Wipe Out

Well, here is my new post, and I have absolutely no pictures to document the event - just as well because as my husband put it, "my foot was turned the wrong direction".....let me go to the beginning though....

Saturday a bunch of friends asked if we wanted to do a training bike ride up Mt. Diablo, in a couple weeks a whole group was doing a reunion ride so since I had not done it before I thought it would be a great idea to do a training.

Saturday morning started out terrific, I was pretty tired though as we went to the Alameda County Fair the night before and we had so much fun, it was opening day for the fair and the kids had a blast. We went on all kinds of rides and ate greasy fair food and bought icees & kettle korn and cotton candy, and my favorite, carmel/chocolate apples!

So Saturday morning I get to the base of Mt. Diablo at 7:30 am. My coach is a doll, she is AMAZINGLY fit, she teaches 3-4 classes of all kinds in one day and can still do a "quick" 2000 ft ride up Mt. Diablo! She was really sweet and stayed with me the entire ride. As you know I'm still a novice. I totally made it to the 1/2 mark (that was our goal) which is 2000ft, and for all you bike enthusiasts, I did it all without clips (special shoes with clips that clamp your feet to the pedals, but gives you more power to ride). Well our descent was going well, I was enjoying it and taking the blind curves slowly, we were almost at the bottom, I think I only had 2 more curves, and I lost it - I was going 20-25mph, I was adjusting my breaking hand, didn't break fast enough on the curve, skidded on gravel, watched my left leg hit the ground to break my fall, and the rest of my body and my bike go to the right - I looked like a Wish Bone!!!! Not kidding. I fell, HARD, then I couldn't move anymore. My girl friend came back right away - they called 911, luckily rangers with radios were on their way up the hill anyway - the firefighters came, the paramedics - I told my girl friends to only call the firemen if they were cute, I only remember seeing their wrists and forearms, and those looked cute!

Anyway, they asked me if I wanted morphine, I was fearful, but I screamed when they tried to put me on the crash board. So they said, "how do drugs sound now?" Now I'm the kind, with 3 of my kids I didn't have any drugs, by choice, so you know it had to be pretty bad. So I got the morphine 2 cc's at a time until 10 in the ambulance because they didn't know how long I would have to wait when I got to the ER.

When I got to the ER it was just like the TV show, people moaning all over the place - mind you, it was only 10am by then, people in the hallway. My husband got there by then - time was extremely foggy for me. I just hope someone got my sunglasses!

They got me in a room and asked if I wanted my $95 bike pants cut off me - I was screaming in my head, okay, but apparently I didn't answer fast enough so my husband was like, Yes, please! I truly think my pants saved me - I only got one scrape on my knuckle - I was also wearing a light weight jacket because going down the hill is pretty cold so I really really was lucky. My whole side would have been totally scraped up.

So they gave me barbiturates, I don't see why people become drug addicts because it is horrible! you feel totally nauseous! I threw up as the dr. was talking to me - just water, but still!! It was embarassing.

So they did xrays, a pregnancy test so they could do CT scans - all that happened was that I dislocated my hip! Scary, I say "only" but my gosh it could have been 1000 times worse. I could have broken my hip, my arms, legs, etc. With the barbiturates I was out for the count so didn't even know when they put my leg back into it's socket. The surgeon on call that day said I may be laid up for 6-8 week!!! Guess no more Triathlons this season! I'm going to make an appointment to see an orthopedic specialist tomorrow morning so I'll cross my fingers I don't have anything else. And hope that when I get old I won't need a hip replacement!!!!

So I've been in bed (in my downstairs guest bedroom) all today really sore, can't sit up, I can only lay on my back, not my good side, can't even lift up my own leg really, I have crutches to help me to the bathroom, but even doing that is hard. I got a chair in the shower so I could do that at lest - luckily my mom came into town to visit on Wednesday, little did she know she was going to have to take care of all of us! Things are going well though - I hope that my kids will survive and I won't have any complications. So I'll have plenty of down time to catch up on all of your blogs - thank heaven's for my laptop!