Slightly Impaired

A little over a week ago, I dislocated my shoulder during a mountain bike ride. I was riding on a trail that I've traversed a quite a number of before, heading downhill on the rough fire road. Afterward, at the emergency room the nurses and doctor asked me if I had lost consciousness? No, I replied, I remember the crash quite vividly. My front wheel slipped out from under me and I went down. I believe that my elbow impacted the hard, rocky soil first driving my shoulder out of it's socket. I'm fairly sure that was followed by my hip and leg. What I do remember was my face moving swiftly to meet the rocks. I can still recall the taste of the dirt and blood on my lips. Most crashes, I've found, involve pain, blood and a lot of curse words. The latter not because of a lack of more sophisticated ways of expressing oneself, but somehow it seems to be the right thing to do at the moment.

So, after a few moments of impolite expression, I picked myself up, dusted the dirt from my shorts and rinsed the blood from my face. It was at this point that I noticed that my left arm was not responding to requests for assistance. Turning my head I noticed that my shoulder was unplugged. This led to a new round of curses, fortunately shorter than the first outburst. This was followed by a sigh and then a careful removal of my Camelback to extract my phone. (Of course I took special care not to get blood or dirt on the phone.) Fortunately, my SO is on speed dial. It went something like this:

Hello, honey.
Hi.
I fell off my bike.
Oh?
I need you to come and pick me up.
Okay.
Can you bring a change of clothes?
Sure.
Oh, and close the windows and doors when you leave.
Okay?

Packing everything away, I picked up my undamaged bike. For about a microsecond I actually thought about riding down the rest of the hill. I know, stupid to even think about something as dumb as that. Fortunately, it was only an errant thought and I began to walk the half mile to the road. On my way down, two cyclists stopped to ask me if I was okay and if I needed any help. I'm sure that my face scared them off, but they were kind enough to stop.

The folks at the emergency room sedated me and reset my shoulder. (Why on earth would I want to be awake during this procedure? Though I suppose that it was nice of them to give me the option.) My cut lip was glued together and stones removed from my road rash. Thank you very much Swedish.

I managed to get a very early appointment with an orthopedist who, after examining some new X-Rays, pronounced that he was happy with the position of the bones. Good deal. He says, 'We'll have you back on your mountain bike in no time at all.'