Making Progress

It's been three weeks since my crash and I thought a brief update wuld be in order. I had my first follow-up visit with the doctor last Tuesday. He looked at the xrays and said things were looking good. I have 2 very cool screws and a neat metal plate in there! He said the bone had not moved which is a good. And although I have another 5 weeks on the crutches with no weight bearing on my hip, I did get the okay to begin some exercises to help restrenghten my hip flexors, and abductor muscles. He even told me that I could begin a stationary bike, peddling with the left leg and allowing the right to just turn to reintroduce that motion. YeeHaa! He also removed the staples in the incisions. Anyway, I am doing well thanks to my wonderful family and great supportive friends. I love you all.

Turn? What Turn?

Lee did a great job of recapping the injury I sustained last Saturday while riding the MS 150. I thought I would just attached some details of what happened. So here goes. I had just left a rest stop at about the 60 mile mark, feeling great and riding strong. I took off by myself looking forward to a good finish. The road took a slight turn to the right and began a small downhill decent. There were several riders to my immediate left as we reached the bottom of the hill when with very little warning I noticed the blue arrow on the road indicating we were to turn left. I shouted that we needed to turn left and think that I touched my brakes to slow. But almost at the same instant, I heard someone from off my right shoulder. I don't know where he came from. I suspect he was on my wheel and did not react to the turn command but there he was and then I felt the pavement and heard my head, thankfully well protected by my helmet, crash down too. I think I knew immediately that I had broken my hip. I chose to lie there for a moment and collect my thoughts. Fortunately for me a good Samaritan stopped to lend assistance. He was actually supporting his wife who was riding and happened to be near the accident site. After a few seconds I asked for help to my feet where I was able to confirm that indeed my hip was not willing to take any weight. Now I've been told several times since that day that a rational person would have called 911 for assistance at this point. I've never considered myself as irrational, stubborn maybe, but not irrational. So with some discomfort, read pain, I managed to lift myself into this man's truck for a ride to the hospital. Strangely enough the course official instructed us to return to the rest stop before going to the hospital so I could sign an incident report. We waited at the stop for about 5 minutes when another official approached to tell us that the SAG vehicle would not be coming because were down the hill at accident! You guessed it. The same hill where I had crashed! So we proceeded back to the site where 911 had been called and an EMT was on scene, signed the form, and then headed off to the Logan Hospital. I will be forever grateful for my good Samaritan who saw me battered and bruised and gave me help.

Pictures of Ric and his hip.

Ric is being loaded for shipping to Murray Intermountain hospital. What a trooper!

His good hip (xray) Upper left

His broken hip (xray) Upper right

Sorry no picture of the repair with screw and metal plate.

Ric is doing well for being broken. He is on crutches and a little slow but can get around. We are happy for that! Its the small things in life>