the first other rider got there, I was face down in the dirt with blood gushing out of my chin and my bike on top of me. I hadn’t moved because my wind had been knocked out plus I was in on awkward position in addition to my bike being on me. He asked if I was alright and I said I didn’t know. Once I got up, he said my chin didn’t look that bad. I was scraped up but able to move.

By the time I had gotten collected, the other fast riders had caught up and we rode on down to the road. I was in pain but nothing I thought was serious. I knew the other guys wanted to hammer so I told them to go on. We had some slower recreational riders that we had last waited for at the top. I figured in worst case if I was in too much pain to ride they’d find me and go get help. As I rode in to Moab, my knee kept swelling. Pain was shooting up my arm from my elbow to the point that I was nearly in tears. Of course we were camped up near the Slick Rock Trail which meant climbing up a big hill to get back to camp.

Julie was back at camp and when the other guys got back, they told her I had crashed but they didn’t think it was anything serious. They suggested she drive down to check on me. She debated whether to because I refuse to bail and get a ride back. My friends finally convinced her and she drove down. By then I had made up most of the climb and didn’t have too far left to ride. She asked me how I was doing and the first thing I said was I thought we should put the bike on the rack and go to the ER. That’s all she needed to hear to know I was in a lot of pain.

The ER visit was less than reassuring. It turned out I had a really deep gash on my chin underneath the big glob of blood and I needed stitches. The doctor numbed it up but didn’t really seem very experience and getting it numbed up was quite painful. The nurse aid seemed to have no idea what she was doing and had to keep asking the doctor what to do when she was cleaning up my chin. Julie could have done much better. At some point we found out that she was a ranger at Sand Flats and worked at the ER part time. By the time she had it cleaned out, it wasn’t numb anymore so I had to go through getting my chin numbed all over again. Before the doctor got it stitched up it wasn’t numb anymore. He said he only had a couple more stitches and just kept going as I clung to the table in pain. The x-rays of my elbow and knee didn’t show anything. They figured I had a bone bruise near my elbow and my knee was just freaked out and swelling.

By the time we got back to camp if I tried moving my leg in any way, my quads would seriously cramp. The guys took down our tent so we could drive to my uncle and aunt’s house in Grand Junction. It was Sunday night and they were gone to church so we couldn’t get a hold of them. We know how to get in their house so they came home to find me all bandaged up and in a sling and Julie was in a removable cast because she had sprained her ankle a couple weeks before.

A couple days later, I ended up going to my doctor which sent me to an orthopedic doctor. It turned out my knee had been bleeding internally. The blood was in a bursa instead of the joint so there was nothing that could be done to drain it. The doctor said it would take about 6 weeks for my body to re-absorb it and the less I moved my knee the less chance I’d end up with chronic bursitis. It took 4 weeks before I could bend my knee enough to walk very well and another couple weeks before I could bend it enough to start riding again.

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