Obviously, this isn’t an ideal situation, but it’s the only way that doctors agreed to release me from the hospital last Sunday. On March 4, I crashed by bike. This wasn’t a silly little rookie crash because my cleats were jammed up and I couldn’t unclip. This was a scary high-speed crash while descending a hill.
My friend, Chris, and I decided to ride the San Francisco Bike Party, which is a night ride in, well, San Francisco. Sounded like a good idea at the time. I had a bad feeling once we got out on the road. There seemed to be many inexperienced cyclists with varying degrees of sobriety riding parallel to MUNI tracks. Within the first couple of miles, I think I witnessed three crashes because of those tracks.
For safety reasons, we decided to try to stay up front. I felt great on the first little climb, but I had to drop back because I didn’t know where I was going. Eventually, the road pitched up to be pretty steep and then I dropped my chain. After fixing my chain, I caught up to my friend and remember starting a descent but the next thing I can recall was being in an ambulance and later coming to in a CT scan machine.
Apparently, while I was descending at about 25 mph, another cyclist pulled out in front of me. I hit her and we both went down. She hit the lottery with minor scrapes compared to my traumatic brain injury.
I’d be lying if I said this wasn’t one of the scariest moments of my life. At one point before I had a sense of what had happened, I remember talking to doctors in the hospital and reaching back to scratch my head or something. My hair felt wet and when I looked at my hand, it was covered in blood. Since blood doesn’t really freak me out, I stayed calm, but I was definitely feeling the pain.
It turns out that I had a severe concussion and two CT scans told the doctors that I had minor bleeding on my brain, if you could call an injury like that minor. Two X-rays confirmed that I have no broken bones. I don’t even have any road rash, just a lot of bruising. You can now officially place my name in the “Lucky” column because my Giro Ionos saved my life, or at the very least, prevented me from having any serious permanent damage.
What has surprised me that most is the amount of support I’ve gotten from the cycling community. I tweeted from the emergency room once I became lucid. I have no memory of what I said, but I suddenly had a lot of replies and well wishes. I even received some from a few pros and ex-pros (one of which DM’ed me and seemed a bit disturbed by the photos of my helmet I posted) and one charity offered to replace my t-shirt that had to be cut off me by paramedics. Of course, I declined to accept that offer, but I was touched anyhow.
Now, a week after being released from the hospital (and missing Merco… sorry guys!), I’m relatively comfortable at home and recovering. I have some appointments tomorrow and I start physical therapy on Friday because the neurologist said I need to retrain my brain not to spin out of control when I turn my head. Already the dizziness is improving and the constant headache isn’t as severe, but I can feel this will be quite a long recovery that is forcing me to rethink my goals for this year and the possibility of racing next year.
The distances of a couple of charity rides and training for racing are very insignificant when I consider what could have happened. I really do feel like a lucky duck and I’m thrilled to be surrounded by supportive friends and an amazing cycling community.
I would especially like to thank Chris Griffin for staying with me in the hospital in San Francisco then visiting me on Sunday in Modesto. She also made sure my baby, although possibly damaged beyond repair, made it home safely.
Another thanks to Saul Raisin for just general support and encouragement... you've gone above and beyond what anybody would expect in this situation.
I really prefer that red stuff to stay inside my head, thanks...
My carbon fiber seatpost is definitely toast.
More photos can be seen here.
You'll be riding again soon. So relieved you're healing up well.
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing the story!! I'm glad you are ok. Makes me a bit scared to go on group rides with unknown cyclists though... Here's to a speedy recovery! I hope you are able to recover enough for LGF! :)
ReplyDeleteBeen there, done that. I spent a couple nights in the ICU after landing on my helmeted head; fortunately, I was lucky enough to avoid the brain bleed you sufered, but still lost a ton of blood and had to stay off the bike for three months.
ReplyDeleteBest wishes for a fast and complete recovery. And don't be too surprised by all the support; it's times like this you realize cyclists aren't a community, we're a family.
So glad to hear you are doing better...saw your post on Levi's twitter and have been following you since. Hope we see you at LGF...hate those fast descents....especially in traffic. Best to you :)
ReplyDeleteI've been through it too, now some 16 years ago. The physical recovery is often much faster than the cognitive and emotional, so take pleasure in how well your body rebounds. But ask your partner and family to keep tabs of how you seem to respond to your world, whether you need training to recuperate in the brain synapses.
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