Tuesday, August 19, 2008

basket bikes



well, i'm back in the saddle. . . sort of. i can only ride my coaster brake bike, thanks to newly added more upright bars. it will be a month till the cast comes off. my collarbone is healing nicely after surgery. i got the stitches out yesterday. still need physical therapy to regain motion.

today we rode to japantown for sushi and shopping. here is another shot of the basket bike:

Tuesday, August 12, 2008

questionaire

(i posted this on SFfixed, then decided i should chronicle it here.)

i have surgery tomorrow for my broken collarbone and hand. pretty gnarly- i get ti plates and compression screw, for the weight weenie in me. yesterday, i had a nurse call me to ask questions about my medical history and prep me.

nurse: "do you exercise regularly?"
ken: "i ride a bike every day."
nurse: "how many minutes do you ride?"
ken: "hmmm, lets see, 45. . . no probably at least 1 hour a day. sometimes way more."
nurse: "how many days a week?"
ken: "uhhhh, 7. (?)"
nurse: "you ride 7 days a week?!"
ken: "yeah. walking takes too long!"

surgery

soooo, my bone breakage is so bad i gotta get surgery. in the ER, the doctors and i were hopeful it wouldn't be necessary. but after seeing the shoulder and hand sports medicine specialists, i wouldn't have it any other way.

if you break your collarbone, most of the time it heals itself. pretty fast, too. and you regain almost full range of motion. but only if the bone displacement (overlap) is 2cm or less. mine is 3cm. this will make my left shoulder way weaker and my reach way shorter. if you put a plate in there, it will correct it and avoid this.

the scaphoid bone (i've learned) is a pesky hand bone that has a weird blood supply that prevents it from healing properly sometimes. it can take up to 3 months to heal, but sometimes it never heals. what does that mean? chronic wrist/hand pain. for life. if you put a titanium screw in there, it will hold it back together to help it heal properly. on top of all that, there is a slight twist where the fracture is on my hand. the screw will compress it back in place.

the doctors were like, "you are a young, active dude. get the surgery."

my appointment is wednesday morning.

Monday, August 4, 2008

i broke my collarbone

it sucks. and a bone in my left hand. descending a super steep curvy road in marin headlands (conzelman rd- YES that one) on road bike. lucky it wasnt worse. helmet saved my head. fishtailed rear, straightened out and allllmost recovered, but had gotten too much speed, slid some more trying to speedcheck, clipped guardrail, went over bars. luckily not over guardrail! rocky cliffs below.

was with friends, clare came to rescue, picked up me and banged up guerciotti. mostly the slr saddle got annihilated, maybe a shifter too. went to UCSF hospital.

may need surgery, prob not- but dont know for sure yet. have the next few days off and more if necessary. gotta wait and see. hard to type 1 handed!

k