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October 7, 2007

Over the Handlebars (Ouch) » Mountain Biking Mishap

Mountain biking this weekend. Too much fun. Nasty spill. Crashed & burned. Ouch. Sore neck.

Red CrossMy buddy Tom said, "Don't try to move." Asked me, "How many fingers am I holding up?" and what state we were in. I knew that stuff. (Three, California.) He's taken numerous first-aid classes.

Maybe mild concussion. Was wearing a helmet. Nasty (bloody) scrapes left arm & leg. (Looks cool, tho.) I rode out. (Walked the gnarlier parts.)

We'll see how I feel in the morning. Probably will be stiff. Tom has a chiropractor he wants me to see tomorrow, to take some x-rays, just in case.

Met others on the trail who had the same thing happen. (Airborne. Launched.) They said first couple of days are worst. Been icing neck. (First 24-48 hours.)

If you're naseous and/or dizzy, that indicates concussion. I was neither. Turning head side-to-side not fun. Took a Motrin. (Might need another.)

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October 10, 2007

Sore Neck Following Mountain Biking Crash

SingletrackRegarding Sunday's mountain biking mishap (see previous entry), I should be over the worst of it .. tho not yet out of the woods.

Starting to feel human again. Neck still sore/stiff, especially left side. Got a headache, too, which I didn't have before. Weird. Otherwise, it's steady as she goes .. with Advil & Tigerbalm. (I'm done with icing phase.)

My new mountain bike has disc break, which provides more stopping power (way more) than old bike. Two fingers is all it takes. Makes it easy to lock front tire .. which can send you sailing over the handlebars, especially on a steep decline.

Tom's wife told me she is more afraid of mountain biking than rock climbing, cuz there's a greater chance of hitting the ground while mountain biking. (No safety ropes to break your fall.)

On the trails, she always let me go first (after Tom), saying she was super cautious, going extra slowly. I thought she was just being nice, sandwiching me (least experienced rider) between her and her husband. She certainly made it look easy.

But maybe she really was leery. I can see now why that might be. =/ She also told me she never used her front brake .. to prevent going over the handlebars. I thought "never" was extreme. Doesn't seem so extreme now.

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October 14, 2007

One Week Since Nasty Mountain Biking Accident (Neck Tweaked)

Been a week since I went flying over the handlebars and landed on my head. Wish I were further down the road to recovery, but .. I knew it would take a while.

Frankenstein(.. from the nasty, crunching sound my neck made upon impact .. similar to what you hear when you break in half a fistful of dry spaghetti.)

The good news is .. I didn't miss any time with the Bug. Unless a doctor, or a judge, tells me I can't (or shouldn't) see him, I'm there .. bright and early.

We did low-key stuff .. like lay on the bed together and watch Chitty Chitty Bang Bang .. on my laptop (propped on my legs) while I held him. (Feels good to lay horizontal.) He seemed to enjoy that, saying, "This is cool, dada."

His favorite part is Me Ol' Bamboo, which makes him get up and jump around like the dancers. But caring for him in my condition is (as you might imagine) taxing. Hard for injured muscles to heal if they can't rest.

Today I'm trying to rest, and not move very much .. which is more difficult than I anticipated. Pain (my ol' friend) I can handle; I merely don't want to re-injure anything. I have a DVD on learning Dreamweaver CS3 that seems well-suited to my present condition.

People say I look like I'm in pain. Must be more difficult to hide than I thought. My head is crooked (like the Leaning Tower), tilted to the left. My left shoulder is raised. I walk like Frankenstein. Difficult to open my mouth to eat. (Corn-on-the-cob impossible.)

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November 4, 2007

My First Halloween with the Bug (Dressed as Dorothy) + First Physical Therapy Session

Took the Bug trick-or-treating for Halloween. (A first for me.) He was dressed in a Dorothy costume (à la Wizard of Oz), complete with ruby slippers. Not an outfit I would've selected, but that's what he was wearing when I picked him up.

Yellow brick road | The Wizard of OzDid it make me uncomfortable to see my boy wearing a dress? Uh, a little. But he's only two. If he were five, maybe I'd be more concerned. Everybody agrees on one thing » he would've made a cute girl. =)

I almost didn't go trick-or-treating, cuz my neck was pretty sore that day. But Tom made it easy. He came by, transferred the Bug's car-seat (from the Rad-mobile) into his SUV, so all I had to do was hop in & go along for the ride.

As a side note, I find it interesting that Tom is probably the safest driver I've ever ridden with, especially considering how he prefers to indulge in sports which some might deem hazardous ..

.. such as mountain biking & rock climbing. He has even climbed El Capitan (which he calls "big wall" climbing). Yet he spent 10 minutes making sure the Bug's car-seat was fastened securely, and always lets the other car go first.

Tom has a 7-year-old daughter. She held the Bug's hand as they walked up to each front porch and rang the doorbell. Very cute. Many of these homes sported elaborate Halloween decorations (such as fog-making machines and mock graves that open & shut automatically).

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November 5, 2007

Physical Therapy More Painful Than Original Injury

Extraordinary Rendition | A Frontline Special (PBS) broadcast Tuesday eveSecond physical therapy session today .. for my neck. Last week, the doc assigned me to one of her therapists (or vice versa). "Today," she said, "you get *my* hands working on you."

This made me a bit nervous, cuz last week, the girl working on me suggested the doc applied more pain .. cuz "she's never been on the other side of this table."

The doc is tiny, but in good shape. She had me working on range-of-motion exercises. (Last week was more of a deep-tissue massage.)

I honestly cannot say which hurts more. Both involve serious pain. I'm feeling beat up (baseball bat style). But I can turn my head to the left now (~45-degrees). Couldn't do that yesterday (maybe 10 degrees max).

She had me at a place (turning head to left) where the slightest movement represented the difference between "comfortable" and 90% pain-threshold. We spent a long time (seemed like an eternity) fluctuating between 20 and 80% pain-threshold.

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November 19, 2007

The Neck, Web Master Skills & Holy Frijoles

Epazote: secret ingredientMy neck is finally (after 6 weeks!) starting to loosen. I can turn my head side-to-side without pain, tho full range-of-motion remains elusive.

The Neck (6 weeks later)

Tilting » right-ear toward right-shoulder .. is the movement I now find most difficult. Feels like a steel cable (tendon?) connects my left shoulder to the base of my skull (on left side), restricting this (right-ward ») motion.

Forcing this movement causes swelling (the next day) where my neck (left-side) connects to my torso. The swelling (raised ~2 inches) looks scarier than it feels. Nevertheless, I'm hesitant to stretch very far in that direction (.. like they want me to).

The Doc says swelling is a sign muscles are still healing. So does that mean I am re-injuring them?

I'd say my neck has improved from severely jacked-up to (plain ol') "jacked-up." Severely jacked-up is defined as » difficult to deal with. Slightly jacked-up would be » easy-to-deal-with .. (tho, I'm not there yet).

The Doc suggested I wear a scarf around my neck (to keep the muscles warm). Altho this sounds stupid (and looks gay), I've found it helps better than anything else I've tried.

Web Master Skills

In more-technical news, I couldn't resist playing with my new XHTML/CSS skills .. and re-created the site's splash page (a 7-second timer will automatically kick you back here). This is my first-ever web page using XHTML 1.0 Strict standards. I created it from scratch with Dreamweaver CS3.

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