I am not broken, I'm... wait, yes I am.
So the weather up until Wednesday last week had been fairly hot and dry for quite a while. Then on Wednesday it pours down. Having a week of school hols, I'm at work that day. After a really crappy day on the phones, I'm getting ready to leave, look out the window and realise I'm probably going to get drenched on the bike despite wet weather gear. Crap.
Ring my lovely wife and discuss the possibility of waiting for a while to see if it lessens. Gaia says it hasn't changed much in the last hour, might as well come on home. Fair enough, so off I go. Five minutes down the road I pull in to fill up the petrol and I can already feel moisture one the insides of my gloves. Great. Fill up, put the gear back on get ready to leave again and the rain drops to a pitter patter. Typical.
Off towards the Monash freeway and the rain's picked up enough to prevent me up opening the visor and now it's cool enough that my visor's fogging up a little reducing visibility. How much worse can this get?? Me and my big mouth. Crack the visor a little to stop the fogging and put up with the occasional trickle of water down the inside.
A bit further along the Monash, they're doing some widening to add an extra lane but while they're working on it, they've had to narrow the existing three lanes and take up the emergency shoulder to do it so the speed limit's dropped from 100kph to 80. Not a big deal right now, everyone's only doing between 5 and 60. Just get to the end of the road works and the speed limit's back to 100. Everyone normally speeds up a little at this point but the truck in front of me has had his brakes on the whole time (it's a slight downward incline) and I suddenly realise he's slowing not speeding up. No prob, plenty of room in front of me, apply brakes and... I'm not slowing. Uh oh. Release and slowly re-apply. Still nothing. Oh crap, now what? The decision is taken out of my hands as the front end wobbles and suddenly I'm flying through the air thinking "fuck, this is gonna hurt." It did.
A bit of a blur later there's a bunch of helpful folk standing around me asking if I can move. Lessee.. neck and back fine, head's fine, arms, hands all fine, no pain. Right leg, wiggle toes, all fine. Left leg, wiggle toes.. a little sore, move leg.... arrgh! Whose idea was that? Look down, it's straight, that's good so maybe it's just bruised. Someone calls the ambulance anyway.
(Squick warning: details follow, skip the next 3 paragraphs if you don't want to know)
I'll spare you the description of the feeling that told me I'd broken something. After 20 mins and some incredible anti-pain inhalers (I want shares in them!!) the paramedics confirm that at least the fibula is broken.
Eventually x-rays show the tibia's got a major spiral fracture with a piece or two splintered off (kinda hard to tell, they had to wrap my leg in plaster before they could x-ray it) and the fibula has a clean break near the top. We're guessing my leg was slightly twisted when the bike bounced off it, but I wasn't watching at the time.
So now I've got a rod down my leg and a couple of screws. I don't yet know if they'll come out again, I'll probably find out in a week or so when I go back for a check-up.
(End Squick warning)
So here I am, essentially immobile with a broken leg. I'm not allowed to put weight on it for six weeks and the docs say I probably won't walk without assistance, ie crutches, for twelve weeks.
School's been really good, they're making allowances for me. Got a call today from some folks at work to see how I was going which was nice. We have a compulsory personal injury insurance here that you pay with your vehicle registration which covers anyone injured in a road transport accident. That'll pay all my medical bills and 80% of my wages after the first 5 days. I've got about 8 sick days left so we should be fine.
Gaia's mum has offered to buy me a car up to $3000 which is great (we'll pay her back anyway, when we can) and I'll fix the bike up (a couple of parts from the wrecker and it'll be fine) and sell it off for a grand or so. I'll get another one eventually but I won't be commuting on it.
Gaia and I decided some time ago that when we've got the money, we'd like to have a bike each so that every few weeks we can go for a ride through the countryside together. We're still sticking to that.
Poor Gaia's getting exhausted doing everything and nursing me (good thing I married a nurse :) then having go to work and nurse other people, then back home to look after me again! I'm going to come up with something to make all this up to her. She's been fantastic (of course).
So all in all, I'm laid up with a broken leg for a couple of months but otherwise things aren't too bad.
Ring my lovely wife and discuss the possibility of waiting for a while to see if it lessens. Gaia says it hasn't changed much in the last hour, might as well come on home. Fair enough, so off I go. Five minutes down the road I pull in to fill up the petrol and I can already feel moisture one the insides of my gloves. Great. Fill up, put the gear back on get ready to leave again and the rain drops to a pitter patter. Typical.
Off towards the Monash freeway and the rain's picked up enough to prevent me up opening the visor and now it's cool enough that my visor's fogging up a little reducing visibility. How much worse can this get?? Me and my big mouth. Crack the visor a little to stop the fogging and put up with the occasional trickle of water down the inside.
A bit further along the Monash, they're doing some widening to add an extra lane but while they're working on it, they've had to narrow the existing three lanes and take up the emergency shoulder to do it so the speed limit's dropped from 100kph to 80. Not a big deal right now, everyone's only doing between 5 and 60. Just get to the end of the road works and the speed limit's back to 100. Everyone normally speeds up a little at this point but the truck in front of me has had his brakes on the whole time (it's a slight downward incline) and I suddenly realise he's slowing not speeding up. No prob, plenty of room in front of me, apply brakes and... I'm not slowing. Uh oh. Release and slowly re-apply. Still nothing. Oh crap, now what? The decision is taken out of my hands as the front end wobbles and suddenly I'm flying through the air thinking "fuck, this is gonna hurt." It did.
A bit of a blur later there's a bunch of helpful folk standing around me asking if I can move. Lessee.. neck and back fine, head's fine, arms, hands all fine, no pain. Right leg, wiggle toes, all fine. Left leg, wiggle toes.. a little sore, move leg.... arrgh! Whose idea was that? Look down, it's straight, that's good so maybe it's just bruised. Someone calls the ambulance anyway.
(Squick warning: details follow, skip the next 3 paragraphs if you don't want to know)
I'll spare you the description of the feeling that told me I'd broken something. After 20 mins and some incredible anti-pain inhalers (I want shares in them!!) the paramedics confirm that at least the fibula is broken.
Eventually x-rays show the tibia's got a major spiral fracture with a piece or two splintered off (kinda hard to tell, they had to wrap my leg in plaster before they could x-ray it) and the fibula has a clean break near the top. We're guessing my leg was slightly twisted when the bike bounced off it, but I wasn't watching at the time.
So now I've got a rod down my leg and a couple of screws. I don't yet know if they'll come out again, I'll probably find out in a week or so when I go back for a check-up.
(End Squick warning)
So here I am, essentially immobile with a broken leg. I'm not allowed to put weight on it for six weeks and the docs say I probably won't walk without assistance, ie crutches, for twelve weeks.
School's been really good, they're making allowances for me. Got a call today from some folks at work to see how I was going which was nice. We have a compulsory personal injury insurance here that you pay with your vehicle registration which covers anyone injured in a road transport accident. That'll pay all my medical bills and 80% of my wages after the first 5 days. I've got about 8 sick days left so we should be fine.
Gaia's mum has offered to buy me a car up to $3000 which is great (we'll pay her back anyway, when we can) and I'll fix the bike up (a couple of parts from the wrecker and it'll be fine) and sell it off for a grand or so. I'll get another one eventually but I won't be commuting on it.
Gaia and I decided some time ago that when we've got the money, we'd like to have a bike each so that every few weeks we can go for a ride through the countryside together. We're still sticking to that.
Poor Gaia's getting exhausted doing everything and nursing me (good thing I married a nurse :) then having go to work and nurse other people, then back home to look after me again! I'm going to come up with something to make all this up to her. She's been fantastic (of course).
So all in all, I'm laid up with a broken leg for a couple of months but otherwise things aren't too bad.