Road Rash

[Dogmama]

One of my worst crashes was when my then-boyfriend (a lawyer) was showing off trying to jump cattle guards and fell into me - on top of me at about 20mph.

We had to call a friend to get us because our bikes were trashed and I couldn't walk. On the way back into town, he meekly asked "Are you going to sue me?"

I replied "H*ll yes! And I'm getting your ex-wife to represent me" (she is also a lawyer.)

Although I was kidding, he went down to my favorite LBS, gave them his credit card number and said "whatever she wants..."

Being a believer in karma, I just settled for a new helmet, new shorts and a few replacement parts for my bike.

I also broke up with him.

[missliz]

Good god- take pictures and send them to Primal Wear, you'll get into the "special club" ! Alan sent me a goofy sticker for the jeep and the gory pix go up on the Primal Wear web site. Your 15 minutes?
Seriously, keep it moist with the product of your choice- Neosporin is good and easy to get, the others may take more doing. And keep it out of the sun! Uv exposure will cause a lot of discoloation, like the eternal pink and purple. Seeing a good derm doc is a good idea too- There are RX versions of antiB cream that might be better.
Mederma is the name of the anti scarring potion, you can get it at a drugstore. You may want to wait 'till there's skin to put it on... And when you do get skin or scar tissue back, get all religious with the sunblock. Purple knees are no biggy, but the face?
And how IS the bike?
Get well soon

Lizzy

MM, you are so in the life! "Skin grows back, Campy doesn't" >D

[annie]

Not a whole lot of intense sunshine to worry about at this time of the year, up here in the northern hemisphere, but I still intend to use sunscreen if my face is going to be exposed for any length of time. such as x-country skiing. No point in taking any chances.

Primal Wear likes ugly pictures? I did have one taken the morning after. It's pretty gross-looking.

I will check out the mederma. Might as well have it on hand for whenever I get some skin back. According to my family doc, there's new skin starting to grow already. I went to see him yesterday. He was very encouraging. Said in a couple weeks I should have new skin, light-colored, of course, but it should be there. He also talked about sun and cold exposure. He said basically, I have second degree burns, almost third degree in one area. He prescribed a burn ointment, silvadene, to put on daily. Has anyone else used this? What do you know about it? I've used it a few times already and it seems very soothing and taken away some of the red on the skin.

Sounds like a lot of people have had experience with road rash and crashes. Long ago, when I first started biking, I had someone tell me "It's not a question of IF you will crash, it's a question of when." Not trying to scare anyway away from riding !!!!! But I think it's a good idea to realize it's a risk and accept it from the beginning.

As for the bike ( I wondered when someone would ask....) it is history. I was devasted when I realized that. Okay, the whole bike is not history, just the frame. Carbon fiber is not repairable when it cracks. My downtube is cracked all the way 'round, all the way through. Quite an impact, I guess, 'cause I am not a big person. I must have hit harder than I realized. Anyway, my poor baby, the most wonderful bike I ever had, is no longer rideable. I didn't cry about any of my injuries. I had a good cry about the bike! Got it out of my system. I talked to my dealer. He is checking into a new frame for me. Everything else is fine, all I need is the frame. I want the exact same frame, hopefully the same color. I suppose it will all work out, but it is still hard for me to believe than my beautiful new bike was ruined. I KNOW many of you here can understand that feeling. Most people I know just say how it's just a bike, it can be replaced, etc, etc. Yeah, well that may be true but they don't understand! Some of my riding friends do. They can comiserate with me.
At least I have a back-up bike. I'll be riding that once I heal a bit more. Also lots of non-riders that ask me if I will ever get back on a bike. HA! I just give them a look and don't even bother trying to explain. They will never get it.

Long post, sorry! Once I get on about my bike, I can write and write.

[missliz]

Girl, If it was" just a bike" you wouldn't even comprehend this board. I feel for you, losing a great bike is like having the dog die. Or losing a limb, we're so integrated to our personal machines we're bionic folk.
If your going to fly, you're going to fall out of the sky occasionally. (The Wright Bros. had a bike shop 'till they decided to push it to the next level) We've all had a nasty biff or three, and I've found that I never remember a bad crash, except for one, and it's a blessing. The one I do remember was my death, except a good helmet let me get up and walk away swearing like a sailor. Went aerial, landed on my skull on a steel railroad track. Remembering the crash in slow mo detail gave me The Fear for a long time- so not remembering is a good thing, a self defense thing probably.
Primal's silly thing is called "over the bar scar club". It's pure Mt bike masochistic bravado, and you can see it at <www.primalwear.com> I think the point is that we only live once, stuff happens on a bike, might as well make light of it. Or not. However you need to deal.
So when you go back to spin, we wanna hear how the non riders freak out! Last time I had a big black eye from The Bike, people kept giving me the number for the battered womens shelter. Which is good, but they should consider that maybe we XXs do crash on sporting goods...
Get well soon

Lizzy

[kpc]

I work as a nurse and I know that for new cells to heal a wound, the wound bed must be kept moist. Apparently the new baby cells kind of glide across the open wound matrix to pile up and build new skin over the wound. So it's very important to keep the wound bed moist, neosporin is fine. There lots of other products too, the derma or second skin stuff looks cool, but I don't have any experience with it. And if it looks at all infected, pain increases or odd stuff smelly starts draining go to your Dr. and request an oral antibiotic. From my own personal opinion too, you should eat lots of good stuff, esp fruit, take vitamin C and keep drinking water. If you eat meat, this is the time to have it at least once a day. You might even consider echinacea tea to avoid infection. Happy healing!

[annie]

Lizzy,

Thanks for the empathy! And I have been at Spin already. The day after, in fact. Couldn't get a sub for my class, so off I went. I walked in, told them I was only telling the story once so they better listen, related what had happened, let them react, and went ahead with class. Funny, in it's own warped way. Most of them thought I was crazy for being there. Now that I think more about it, they were probably right......... I am realizing it was more of a trauma to my body than I initially wanted to admit. By today, I was feeling the effects of not enough recovery time. Exhaustion! I'm goin' to bed early tonight! And taking it totally easy for a few more days.

I checked out the Primal OTBSC site. Honestly, I could compete with a couple of them but most were pretty serious.

kpc,

Good advice! I have been keeping the wounds moist. Lots of ointment and vitamin E oil. It seems to be helping. It looks a little better each day. I had read about needing more protein to rebuild skin cells. I am not much of a meat-eater, but I'm trying.......... I hard-boiled a batch of eggs tonight and will eat those over the next few days. Also bought a lb. of salmon which I will hoard just for myself. Drinking lots of water is second nature. I love fruit. I love lots of veggies. Plus I take a multivitamin, an antioxidant supplement and calcuim everyday. SO........ that should be all to the good. I don't what more I can do. Get more sleep, I guess. Make my kids do more of the work at home!!! I like that idea!

[Dogmama]

Just a thought..

I wonder if your home owners or your car insurance will pay for your bike? I know my home owners will pay if my bike is stolen.

Just a thought. Carbon fiber is so expensive.

[annie]

Checked with insurance. We would have had to have a rider added for the bike. I thought of that at the time of bike purchase, but the added cost really didn't seem worth it. I mean, what's the chance I am going to break the bike? Even tho' it happened, it's not very likely. IF it had been stolen, that would be different. Then homeowners' would cover it. But wrecked in a crash, no. My insurance agent is checking into a possibility of being covered by uninsured motorist coverage, since it could be said to have been caused by a car. I am very dubious about that going through. There are no witnesses. I don't remember most of what happened. If I were an insurance company, I don't think I would reimburse me!

Altho' crashing also voids the maufacturers' warranty, Trek does have a $250 crash replacement policy. Better than nothing. It will help. At least I still have a bike I can ride. Plus my mountain bike. I am not bike-less. And I think I will ride inside for a little while yet........ long enough to at least have new skin grown over all the raw areas. I'm trying to be prudent. Not easy!

[Irulan]

annie if you don't' remember most of what happened, have you been checked for brain injury... mild concussion etc? When we ski patrol, " I don't remember" is a sure sign that one should get checked.....
]
Irulan

[annie]

Thanks, Irulan, I have been checked. When I was at the ER, they did 2 neck x-rays, and a CT scan of my head. I was informed that my neck was fine, nothing broken, nothing compressed, and that the scan showed no concussion. However, when I saw my own family doctor on Tuesday, and told him all that had occurred, he said I must have had a mild concussion, to have no memory of at least a 15-20 minute block of time. He said it might have been mild enough not to show on the scan, but in his opinion, I definitely had a slight concussion. I wish I had known that at the time. I would have taken at least one day off work and NOT done spin class Monday night or the next day. I guess I should have been intelligent enough to figure that out for myself, but, needless to say, I didn't. I was totally exhausted all day yesterday and even some today. I think it's from overdoing it the first two days and not giving myself time to recover at all. I did very little except what I HAD to yesterday, went to bed very early, and took it easy today, also. It seems to have helped. A good lesson - don't overdo it after an injury. Hopefully, I'll remember it!

p.s. how's the skiing? We are still waiting for snow here.

[annie]

I finally got up the courage to get back outside on a bike today. It was in the upper 30's, so not TOO cold and I just knew I needed to get out there before I started believing naysayers who think I should stop riding. Never! Anyway, off I went. I couldn't quite bring myself to take my crash route, but I did about 20 miles and despite being a little tense and hyper-alert, it felt great to be riding, even on my old bike. A balaclava kept my healing face wounds pretty well protected from the wind.

On the bike again, that's where I belong! Thanks for all the advice and words of encouragement.

[Dogmama]

Yahoo! Good for you!!! BTW, I usually avoid the crash site for a few weeks myself.

[Veronica]

Glad you're back out there Annie.

Veronica