I crashed my bicycle on May 16, 2015. The bike and I somersaulted at 30 miles per hour. I rolled on the pavement and injured myself. I and my bike have been on the mend ever since. This is the second part of my trip back from the ICU.The Rehab Part I
I was happy to be discharged from the hospital. I had not been home in a week. A week, when I was supposed to out for only a few hours riding. I don’t think that they explained the next steps in my recovery to me. At least I don’t remember. I know that they did not explain what I should do or could do to my wife. We left with a folder of information written in medical speak, and we went on our way. I had a walker and a cane to help me get around. And my hip, knees, and quads were in pain.
At my house, the master bedroom is upstairs. My office occupies the downstairs bedroom. The stairs looked very tall and intimidating. That first night I went up and down the stairs slowly with my walker in hand. It felt good to be in my bed after a week away in the hospital. The next morning, I collapsed twice from a sharp pain in my hip. This was also when we figured out that my wife cannot help me up off of the floor. She thought that it would be better for me to go to rehabilitation for a while to get more mobile and more pain-free. While I was lying there on the stair landing, after the second fall, I thought it might be a good idea too.
- Physical Therapy – assisting patients in regaining strength, flexibility, endurance, and mobility.
- Occupational Therapy – assisting patients in regaining ability to perform day-to-day living activities such as bathing and dressing.
- Speech Therapy – assisting patients in restoring function in the areas of speech, language, swallowing, and cognition.
I was scheduled with two sessions of therapy every day except Sunday. Each session was an hour to an hour and a half. The sessions were tough at first. The physical therapy sessions were filled with pain as were the occupational therapies. I wasn’t sure that I was hampered in speech therapy by the drugs or the skull injury.
At the end of the five weeks, the sessions became easier. I asked for some foreign language exercises, like French and Spanish in the speech therapy sessions to make them a little more challenging at the end.
I was more mobile and had a lot less pain at the end of the five weeks. I was able to go up and down stairs with only a cane with discomfort rather than pain.The mild headaches had stopped weeks before and once I was a little loose, walking was slow but doable. This time when I was discharged, we received a full briefing about what was next and what I should look out for. The plan forward was to see my primary care physician that week, start outpatient physical, occupational and speech therapy and see a neurologist for some follow-up.
The Rehab Part II
Back home, I called an outpatient therapy group and set up therapy sessions that followed the hospital model of speech, occupational and physical therapy. These sessions were a little more advanced that what I had at the hospital. There were speech and memory drills for speech and occupational therapy and 1 mile long walks and balance exercises in physical therapy. Over the course of the next four weeks, I had two sessions a day on three days a week. At first, it was tough, but by the end I improved. This helped me feel better about how long my recovery was going to be. The folks at the hospital were talking about months of rehabilitation lasting into the fall.
I saw a neurologist three times during this time and at each examination, I did well enough that within one month of coming home, the neurologist said that I was OK. Ultimately, the big fear that the skull fracture would have some other effect on me went away. The memory test given to me was fun.
After two visits to my primary care physician had the same result. I was given a clean bill of health at the end of the second visit that was three weeks after coming home. I would guess that the shape that I was in before the accident helped me recover faster.
The Video
I had no memory of the accident at all. I remember riding that day and then my next memory had me lying in a hospital bed the next day. I knew my Garmin Virb recorded the ride and crash, so I was somewhat eager to see it. Not for the accident, but the ride leading up to the accident to figure out what happened. Weeks after coming home, I downloaded the video to my computer and started it up. Admittedly, I was a little anxious about watching it. Like rewatching a movie with a bad ending. I knew what the ending would be.
However, at the end of the video, I could not see myself at all, just the camera showing the ground and then the sky, and that was it. One thing that was very apparent was the cause of the accident. I was rolling at 34 miles per hour at the end of a descent going into a slight right-hand turn. The road was a narrow two lane road, and I assume that I was concerned about going out into the opposite lane and into oncoming traffic, and I probably nudged myself to the right. But the camera showed that I was only 6 inches away from the right edge. So I ran off the right-hand side of the road into soft soil, the front wheel dug in, and the bike flipped over. I went with the bike, rolling on the pavement at 30 mph.
The Bike
I initially thought that my bike wasn’t damaged. At least not as damaged as I was. This picture shows the paint chip knocked out by the brake caliper swinging around. Is the carbon fiber underneath cracked or not? The frame passed the tap test, done by three different mechanics. But the local bike shop owner is still anxious about the frame, and the liability. The frame was sent off to Trek so that Trek can use their tools to check it out. They place a powerful light inside the tube and try to detect any light escaping through cracks in the frame. Having Trek perform the check transfers the liability to Trek from the bike shop. I understand that. It is going to take some time. After three months, I am anxious to get back on the back.
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