And then I decide to go out for a bike ride. I was just breaking in my new clipless bike pedals (which is a serious misnomer, since they are the kind of pedals you clip your shoes into). Getting used to them had caused me to topple over a few times the day before, but I had wisely decided to practice clipping and unclipping, slowly, in the park, where I could at least land on soft grass. I got a few minor bruises, but I felt like I was getting the hang of it.
The next day, June 9, I installed my new bike computer, just a small odometer type thing (Cat Eye). I was feeling proud of myself for figuring out how to do it on my own.
I suited up, put on my sunscreen, and decided to head out for a ride. I was a little nervous about the clipless pedals, but I felt like I could handle them. I waited for the right moment to get going, then headed along my usual 15 mile route. I was enjoying the pedals, moving along. I passed another cyclist, and then, after cresting a small hill, I began to have trouble with my gears. I was trying to get the gears to a lower level, with more tension, but that didn’t seem to be working. My gear shifters are on the ends of my aerobars, not in the location of my breaks, and I had to reach forward to get to them. The gears were on too easy of a setting but to fix it I had to keep pedaling, since the gears can’t shift if you don’t pedal. I was pumping my knees up and down furiously. My new computer, flashed 22 mph. I felt panicky. Out of control. The back gear was screwed up. I wasn’t sure why. So I decided I would try the front gear instead to slow things up. Then I pushed the left (front gear) down instead of up, essentially releasing all the tension on the bike chain. I lost control, swerving the handlebars wildly, swinging out into the road, unable to reach for the breaks.
I remember the sight of the yellow center line of the road and the gray asphalt upside down in slow motion. I landed, head first, cracking my helmet nearly in two. My right shoulder came down next, followed by my hip as my limp body skidded across the road. I remember the texture of the road, gritty beneath my fingers as I crawled to the side and sat in a heap on the curb. I could see my bike had slid about ten feet past me. The clipless pedals had evidently released during the fall, not unlike the bindings on a ski boot. My water bottle had come out of its cage and was rolling in the middle of the street. I could see one of the energy beans from the pack I had tucked in my back pocket was rolling slowly back in the direction I’d come.
The biker who I had passed before came up and stopped. He got my bike out of the road then came and stood with me, asking my name and if he could call 911 for me. A woman in a car had swerved around me when I fell. She stopped briefly, asking if I was okay, before getting back in her black station wagon and driving off. A man who had heard me fall while he was out mowing his lawn (was the sound really that loud?) came over. The biker and the lawn guy were very nice. The stood there, checking my pupil dilation. I kept saying I was okay, but I was not feeling okay at all. My entire right side was scraped and bleeding and my right arm was excruciating to move. I didn’t know if it was broken, if my shoulder was dislocated or what.
I asked the biker if he could fish my phone out of my cycle bag and he did. I tried to call Diane, but she didn’t pick up. I called the Cranbury police and explained that I had fallen while biking and needed medical assistance. They said they would send an ambulance. I then texted Diane that I had fallen and that I had called the police and was going to go to the hospital. A few seconds later she texted me back; she was terrified, wanted to know where I was.
Diane arrived first, then the police and finally the ambulance. The medic in the ambulance was the mother of one of Valentine’s classmates, someone I see every day on our walk to school but had never had a conversation with. After a whole year of our kids being in the same class, I finally learned her name was Suzanne. Suzanne and the ambulance driver, John, brought out the stretcher. I was not going to be able to stand up to get on it. I felt scared. The pain was picking up as the first rush of adrenaline began to ebb. It had been about ten minutes since I hit the ground.
My ambulance ride was bumpy. My shoulder screamed with pain but I tried to take my mind off it by talking to Suzanne. How was Nate doing in school? Was he excited for first grade? I worried I might be sounding crazy, or that I’d say something stupid. “If I say something dumb, can we both just pretend like it never happened when we see each other on the way to school in the morning?” I asked Suzanne. She smiled and said we could. I was so thankful for these volunteer EMTs. John called from the front that we were almost there, would be pulling into the hospital in less than two minutes. I felt a sense of relief at the thought of getting out of the bumpy vehicle. I hoped I had just dislocated my shoulder and that the doctors would be able to pop it back in.
Suzanne and John filled out paperwork and wheeled me into a room in the ER. A pregnant nurse named Michelle came in, along with an African American nurse who had a computer on a rolling cart. She verified my name and address, asked me when I had my last period. She said this in a whisper, but everyone in the entire hall could hear. I responded in an equally loud whisper “yesterday! Doesn’t that just suck?” Everyone laughed. But the nurse said it was good because it meant I was cleared for x-rays, since I wasn’t pregnant.
Diane turned up then as Michelle was taking my blood pressure and temperature. Michelle wanted to get me into a hospital gown, but short of cutting off my orange tri top, there was no way. I balked. Diane balked even louder. We agreed we’d cut it off if the doctor said we had to, but that we’d wait to see if the doc thought it was necessary. Michelle relented. Leaving the gown in a heap at the foot of the bed, and leaving the un-inflated blood pressure cuff on my arm.
The nurse had offered a Percocet a few minutes earlier and I had turned it down, fearing that it might make me sick. I was thinking of another medication I had once been given for tension headaches that gave me racing thoughts and made me sick. That was Xanax, but I had the two confused. Now I remembered that it wasn’t Percocet that had made me so ill, and as the pain was intensifying I asked Diane to tell the nurse I’d changed my mind. A young, female orderly brought me the pill and helped me get it down as I couldn’t hold the cup of water.
A radiographer named Theresa showed up next and took me to the x-ray room. I had some serious problems getting into the positions she needed, but we worked together, slowly and methodically. She would brace one part of me, help me rest back. It was slow going and the pain was still strong. My right arm was trembling uncontrollably and I was afraid it might be blurring the photos, but Theresa said they came out alright.
After taking the first round of x-rays of my shoulder, Theresa contacted the doctor. I waited, feeling sleepy from the Percocet. Theresa told me they needed to take more x-rays, now of my collar bone. It seemed, she said, that that was where the damage lay. Fortunately I didn’t have to move much to get those pictures taken.
When I left x-ray I went to an area called IRW, though no one knew what that stood for, and the doctor, an avuncular guy who I remembered had once seen my dad when he had pneumonia, told me that my collar bone was broken. I needed to go talk to an orthopedic specialist and in the meantime there was nothing much they could do for me. He prescribed Percocet and got a nurse named Nicole to come in to scrub out and dress my wounds.
Nicole told me dirty jokes and got me through the cleaning process. She was awesome. Then she brought a wheelchair and wheeled me out to the curb where Diane picked me up in our minivan.
The road rash doesn't look too bad in this pic, actually, but that shiny spot on my shoulder turned into a weeping wound the next day, and my leg (not pictured) was sliced up pretty bad.
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