Why you should always wear your helmet, or how I found God in a holly bush!
Okay. I was going on an organised ride yesterday that even had the bonus of offering a bit of a skills clinic. Schweet. Alas the 6 miles/10km from the train station to the meeting point should have been easy for my friend T and I to cover in the 50 minutes we had to do so. One problem: it was ALL uphill, some of it quite seriously so. Combine that with a slight map issue at the beginning of our journey and we were 20 minutes late for our ride. Oh well. We decided to go for our own ride. If we located the group, sweet; if not, nevermind, we'd head back to the carpark/meeting point and at least go to lunch with the group (T knows some of them).
Alas, I don't actually remember any of our actual mtb ride; in case you haven't guessed yet, I stacked it BIG TIME.
From what T and I have mutually pieced together (she didn't see it and I don't remember it), my need for speed got the best of me. I was going downhill at Warp 5 (relative speed as compared to appropriate speed for skill-set) when a corner leapt out from behind a tree and caused me to skid through a fence and into a holly bush, all belonging to a churchyard. The scrapes and bruises are all on my right side, so I guess that's the side I landed on. Looking at the dents the adjusto-knob thingy has made in the back of my helmet, I'm guessing the back of my head thunked into the ground in supplication to plants with spikes. Jesus may have worn a crown of thorns, but holly is just so much more festive. ;) (P.S. Don't worry, it's going back to Giro with my £15 cheque for crash replacement - they'd better not send me a pink one!)
Anyway, before I get completely sidetracked (not to mention start to offend folks who don't appreciate my heathenish ways - oh, maybe my crash was a punishment from on high... ;)), T eventually located me ("Heeeeelp! I'm in the f***ing holly bush!") and draged me and my bike out. I was still in one piece, as was the bike (although she's going for a check-up when I get her back). As I said, we'd been planning on heading back to the carpark to meet folks for lunch, so we decided to just head straight back there. As we were riding, I became more and more disoriented so we (well, probably T - doubt I was good for much by then) decided to ride to a house and get help and the lovely people, whom I wouldn't know from a bar of soap were I to meet them in the street, tucked our bikes away and called the ambulance. No, they didn't put the siren on. (Someone here has to have been wondering - apparently I asked at least 84763901 times.)
Don't remember the ambo ride (bugger). Don't remember anything about being admitted to the hospital. Have a tiny memory of having my CT scan (results: normal) and telling folks that my dad was a radiologist and would want to see the pictures (he is and he would). Repeated this piece of info 19764208 times (highly conservative estimate). First room I remember being in was the observation room, or whatever the one they put me into to spend the night was called. Was unduly worried that I might have been confessing my deep, undying love to complete strangers. Asked all and sundry if this had in fact occurred. I remember one of the nurses laughing at me (the one with chin- to shoulder-length dark-brown hair tied in a ponytail, as opposed to the one with long dark hair or the bloke) when I asked her yet again. Perhaps I was worried I had confessed my deep and undying love for her and she wouldn't like that..? (What's not to love about me though? ;)) Who knows!
I also asked for something to eat 120849763 times (incredibly conservative estimate). It wasn't that I had forgotten I'd asked, or even that I'd forgotten they'd said no; they just aren't into feeding patients until they're sure they don't need surgery. At long last I was presented with an "NHS Snackbox", which I immediately dubbed "the Happy Meal for grown-ups" and was absolutely delighted with! My memory may be hazy in other directions, but I know that that snackbox contained a tomato and cheese sandwich made with brown bread, an individually wrapped piece of red leicester (sp?), a not-that-nice pottle of peach yoghurt (You bet I ate it anyway!) a banana, a Milky Way bar (Chocky! Score!) and a garden vegetable flavoured Cuppa Soup [NZ spelling ;) - 'tis different in British].
The bit where having a concussion means they wake you up every hour to take your blood pressure and pulse (was fascinated by the machine that showed you the numbers and squiggly lines and all) and shine a light in your eyes (cruel and unusual, yet necessary punishment) rather sucked. I kept waking up and wondering the same things and scrolling through my inbox and sent texts and reading the note T left me to find the answers. Eventually I wrote myself a note and remebered how I never did see that movie Memento with Guy Pierce (I think) in it. Then I woke up a couple of times and wondered how I knew that T was coming to pick me up and that work knew I wasn't coming in. Eventually I gave up wondering and figured that it must have been right, else I wouldn't have written it.
The bit where I was sleeping in the clothes I'd been riding in was kinda gross. I thought I smelled bad - must have actually smelled awful. I did at least peel off the padded liners at some point because I was too hot.
T got up at the crack of Gawd-knows-what past bloody ridiculous to come and get me (I owe that girl a beverage of her choice and I'm comping her the inner-tube she borrowed) but she could have slept in: I wasn't discharged until the doctor had seen me and I'd been under observation for 24 hours, so two o'clock. She kept me entertained, which is just as well - I was sorely tempted to get out my multi-tool and dismantle the call button to see how it worked (well, it's hardly a complicated piece of electronics, but I really was that bored).
Eventually, we got out and found a bus back to Guildford Station. Guess I owe T two drinks - just remembered she paid for that. Anyway, then we got the train to Waterloo and parted ways once there. I didn't take the quickest route to get to the Jubilee Line (I walked outside and along the road and back in the Jubilee Line end), but I figured knowing exactly where I was going was important! Went to Boots in Jubilee Place Mall for Panandol (Cheaper than filling the script they wrote me!) and tissues (have cold, had run out). Hopped on the DLR and got myself home at last. Had a much needed and deserved shower as soon as the water had had time to heat up a bit.
All in all, no harm done and feeling tired, but fine. Decided to take the day off from work tomorrow anyway just so I could have a nice sleep-in - reckon I've earned it!
