I am lucky. Still walking and functioning reasonably well.
The truth is, it didn’t even feel that bad when I went down.
Mercifully there is no memory of the impact, only the moment before: A rising chunk of badly laid concrete; A sharp shudder; The frozen, petrified face of the other guy.
Up to that moment, it had been a typical Los Angeles day, and I was comfortably clipping along the bike path at 23 miles-per-hour.
Two specks appeared in the distance, closing in from the opposite direction. One was skirting the broken yellow line. As we approached one another, I drifted to my right, taking a usual precaution. Fortunately, you learn a few things when you race bikes, like vigilance and how to avoid trouble.
As we reached the point of passing, the one nearest had crept a few more feet over the middle line. I drifted further to my right, as I’d done a thousand times, knowing speed and a tightly controlled angle would get me past the potential problem.
Like all other city streets, bike paths suffer from potholes, pregnant bumps, and grime. This protrusion rose half a second before it was visible. Instinct pulled my bars left as I leaned with them, a hurried but safe correction which would have been relatively seamless any other day, time, or ride.
And then I was down.
Despite the fog clouding true coherence, I understood I was on my knees, parallel with my front wheel, which was bent and spinning drunkenly. Trying to move made me realize I was having trouble breathing. My upper torso was rigid and unyielding. Angry bleeding slashes dotted both arms and legs. My helmet was askew but felt intact. The impact had left the other victim dazed, sitting up on his elbows. Other than a mouse growing under his eye, he didn’t seem too damaged. He asked if I was ok and got a mumbled response as I slowly crawled to get off the path. His partner had veered the other way, and now rested against a cyclone fence. Their expressions gave away how I must have looked. I thought it was strange that my neck wouldn’t stop quivering.
Lacking the ability to rescue myself, I called my girlfriend before limping to the nearest intersection, dragging my battered bike. A few minutes later she pulled up, her worry obvious despite the smile she employed to calm me down. Once the bike was secured in the back seat, I slowly dropped into the passenger side, telling her what I figured was the truth – Probably a few days of soreness, like most other incidents I’d lived through, but nothing too bad. I didn’t tell her I was having trouble breathing. I kept reminding myself that when you train and race bikes, there will be times you crash, and I’d been down several times.
My body continued to lock-up during the short ride home. I gingerly made it up the steep stairs and into the bathroom. Pulling the helmet off revealed a mess on my forehead, tattooed crimson striations. Meaning my head had hit the ground with force and probably bounced a few times. Considering that, I pulled myself into the (thankfully,) stand-up shower, resting against the cool tiles as hot water blasted over my now-screaming back. Best to call out sick for the day.
My girlfriend watched helplessly as I tried to bear up from the couch. She thought I needed to get checked out. Given history, I thought she was being overly cautious.
My last incident had been a direct, 33 mile-per-hour t-boning, perpetrated by a young women who illegally came across five lanes to enter a parking lot. She’d never raised her eyes from her phone while smacking me right out of a bike lane, up and over her hood and into her windshield. In that moment, she’d finally looked up – hitting the brakes in panic and sending me sprawling over the side of her Hyundai. Face first into the street.
After an ambulance ride came four hours in an Emergency Room. 30-thousand-dollars of tests revealed I had somehow suffered NO broken bones or major internal damage. There was my lacerated face, which took 200 stitches, half of them inside my mouth. (To this day I have no feeling in my chin, where several nerves were severed. I also have no visible facial scars, owing to a superb plastic surgeon who that morning just happened to be doing his one day a month rotation in the ER.)
Which is the long way of admitting several narrow escapes had left me stubborn. And something of a jackass.
This time, almost two days after my latest crash, the pain became so severe I relented and went to my doctor, who took a few X-Rays and hustled me off to another E.R, where several hours later I learned the grim truth: Three broken ribs in my back; A punctured lung and a broken right thumb.
The doc laid it all out with the customarily distant and clinical chill. There was nothing to be done for the ribs, beyond pain killers. I’d have to return in a few days for more X-rays to determine if the lung was healing well enough or if a breathing tube would be required. My right thumb was decimated at its base, something known as a Bennett break, apparently one of the more severe and requiring immediate surgery from a hand specialist. I asked a few stunned questions before the expert hustled himself out.
Thanks Doc – good talk.
This was uncharted territory, so I lacked reference as to what was ahead. Still, I was no stranger to physical trauma. In the summer between High School and College I’d destroyed my ankle, killing any hopes to continue playing baseball. Then some 20 years ago, I’d blown out tendons in both knees, followed by surgery and 2 months of slow-tick downtime. My system rejects pain killers, so I’d been forced both times to muddle through without a crutch.
When I cautiously walked out of the ER this time, it had been just under 48 hours since the spill. There was extensive pain, radiating and sharp in equal measures, but I’d already convinced myself that because of my high-tolerance threshold (marveled at all those years ago by my knee surgeon,) I could tough this out as well.
What I didn’t know about was the “two-day adrenaline cushion.” The Phantom Doc had forgotten, or more likely neglected, to mention it.
Two hours later, I could barely move.
Any attempt at laying down – basically any form of movement – sent a fresh round of shock-heat through my upper body. Relief wasn’t an option. All I could manage was to sit straight up, a position the injuries wouldn’t allow me to maintain for any length of time. Any squirm or shift brought nasty retaliation from the broken ribs. Attempts to breathe deeply might as well have been a stake through the bottom of my lungs. A simple sneeze released electric shudders lasting several seconds. They were so brutal the thought of future ones became terrifying. I slept sitting up in a chair, waking every 20 minutes to a fresh jolt of misery. The acute level of pain never wavered, forcing me to find an ability to better tolerate it.
These issues were augmented by a surgically repaired thumb and the resulting swelling. I’d stayed awake during that procedure, too freaked out to let them put me under. A low dose of Fentanyl slightly calmed me down, but I still felt everything: The tugging, resetting and drilling as pins were secured into bones of my hand. The anesthesia ushered a massive headache. The cast went almost to my elbow. Of course, my right was my dominant hand, so showering and using the bathroom became adventures. Keeping my arm elevated didn’t stop it from yelling at me over the long days.
I kept thinking about books and articles I’d read, stories of others who’d fought through broken bones, especially ribs. Many of those had recorded a somewhat different experience, having survived it with a constant litany of serious opioids. I was finding it damn near unbearable without something to dull the edge.
Routine became a daily war with functionality. The day after surgery, I pushed myself back to work. Clearly, I was in lousy shape, but the moderate distractions kept me from going insane. I drove with my left hand, cursing every Los Angeles pothole and crack. My appetite wouldn’t have satisfied a sparrow. After a full day, or when it became too much, I’d head home, eat a piece of toast, and mentally prepare for another restless night of sitting up, nodding off and minutes later waking to severe spasms.
This phase lasted three weeks, as did the level of pain and sharpness of the attacks, striking without warning.
At some point, around post-crash day 20, I forced myself to try and lay down on our guest bed, which was lower and easier to maneuver. Jagged heat raced up my back as I delicately lowered myself onto my right side. (The bad ribs were closer to the lower left side of my hip.) A minute later, the dull aching subsided enough to lay my head down. Over the next several nights, I gratefully grabbed a few hours in this position, though muscle settling or shifting would bring a fresh batch of misery. Thankfully, the aftermath was faster to dissipate.
By week 5, I was finding four-hour clusters of moderate sleep, though harsh dreams and self-doubt were creeping into those overnight hours, waking me drenched and emotionally spent.
A broken body is a cruel reminder that fitness isn’t a shield against bad luck and fate. Reflection in this state can punish the soul. For me, the condition became a mental and physical prison, a cauldron of anger, futility and depression. Nothing seemed normal. Peace became elusive.
For 50 years, beginning with kindergarten recess on the blacktop, I’d pushed myself with singular purpose, challenging stamina, later for hours on end. Fighting the good fight. This time, my strength returned slowly, and did so with new limitations. No one wants to cope with the bitter realities of age, so I am certainly in no way unique, though I do have a athlete’s understanding, maybe better now than ever.
Almost a year later, the bones have “technically” healed, though the ribs in my lower back don’t need an excuse to ache most mornings. My hand has returned 60 percent of its functionality, and throbs for no reason. My cardio engine isn’t where it was less than a year ago. Before the accident my BPM could top out around 195. Now I’m straining when it lands in low 170’s.
A few months back finally brought the all-clear to resume heavy bag and boxing workouts, along with normal resistance training and isometrics. I invested in a smart trainer, set up on my patio, that allows me to ride my bike with various forms of climbing and pitch on virtual courses. I’ve had to give up “real” riding on streets and up mountains. My days of 100-mile races are over.
Problem is, I never learned how to quit. Thankfully the discipline remains: The necessity to keep moving, making sense of what you can while accepting hard truths.
The Good Fight will always be a worthy, but frequently heartbreaking cause. At best, it offers purpose larger than self, and if we’re lucky, a path to better days, even when it takes our scarred bodies longer to get there.