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me and my bike
Nov. 12th, 2011 09:55 amI bought a new bike. It has internal hub gears and hydraulic disk brakes. The brakes work really well.
To get to work I ride up a long hill and then have the pleasure of zooming down again. The zoom is in quite busy traffic, but there's a lane I can share with buses so I usually feel quite safe. Lately, I've been enjoying the zooming so much that I've been changing lanes in to the main traffic stream to go around the buses. A couple of times I've thought, "I'm probably going too fast here, it's really a bit dangerous", but then I enjoy the zooming again and off I go.
On Thursday morning, I had just changed lanes to go around a bus and was just about to move back into the bus lane when the car in front of me stopped sooner than I expected. I put on my brakes, wobbled a bit and then felt myself lose control and hit the road over the handlebars. I've decided since that if I hadn't had a backpack on and instead had some nice heavy panniers I might have caught the bike.
That was scary! I crawled off the road to the footpath and noticed the blood from my nose dripping as I went. I was feeling a bit dazed and I knew I'd hit my face so I immediately asked someone to call an ambulance. I just sat quietly, feeling awful and holding a tissue to my nose. I did contradict the woman who gave it to me and wanted me to tip my head back. I cursed the fact that I had left my phone at home the day before. I was sitting right outside sjkasabi's workplace and I really wanted to call her but I couldn't work out how.
The ambulance arrived really quickly and I walked in and sat in a seat. The officer tested me for broken bones and any neck injuries. Then she told me that I could choose to be taken to hospital or make my own way home. I hesitated, and then burst into tears. I really didn't want to decide. So we went to hospital.
At the hospital they checked me out again, although another 20min of sitting quietly had nearly gotten me enough equilibrium to know that myself. It's bad to rush me when I'm hurt. The best thing I got from the hospital was a cleanup of the grazes, dressings for the two worst elbow ones, a packet of panadiene forte and the advice that I would feel even worse the next day. They were sort of right.
I spent Thursday in bed watching doco's. I was really shocky and just wanted to stay warm and cosy. Although our first stop from the hospital was a local cafe for a carbohydrate and sugar laden second breakfast. On Thursday night I ventured from the bedroom to sit at the dinner table and after about 30minutes of very convivial chatting with all of my children I started feeling that I could no longer stay upright. When I lay on the couch Sneetch took a look at me and declared that he wasn't very happy with how I was looking. I certainly didn't move for a while and felt quite faint, but I quickly got better enough to head back to bed and some more streaming tv. I couldn't sleep until I took some panadiene forte, which I'd been taking regularly all day.
On Friday I could tell that my brain was better, but moving was harder. I had stiffened up and walking was hard. I still managed to get Rose ready for school and walked her across there, but I had a rest before coming home. I spent the day on the couch, reading the internet and doing a bit of work and then I walked to Victoria St for dinner. I can't stand for very long without needing to sit down, but I think walking helps me to move more and gets rid of some of the stiffness. Sometime during Friday I stopped needing regular painkillers. I guess now it's just a matter of moving as much as possible while taking it easy.
Here's the catalogue of injuries;
bruised right cheek and nose cartilage hurts when I wiggle it.
neck is stiff and turning to the left is hard. turning right is almost normal
left arm; large weepy graze near elbow, minor graze on forearm, 2 grazed knuckles, minor graze on little finger, graze and smashed fingernail on ring finger.
right arm; large, less weepy graze near elbow, 2cm graze on wrist and another on base of hand, grazes on back of hand, 3 knuckles and little finger
muscles around ribs are sore and it's hard to sit up
right thigh muscle has a deep bruise (interestingly that hurt the most on Thursday morning but is really pretty minor)
My helmet is unmarked so I'll probably keep using it. I'm also going to make sure my new bake has panniers as soon as possible. I guess I'll also be a bit more careful about the zooming.
To get to work I ride up a long hill and then have the pleasure of zooming down again. The zoom is in quite busy traffic, but there's a lane I can share with buses so I usually feel quite safe. Lately, I've been enjoying the zooming so much that I've been changing lanes in to the main traffic stream to go around the buses. A couple of times I've thought, "I'm probably going too fast here, it's really a bit dangerous", but then I enjoy the zooming again and off I go.
On Thursday morning, I had just changed lanes to go around a bus and was just about to move back into the bus lane when the car in front of me stopped sooner than I expected. I put on my brakes, wobbled a bit and then felt myself lose control and hit the road over the handlebars. I've decided since that if I hadn't had a backpack on and instead had some nice heavy panniers I might have caught the bike.
That was scary! I crawled off the road to the footpath and noticed the blood from my nose dripping as I went. I was feeling a bit dazed and I knew I'd hit my face so I immediately asked someone to call an ambulance. I just sat quietly, feeling awful and holding a tissue to my nose. I did contradict the woman who gave it to me and wanted me to tip my head back. I cursed the fact that I had left my phone at home the day before. I was sitting right outside sjkasabi's workplace and I really wanted to call her but I couldn't work out how.
The ambulance arrived really quickly and I walked in and sat in a seat. The officer tested me for broken bones and any neck injuries. Then she told me that I could choose to be taken to hospital or make my own way home. I hesitated, and then burst into tears. I really didn't want to decide. So we went to hospital.
At the hospital they checked me out again, although another 20min of sitting quietly had nearly gotten me enough equilibrium to know that myself. It's bad to rush me when I'm hurt. The best thing I got from the hospital was a cleanup of the grazes, dressings for the two worst elbow ones, a packet of panadiene forte and the advice that I would feel even worse the next day. They were sort of right.
I spent Thursday in bed watching doco's. I was really shocky and just wanted to stay warm and cosy. Although our first stop from the hospital was a local cafe for a carbohydrate and sugar laden second breakfast. On Thursday night I ventured from the bedroom to sit at the dinner table and after about 30minutes of very convivial chatting with all of my children I started feeling that I could no longer stay upright. When I lay on the couch Sneetch took a look at me and declared that he wasn't very happy with how I was looking. I certainly didn't move for a while and felt quite faint, but I quickly got better enough to head back to bed and some more streaming tv. I couldn't sleep until I took some panadiene forte, which I'd been taking regularly all day.
On Friday I could tell that my brain was better, but moving was harder. I had stiffened up and walking was hard. I still managed to get Rose ready for school and walked her across there, but I had a rest before coming home. I spent the day on the couch, reading the internet and doing a bit of work and then I walked to Victoria St for dinner. I can't stand for very long without needing to sit down, but I think walking helps me to move more and gets rid of some of the stiffness. Sometime during Friday I stopped needing regular painkillers. I guess now it's just a matter of moving as much as possible while taking it easy.
Here's the catalogue of injuries;
bruised right cheek and nose cartilage hurts when I wiggle it.
neck is stiff and turning to the left is hard. turning right is almost normal
left arm; large weepy graze near elbow, minor graze on forearm, 2 grazed knuckles, minor graze on little finger, graze and smashed fingernail on ring finger.
right arm; large, less weepy graze near elbow, 2cm graze on wrist and another on base of hand, grazes on back of hand, 3 knuckles and little finger
muscles around ribs are sore and it's hard to sit up
right thigh muscle has a deep bruise (interestingly that hurt the most on Thursday morning but is really pretty minor)
My helmet is unmarked so I'll probably keep using it. I'm also going to make sure my new bake has panniers as soon as possible. I guess I'll also be a bit more careful about the zooming.
