Um, ouch?
I rode Volcanos vs. Farmland again yesterday, and once again managed to get my bicycle caught in a rut on Saltzman Road. Unfortunately this was a transverse rut (runoff across the road at a hairpin) that didn’t just stop me from steering, but stopped me abruptly, which made me fly elegantly over the handebars, then crash (on my head and right shoulder) somewhat less elegantly on the trail.
Damage to my head? Nil, or close to nil, thanks to the helmet that died the true death protecting me. Damage to my shoulder? Unfortunately I didn’t crack any bones – I instead landed on the point of my shoulder, irrepairably tore apart the ligaments connecting my clavicle to the acromion spur of my scapula, possibly crippling me (it appears that the common treatment here is to just suck it up and live with it, if “live with it” properly describes the incredibly unsettling feeling of one’s right scapula rotating as your right arm becomes two inches longer) and at the very least putting an end to my 2012 rando season.
Hopefully the sports doctor I’m going to see on Thursday will decide that the damage is bad enough to require surgery and that my insurance company will pay for the procedure. Ligament transplants aren’t exactly the quickest healing surgical procedure, but 4 months (and, sigh, another two years of riding to get back to the speed I was going prior to 17:06 Pacific Time on May 5th) off the bike is much better than having to give it up forever.
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Yikes!
Clearly I must never again suppose in email that your blogging sounds like you’re doing well!
Hope the shoulder heals readily and entirely.
Very, very happy to hear that you will heal up fairly quickly.
You had a DNF and will have a DNS, but you also had a DND. That’s a good thing.
Ouch is right! Sorry it happened,but very glad it wasn’t any worse! Here’s to a speedy and uneventful recovery!
Alas, I don’t think it’s going to heal quickly, if at all. Most of the references for the injury say there’s no non-surgical remedy and just suggest physical therapy to work around having a non-functional shoulder, and those that do (for athletes) say it takes 6-12 weeks of recovery after the surgery.
It turns out that I would have been better off if I’d broken my shoulder :-(
Let me know if you want to give a recumbent a try. Me and Allison probably have enough of them that we could set you up with a loaner for the medium term.
Thanks, I may take you up on that! I’ll see what my doctor says about the state of my shoulder tomorrow and then I can make a good guess about what to do from that point on.
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I’m glad you’re OK, too, David! It was scary to wait at the gate and slowly realize that you must have crashed. Don’t worry about the broken helmet, we’ll get you a new one.