Check Up

Here is what they are calling my hand these days:


Looks to me more like something off of a mummy movie!


Today was doctor check up day to see how everything was healing inside and out on my hand. I really wasn't all that into the unveiling of my hand but I JUST HAD TO look at it once the dressings came off. And, it looked good and it looked better than I thought it would too although it's still swollen as you can see.

The only thing is that I am experiencing numb sections on my hand. I have some sections on the top of my hand that I cannot feel and the tip of my index finger is mostly there but still has that tingly feeling on it. I hope to god above that the feeling comes back in these as the swelling decreases. Time will tell I guess and there is not much I can do if it doesn't I suppose.

Oh and they looked at my x-rays from today and YES they found another fracture in my wrist. Like I told you before, every time they look at an x ray they find more!! For the love!!

And they actually used the word "shattered" for the first time to describe my index finger. Hadn't heard that one before. I guess when they went in last Monday they found fragments of bone just hanging out waiting to be pinned back into place. Yikes. So I asked if the "snap" that I heard when I crashed was probably, most likely, without a doubt my hand exploding..... and they responded yes. Ooooooh yuck!!!

So they gave me a removable splint for my wrist, some very painful exercises to do for my hand, told me to start using my hand and told me to come back in two weeks.


I then headed to the heavenly land of Costco to pick up some gasoline and groceries and got misquoted by a newspaper reporter. Apparently I ride motorcycles now.

The question as I recall was: Have gasoline prices caused hardship on you and your family?

My answer as I recall it (along with some other yapping): We have just changed the way we do things. We cycle more to get our errands done, my husband cycles to work when he can, we just got our motorcycle out of storage as well and we limit our trips to SLC now more than ever.

I guess she got the overall gist right but geez loo eeez.

I also got to meet up with one of my favorite people, Tiffany P, for lunch. She is a big wig and all and works at the Utah State Capital in her spare time from racing bikes. It was great to catch up with her and get some GOOD advice too. Her friend Laurie suggested sticking TT bars on my bike so I could train outside. THAT got me thinking some for sure. It may just be my evil plan for getting out of my basement!





Oh and I think I have convinced Tiffany to start up a blog. She has been traveling to race and is killing it in the crits this year. Stay tuned!

I Knew I Wouldn't Last

I started up again this weekend on the trainer. I just had to. I was going stir crazy not pedaling I swear! And the trainer just started looking juicer and juicer to me every day. So I took it up on its crazy offer to pedal on it in the middle of summer, in my basement, blue bird sky and 90 degrees outside.....and it felt great! I think that when that is your only option it starts looking good even though 2 weeks ago I thought I could never bring myself to do it and even teared up at the thought.

I had to keep switching from having my arm in the sling to just very lightly resting it on the bars. It was quite the load for my right shoulder to bear on its own - my trap muscle and neck are both on edge now but it was worth my sanity. I am just going to have to get my right shoulder ready for the load a bit more. Sometimes I wonder where I would be in all of this if I never did push ups, yoga, pilates or never went to the gym for the last years because my right arm is doing a lot and has taken on so much responsibility! And in a weird way too, it is probably a good thing that I was fresh out of my left arm cast that I got off in June because my right arm was already used to all this load so I didn't have to break it in again.

But my power was SO off that I thought the thing was broken. I know that I didn't lose all my fitness these last 2 weeks but it was quite interesting to see the toll that surgery takes on the body even when you feel "normal". There is more going on inside than you think!

Here is comparison shot of my fingers. The pinkie finger on my left hand is living up to its name! The others are green. Someone called me the incredible hulk the other day. The things I put up with I tell you........ :)


Now I suppose I am gonna hear about my polka dots and striped shorts. What can I say? It was working for me at that moment!

Chris and I went to Park City for breakfast with our buds then to the street fair that was happening......that is stuff we NEVER get to do during the season because training always comes first plus I am always gone when people visit. Making the best of things right now I guess.


Ran into Jen Hanks for the second day in a row too. She was finishing up her last 6 hour ride (3 days in a stinking row!) before she rests up for the Transrockies race coming up in a few weeks. Impressive! I would say she pretty much knows all the trails in PC at this point.

Chris getting ready to drive our motorcycle home from PC where its been living at our friends house. Got to chat with them and just hang for a while and catch up with them. I haven't seen them in about 3 years although Chris has.


I may just get used to all this freedom from the bike eh? Yeah right.....who am I trying to kid anyway?!

Heber City Demolition Derby

Getting sprayed with anti-freeze rules! Glasses are good for a lot of things!







Our buddies from Santa Barbara who took care of me when I had my broken thumb are here visiting! Yey!


And on Friday I somehow got 8 tix to a very sold out derby in Heber (it sold out in February I guess!!) by making a few phone calls to the right people.

So we rallied the troops:




And apparently so did everyone else:



Even though it was going to rain on all of us:


And went to the derby.


The cars are all lined up ready to rumble:


We hid for a while under the bleachers as it rained:


Dirt was flying:


Here is a before pix:




And during:


And after:


Backing up at high speed to crash into each other is the method of choice so they don't destroy their own engine


This purple car was like a pin wheel as the black car drove in a circle trying to get it off of his own car


Cars getting completely trashed


Rain coming our way


Rain is here


The tiny car heat:


Mud flew into the bleachers left and right.......and right down my shirt too!


Action shot:




Smoke:


Trucks piled on each other (far left):

Eric playing on dirty bleachers:

More action shots:

Truck heat:


And, wow it was loud!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


After 4 hours of crash, bang, boom, mud flying, smoke, fires, blood, some fights, getting sprayed with EVERYTHING under the sun, getting rained on, then there was a HUGE fire works show.



On the way home none of us could hear ourselves think! It was shower time when we got home as we trailed dirt into the house as it fell off of us and out of our hair.

Quite the experience I must say but it was a good way to finally get some laughs and forget about my hand for the first time since surgery.

Update

Surgery for my mangled hand went super well and I am doing really great. I take well to surgery I guess since I was at Quiznos Subs 20 minutes after waking up and walking out of the hospital on Monday (this was my first ever surgery). Granted I didn't take the straightest line walking wise to get there....but I got there!

Since then things have been good meaning I am sleeping like a log at night and don't have any pain even though I put the Percoset away on Wednesday. I must admit that I am slightly going stir crazy because I can't do much. I can't type well, can't go to yoga or pilates, can't really drive, reading is getting old and TV is even getting older (all the things I wish I could be doing at one time or another during my crazy life!)..... but despite all this I am trying to enjoy my "off season", so no I am not riding yet either. Oh well, at least every day is a day closer to the end of this we hope.

Chris is being great too and is really helping me out with opening super tight jars, cutting up my vegetables so I can make a salad and doing all that stuff that I took for granted when I had two useful hands! Speaking of which, thank heavens they make these things for flossing or I would be SOL:

Numb Knuckle

Well sleeping with numb hand is quite an interesting concept. How the heck do you even know if you are jacking your hand up worse by putting it in some crazy weird position during the night? But yeah, let's get real here. Could I really jack it up more than it already is (note the multiple breaks on the index finger):



Oh yeah, and I forgot to mention that the docs found more than just a break or two. The index finger was in four pieces. I wish they would stop looking at the x-rays so much because the bone massacre count keeps increasing everytime they stare at them. The Hand Surgeon also mentioned that an injury like this is usually the result of a car crash....not a bike crash! He was impressed.

But all went very well with the surgery, and they think that this was the best way to go in terms of speed and effectiveness of recovery. And my hand should be straight again now too!

The pain has been minimal. Percoset helps with this although I am not sure it actually helps with the actual pain. It seems like it just diverts your attention into la-la land so you just don't notice the pain. But the Percoset has undoubtedly taken over my short term memory. I get something out with the full intention of using it and then wonder why its laying there and out an hour later. Oh and the notes I have jotted down on paper in the last 24 hours you can just forget about. I have NO IDEA what I wrote or what it means. Whoa.

At least I am sleeping like a log at night. Can't ask for much more than that I guess.

Time to Take Care of This

No, I am not doing that with my fingers on purpose. That is just the way my hand sits now in a relaxed state since my bones are all broken. And that is exactly why I need surgery - because trying to grip a bike handlebar with that mess of a hand would be pretty interesting.


I had the best surgery time ever at 10:45am. I slept in at home, woke up, took my time getting ready and then headed down to TOSH with Chris. Once at the hospital, Chris threw me to the curb with the intention of picking me up after I was done getting all cut up and after he was done with work.

Step 1 - make the correction for the THIRD time letting them know that the surgery is for my LEFT hand, not my RIGHT. Wouldn't THAT be just great?!


Step 2 - I will let you guess what it was


Step 3 - Have the nurses poke me 5 times to get a line going. I was their toughest patient ever to get a line on, they all THREE agreed. Something about the toughness of my healthy skin vs. a little old ladies tissue like skin that made it so difficult for them. But I will tell you... nothing is better than having a needle jabbed in you and then having them explore with it (moving it around while its in your vein) trying to get blood out. That just feels awesome, but all in all I felt like that was going to be the least of my worries today so I didn't raise a fuss; what good does that do anyway? They are trying their best already and there is no sense getting them on edge!

Step 4 - get walked directly into what seemed like a movie set (the operating room) with big bright lights, sterile, white walls. The trays were there, the Rn's there, the Anesthesiologist was ready to rumble, the PA was on top of things, my Hand Surgeon was ready; they were just waiting for me to walk in and plop my self down in a supine position on the OR table. It was eerie and weird because at that point I wasn't even close to being sedated and I am walking into the place that they are going to be slicing me up in. I think I would have rather not even seen the OR because it brought everything to reality.

Step 5 - listen to the Anesthesiologist tell me I may feel a sting in my line as the anesthesia drug goes in (are people that wussy??)

Step 6 - look up to see a thick white substance that looks extremely powerful headed for my veins in my line.

Step 7 - ......going......going.....BAM- its black just like that in under 10 seconds

Step 8 - get two plates in my hand

Step 9 - secure the plates with 12 screws

Step 10 - 1.5 hours later wake up to a nurse complaining about cyclists on the road. Sorry guys, I wasn't in the mood to defend us but I mustered up this instead.


Step 11 - wait, listen, get instructions on what to do next, get un-groggy


Step 11 - FREEDOM!


Step 12 - Buh Bye


Step 13 - Head directly to Quiznos Subs since it was 5 pm and I wasn't allowed to eat or drink anything since midnight the night before....so 17 hours of nothing. But if you look closely at my face you can see the Percoset has made an impact


Step 14 - Back home getting stuff done

My hand is number than numb right now but as this wears off I am gonna be feeling it I am certain!