It’s 5:36 on the morning of January 31, 2018. I had set an early alarm and am walking out the front door of our house looking at the sky. The security footage shows me linger on the sidewalk in front of the house for several minutes before turning south to climb the hill to the end of our street for a better view of the cloudy sky.
10 minutes later the camera shows my return – carefully walking across the front yard holding my left forearm stiffly in front of me with my right hand. At the front door I try the doorbell three times before finding a way to open the door with my feet.
The inside camera doesn’t catch my entry through the front door but it is activated when I walk through the kitchen and come to rest at the dining room table, forearm on the table. A few minutes later Tina appears and I shuffle out the front door for our trip to the emergency room.
As I watched it for the first time, I was surprised at how little of the pain was visible in those silent images. There is just one moment as I wait for Tina to respond to the doorbell that I throw my head back wailing but the moment passes quickly.
It was a futile quest. Typical Oregon clouds blocked any view of the rare super blue moon eclipse. Even before setting the alarm I knew this was likely but I thought it was worth a try and it was only one hour earlier than I had been waking recently.
As I hiked up the hill I remembered the numerous times this climb had been difficult and now it was easy. When I got to the top, I walked to the next street over and scanned the sky. Nothing. “Where should I be looking?” I wondered as I turned around and began walking back. I pulled up the web browser on my phone as I formulated the Google search phrase in my mind. Before I could type it, I stepped off the sidewalk and into a world of pain.
It was the curb strip and it was landscaped with lava rocks. I was laying face down and my left arm hurt a lot. I lay there moaning and swearing for a bit before attempting to get up. However, when I pushed up with my left arm, I felt no resistance from the ground. Confused, I looked up at my forearm and was surprised to see it was laying at a different angle than it “felt.” Instead of facing the ground, ready to push off, it was laying at a 45° angle the other way and on the other side, a position that is normally not possible because the shoulder won’t rotate far enough. I knew then it was bad.
More swearing and lots of self-recrimination (“Stupid, stupid, stupid!”). My phone was within reach so I called Tina who was still sleeping at home. It was 5:39 when I made the first call and 5:40 when I gave up after the third. I briefly considered a FaceTime call but abandoned that idea when my phone told me I had disabled it for cell data.
I needed to stand and I needed to walk the four blocks back to the house. I needed to keep my arm from flopping while I walked. Once I got to the house, I knew Tina could take over and make the remaining decisions such as whether we should go to urgent care or the emergency room.
I gathered my wits, grasped my left wrist with my right hand and lifted my left arm off the ground. I lurched to my knees, carefully centered my gravity and then stood. “Yes. Good. Ok. Ok.” I muttered as I turned towards home, eyes fixed on the ground immediately in front of me for fear of another misstep.
I had only taken a couple of steps before realizing that my sweat pants had slid down and would be a problem for walking. Except neither hand was free to pull them up. A nearby hedge was just the right height to temporarily rest my bad arm and pull up my pants with the good one.
Half a block later the problem arose again and I looked for a new arm rest. The problem with pulling up pants one-handed is that it is very difficult to pull up the side opposite your hand properly. I managed to get the waistband completely over my left buttock this time and was soon back to walking slowly and muttering encouragement to myself. “Just a little further. Almost there. We got this.” (Yes, I refer to myself as “we” for conversations in my head.)
Halfway home and I realized I was not wearing my glasses. I did not consider turning back to retrieve them. The thought was preposterous.
When got home I knew that I had to be especially careful crossing the yard. If I fell again, it could be disastrous. I walked very slowly and very carefully across the grass, feeling each step fully before shifting my weight forward. I tried the doorbell but Tina was fast asleep so I opened the door with my foot and walked inside yelling Tina’s name.
I went to the bedroom and she still lay in bed undisturbed. I sat on the edge of the bed by her feet, reached over and shook her. I waited for her to rouse and remove her earplugs before saying, “I fell and may have broken my arm. You have to take me to the hospital.” It took her a few seconds to realize what was happening but then she got out of bed and started dressing.
I wandered out to the dining room where I sat at the nearest chair, rested my injured arm on the table and began sobbing uncontrollably. I knew that I had done what was necessary to get help and now I could trust others to take care of me. The entirety of my situation came crashing down and I collapsed underneath the weight. My whole body shook and all my recent failures flooded my consciousness.
I closed my eyes and tried to focus on my breath, a technique used in mindful meditation. Time crawled. Soon I began wailing “What is taking so long?” over and over. The pain was immense and I knew it was not ending any time soon. Aside from the pain, the visceral feeling of danger felt like an existential threat. I was completely in fight-flight-freeze mode and all rationality had been suspended.
Tina came out and began reassuring me. She helped me out the door and into the car. She drove to the scene of the accident to retrieve my glasses and then on to the emergency room. The fifteen minute drive to the hospital seemed to take an eternity but I was calmer by this time and tried intermittently to focus on my breath again. It seemed to work but when I opened my eyes, we were hardly any closer than when I closed them. The swearing and self-deprecation continued throughout. I also came to realize that eventually I might be faced with even more pain while my arm was being put back into place.
Tina parked near the emergency room entrance in a handicap spot and put her placard (which she keeps in her purse) on the dashboard. The waiting room was relatively empty when we arrived and I was admitted immediately. After standing in the admission office for a few minutes (I was afraid you sit because I didn’t know how hard or painful rising from the chair would be), we were walked to a room with a bed on which I sat to be evaluated.
It was quickly determined that x-rays would be needed. I was offered a wheelchair but I declined, still fearing the painful consequences of standing from a low seated position. We walked to the radiology room just outside of the ER where they thankfully had a downward facing projector which allowed me to rest my arm on the detector pad.
My actual x-ray
The x-rays showed that I had suffered a “simple dislocation” of the elbow which essentially means that there were no fractures. Obviously, that was good news but I knew that the possibility of more and greater pain lay ahead during the reduction maneuver that is used to restore the elbow to normal alignment. When the doctor told me that I would be “under” for the procedure, I immediately told him that I loved him. I was only half-joking.
When I awoke from the anesthesia (propofol), my arm was in a splint and a sling. When we checked out a short time later, the pain was considerably less and the events of the morning already felt like a fading memory.
It is now two weeks later during which time I have worn two splints and a brace but now my arm is free again. Physical therapy starts next week.
With only two weeks of summer remaining it’s high time I updated you about what’s been happening in the Ring household.
For the second year Troop 820 (Thomas’ Boy Scout troop) held an unofficial “family camp” in June. If you recall, last year we went to Idaho for three days of biking. This year we drove to La Pine, OR, where we camped in the “high desert” at 4100 feet. I was huffing and puffing there for two days before I realized that the altitude was the problem. During a bike ride to the shower I figured out that deep breaths counteract the lack of oxygen. Once I knew that, I no longer dreaded getting off my ass and walking to the next campsite. While we were there, the boys enjoyed a long bike ride and floating down the Deschutes River. It wasn’t really that warm but I think the altitude made it feel warm. Continue reading “Blowing through the jasmine in my mind”
Last night Graham and Thomas had their final orchestra concert of the year. In anticipation of the event, several months ago I invited my mother to visit us at this time so that she could attend. Graham’s fourth grade orchestra was the first to play and they did a very nice job of showing how much they had improved during the year. After they took their bow, they all started off stage to make room for the fifth grade orchestra. As Graham stood near the edge of the stage waiting for the rest of the kids to move, he chatted and laughed with his nearby friends. I looked away for a second to talk to Tina and then we heard a crash in front of the stage followed by a gasp from the audience. Somebody fell. Tina asked, “Who fell?” Scanning the group near the commotion, I realized Graham was no longer on stage. “It’s Graham!” I told her as she stood and then rushed down the stairs to the stage.
On Saturday all four of us joined Thomas’ Boy Scout troop for a trip into the Gorge to ride our bikes on the a restored section of the Historic Columbia River Highway. The ride was intended as a warm-up for the much longer trip that the Scouts have planned for June in Idaho.
Thomas rode Tina’s mountain bike, Tina borrowed a friend’s single-speed “cruiser bike“, Graham rode his single-speed 20” dirt bike and I rode my trusty commuter/mountain bike. My achilles tendon had loosened up since my excursions from and to work earlier in the week but my butt was still plenty sore. It didn’t matter much, though, because I spent more time walking my bike than riding it. At least it seemed that way.
I had expected the path to be relatively flat but I was very wrong. Tina and I hung back with Graham and Zack, one of the Boy Scouts. They both had a lot of trouble with the hills and had to resort to walking fairly often. After we finally reached the summit, we were all glad to tear effortlessly down the path. Graham pulled out ahead of us and I noticed that his steering was rather unsteady. Fearing the worst, I caught up with him to give him some tips on what to do when going fast. The first thing I told him was, “Keep your eyes straight ahead. Don’t look at me. Look straight ahead.”
He did look at me when I said that but I had expected that. I didn’t expect that his attention would be drawn by an island in the middle of the Columbia that we had been looking at from the top of the hill a few minutes earlier. He said something about the island and then noticed that in turning his head, he had also turned his handlebars. He quickly turned them back the other way, but predictably overcompensated and steered right off the path. There was a slight drop from the paved path to the dirt and rock shoulder and I think that’s what started him into his tumble. He soon met with one of the head-sized volcanic rocks that were all over the side of the path and came to a sudden stop.
All of this happened about 4 feet away from me as we rolled down the hill at about 18 mph. I was able to stop about 6 feet down the path and hurried back to him. Tina was further up the hill but had seen what had happened and was racing toward us. He was quiet when I first got to him but he soon began wailing. I made him lie down and I asked him where it hurt. He said his stomach hurt and his knees hurt. His knees were both road-burned even though he had on jeans and I think he got the wind knocked out of him. I felt for broken bones but he had none. His right leg had gotten wrapped inside the bike frame and the odd angle had pulled off his shoe. The look in his eyes was one of abject fear. Graham is a brave little boy and I have never seen him that scared.
He cried for awhile and then started to calm down. I went ahead to see what the rest of the party was doing and found them lunching. Much to my surprise, Graham came over the horizon a short time later and began describing his crash in the most grandiose and impressive terms possible. I took the opportunity to reiterate that he needed to keep his eyes pointed forward and he chimed in that he had been riding too close to the edge. He also said that he needed to “focus” more. On the way back, I rode behind him on the downhill and he did very well. He’s still a little wobbly with the steering but he maintained focus and kept the perfect distance from the edge.
It turned into a good learning experience with only slight injuries. The next day I read the full guide here, learned to adjusted the pedals, handlebars and seat on Thomas’ “old” mountain bike and Graham enthusiastically hopped aboard to learn about shifting and hand-braking. He’s looking forward to our next ride so we’re going to try to get out this week some evening. I don’t think we have to worry about him giving up on biking anymore.
Yesterday morning I injured my right wrist in the shower. You might think that there was some sort of freak accident which involved slipping or falling or maybe both, but it was not nearly that dramatic. The sad truth is that I was simply washing my hair when it happened. The act of rubbing shampoo onto my scalp with my hand caused the injury to my wrist. I wasn’t rubbing particularly vigorously or pressing very hard. It just started hurting and has hurt since.
Since I turned 40 I have been noticing more and more that my body has become much more fragile. Injuries that used to take a day or two to heal now takes weeks or even months. Last year, on a trip to the coast, I made the mistake of hefting too many laptops in my shoulder bag. Result: a popping sensation in my left shoulder that has only recently gone away.
It wasn’t like this when I was 20 or even 30. When I was in college, I used to do crazy things so people would think I was crazy. One of the crazy things I did was to jump out of a second story window once when I was drunk. Because I came away from that experience completely uninjured, I concluded that I would never be injured jumping out that window and demonstrated my theory a few days later. Even though I “rolled” with the impact, I injured my right ankle enough that I rolled around on the ground in pain for several minutes before limping off for a beer.
It probably took only a week for that injury to heal, but it has come back numerous times to haunt me in recent years. In the last year especially, that ankle has gone from normal to painful in a matter of minutes. And the transition doesn’t even have to involve movement. I can be sitting with my feet off the ground for a long period of time but when I stand I’m suddenly in excruciating pain. The extreme pain fades but a dull pain lingers for days after. I plan to speak with my doctor about it next time I see him.
Sometime between jumping out that window and now my body decided it could no longer put up with my shit anymore. Or perhaps it was no longer able to put up with my shit. Whatever the correct shit-putting-up-with verb, my actions now have consequences on my fragile body. That fragility has not only created a greater awareness of physical consquences but has also led to increased caution and hesitancy. Straining to move that bookshelf a few inches further while the body is twisted awkwardly is no longer an option. Greater planning and frequent plan re-evaluations are the order of the decade now.
And when the body says, “Pain!” – it’s time to finally listen.
The calf is healing surprisingly well in both the muscle pull and the frostbite. The lumpiness of the frostbite made me paranoid enough to call the advice nurse Friday afternoon. She said she suspected “frostnip” since the skin is red and not white. She said to watch for continued numbness and blistering. Both have occurred to a minor degree but it is clear to me today that it is healing. The red is subsiding and the blistering seems to be lessening. The muscle feels well enough that I can walk normally and spent much of last night stretching it out.
Today I celebrated Easter by turning my compost pile and harvesting an especially rich vein of crumbly soil. At this time of year, you’re always on the clock to get things done before it starts raining. I spent my newly acquired compost on planting new grass in a weedy area in the front. I had to dig out all the weeds and crab grass first, so it occupied most of my afternoon. I’m glad I got it done though and the sprinkles kept threatening the whole time I sat out there digging up weeds.
Graham came out and asked if I would play a board game with him so he’s setting up “The Simpsons Clue”. Who killed Mr. Burns? Homer in the garage with the donut!
Yesterday morning it was so nice outside that I decided to skip the Max and bike the entire way to work. I felt great and it was an awesome ride until I dismounted at the curb 30 feet from our front door. At some point after my right foot touched the pavement, I felt a little “pop” in my right calf and thought to myself, “Uh oh, that’s probably going to hurt.” Here’s the normal sequence of events for a dismount:
Stand up on left pedal
Swing right leg behind the seat
Touch down right foot
Touch down left foot
What’s weird is that I didn’t feel any pain until after I tested that initial thought. That means it probably happened as I was putting my left foot down. Once I put a little weight on my right foot, yow! I nearly fell over from the pain. Luckily, I had my bike there to brace me and hold me up. I hopped a few steps towards the door before trying it again, thinking it might just be a cramp that will fade away. No such luck. Still incredibly painful.
Eventually, I made it to my office where my friend, Erik, recommended icing it immediately. Luckily, we had a large ice pack in the freezer already and I wrapped it around my calf with an Ace bandage. It was very cold at first but after awhile I became absorbed with work and didn’t think about it. Over an hour later, the ice pack was mostly warm so I took it off so I could refreeze it for later re-icing of my calf. Strangely, the skin that had been beneath part of the ice pack was red, very hard to the touch and felt like it was a coupld of millimeters thick. It softened up in a couple of minutes, though, and I went on about the day.
My evening commute is nearly all downhill so I had no problem with my bike except stopping and dismounting, which I had to execute differently to avoid stretching the calf. After we got home from Thomas’ spring concert, I rested on the couch with my foot in the air. At that point there was still redness where the ice pack had been and there was pain similar to sunburn on the skin. I began to suspect that I had frostbite.
This morning Erik, who claims to have seen cases of frostbite, confirmed. This article says to never ice for more than 20 minutes at a time. The area is still red and feels lumpy in a few areas. I called the advice nurse at my doctor’s office and left a message. I suspect I’ll need to go see my doctor for the frostbite. The calf feels better already and I think I’ll be back on my bike on Monday.
