A little graphic here...don't read if you're squeamish! Also, I apologize for the length. I'm just really hoping one of you lovely ladies has had a similar experience (not that I'd wish this injury on anyone, of course!) and can offer some words of wisdom.

I bumped a wheel and fell over onto pavement at slow speed at a feed zone last August and squashed my left trochanter (dumb, dumb, dumb!). It cracked into a bunch of little pieces and - somehow(?) - my femur also displaced inwards and well up into my pelvis. Needless to say I was doing Lamaze breathing ex. there on the pavement while waiting (45 minutes!!) for the ambulance (which arrived without any morphine on board), imagining myself on a Carribbean island, etc. OUCH. The surgeon tells me that I was one of his top 10 worst fractures for 2006 (yippee).

The "short" story is that after surgery to implant a compression bolt, plate, and 5 screws through my femur I was on crutches and then a cane for nearly 5 months. When I was finally able to walk on my own I quickly discovered that my broken leg was now about an inch shorter, leading to pelvic tilt and back pain. The new leg length discrepeancy has been confirmed by x-ray. I now wear a lift in my left shoe and have a pair of expensive orthotics that I use for long walks to ensure that I'm 'even'. They work great and keep the back from getting sore. I don't wear orthotics when I ride...more on that coming up.

From week 6 post-op I rode indoors on my trainer for rehab, and also did dozens of PT exercises. I'm reasonably well recovered, though I can't run comfortably (and who likes to run, anyway?!). My endurance is great and my HR zones all bumped up 5-6 points this year with increased fitness. So that part is good. Sometimes there's some spasming in my inner thigh - a lot of things about this injury just feel weird and I can't begin to figure out what the problem is.

From March - present I've ridden outdoors 150+ very hilly miles per week, on average. Despite stretching and PT, my IT band snaps loudly over the bolt (I know, ew) when I rotate my leg but is not painful. On PT's advice I visited the surgeon's physician's asst. last week about the popping (x-ray shows that the compression screw has been backing out! Frankenscrew!) to see whether the surgeon would recommend bolt removal. The surgeon was not crazy about that idea but we didn't have long to talk about it. He was more interested in my x-ray, which showed, for the first time, a fairly rapid onset of arthritis at the ball and socket. My last x-ray was in June and there was nothing arthritic there (i.e. the culprit is most likely the biking). He scheduled me for a CT scan but the tech there felt I should go to the scanner in another town that takes many more images per millimeter. We need to inspect the bone and tissue in the arthritic area really carefully and see what's up.

I use Speedplay cleats and had HAD knee problems in my left leg that are now gone!! You know that surgery they do if you have a tight IT band, where they slit the ITB near the knee so it tracks correctly? That's effectively what the joint repair surgery did for me so at least the knee tracking problem is no longer an issue! I still use the Speedplays - love them - but my left one is stacked an inch high (with the help of an expert cleat placement/bike fitter). The other day the whole thing disintegrated while riding - the screws just weren't long enough to keep all the shims and extra plates in place. Now my cleat specialist friend recommends going to a shorter crank for my injured leg and leaving the good leg on the original length crank. This way we can use fewer shims. I'm 5'2.5" with 28.5" inseam...they SAY (and this is a whole nother topic) that I should be on 165s rather than 170s, anyway. I've just bought a 165mm compact and we'll do the "bike surgery" in the near future.

So - whew - a lot to this story, I know. Has anyone ever gone through anything at all like this? any part of it? I'd really, really appreciate hearing from you if you have. It's been quite a long road to get back and it looks like I'm still on that road, so to speak.

Thanks so much for reading....
O.