Not Bike Related (NBR) – 1 month post op

It’s been 6 weeks since I fractured my tibial plateau skiing and 4 weeks since a stainless steel plate and 7 screws bolted it all back together. Not the best year so far. I’ve had trouble adjusting to doing nothing but recovering. I don’t have many interests that don’t involve being on my feet and moving around in one way or another. Yeah…it could have been worse…and there are starving children in (fill in the blank) but that’s not how my mind works…I have my own reality and that reality has been crushed by this injury. I can’t do what keeps me happiest. I went from 60 to zero mph in seconds and have had to figure out how to physically and mentally cope – not my strong suit. I should probably have figured this out by now, eh?

As a kid I had lots of injuries. Broken arm from skateboarding in grade school, a reconstructed left ankle because of so many sprained ankles from skating launch ramps in middle school, a broken right ankle from playing hoops with friends as a sophomore in high school, and a separated left shoulder and sprained/hyperextended elbow playing rugby as a senior. The next handful of years were injury free since I was mostly riding bikes through college and in my 20’s, but did break my right arm on a fast downhill trying to catch the 1st place rider at the Winter Park Tipperary Creek race in ‘96. That one freaking hurt. But up until this year I’ve stayed injury free, other than some random knee pain while riding big miles. That’s a long time, 25 years! Apparently in the meantime I’ve forgotten how to cope with injuries, so these last 6 weeks have been hard.

The first week after surgery was especially bad and one of the worst weeks i’ve ever experienced. I didn’t leave the bed except to use the bedside commode. Any strength and fitness I had before went out the door in less than two weeks. If you’ve never laid in bed for two weeks this will sound like an exaggeration but it’s not. Everything shuts down, lungs and muscles simply don’t get used and shrink. Thankfully the pain was muted by taking Oxycodone every 4 hours although that had some undesirable side effects that didn’t make food very appetizing. The second week was better but I still wasn’t very hungry and couldn’t get comfortable. I could sit or sleep was on my back with my leg elevated, which is just fine but not for 24 hours a day. Any time my foot was below my heart there was pounding pain because of the amount of swelling. Since the 3rd week I’ve been feeling better with the exception of not sleeping much. I’m off pain meds except at night where Tylenol PM helps me fall asleep. I’m not sure what kind of pain it is but I believe it’s nerve related and it’s not going away…flashes of stinging burning pain that comes out of nowhere and goes away just as fast.

Two weeks after surgery I went to the surgeons and got an X-ray to see if the hardware was keeping the bone pieces in place. All looked good so he gave me the go-ahead to start Physical Therapy for range of motion exercises only. Weight bearing is off limits until after week 6 (Feb 10th). Because the first two weeks I was in an Ex-fix keeping the leg slightly bent while the swelling went down, I can’t straighten out my leg even after two weeks of PT. Yesterday at PT i was happy to get to 100 degrees with flexion and to 5 deg of extension after a bit of warm up. The week before. I was at 90 and 10…progress! By 6 weeks I’m expected to be at full extension (flat leg) and 120 deg of flexion.

So far I’ve lost over 15 pounds…i did not expect that. Before I was 175 and today i was 158. I’m guessing most of that is muscle since my legs look pretty skinny but my beer belly is also gone. Speaking of beer, I was having a nightly beer before the injury and now I’m having less than one a week. It’s strange, my body isn’t craving the same foods or drinks as before. I used to have a sweet tooth but now i crave more savory foods. Things don’t taste the same. (No, I don’t have Covid.) The beers i used to like now taste off and I have trouble finishing one. The oatmeal with granola I had every morning now is way too sugary. I’m sure with more activity my cravings will change but I should probably keep some of these good diet habits!

The dogs don’t know what is going on with me. When i first got home they smelled my leg and knew i wasn’t ok. You know how dogs will lick a cut? They just looked scared of my leg. I used to walk them at least once a day and now I’m on the couch all day, but that hasn’t stopped them from trying to get me up and out the door. Since it’s my right leg i am not allowed to drive until i can fully weight bear and slam on the brakes if needed. So for now my sweet and patient wife is chauffeuring invalid me (with the dogs of course) to the PT and doctor appointments. Injuries like these press pause on anything and everything in your life as well as your significant others’ life.

It’s the simple things i used to take for granted like…walking, riding a bike, not being in pain, driving, working, anything that involves both legs. There’s not much to do so at the start I’d scroll endlessly through Instagram but each time i’d watch a ski reel that involved someone crashing my body would physically jolt. I’ve stopped watching most anything where I expect there will be people crashing, also avoiding dark TV shows like Ozark and Breaking Bad.

The workshop is a danger zone of cutting and burning tools so adding crutches and a wheelchair to the mix just isn’t something I’m up for trying right now, business is still on hold. I figure by March i should be able to stand up without crutches and shuffle around long enough to start making frames again, albeit slowly. There is still some swelling as you can see in the below photo so keeping the leg elevated helps with that. I’ve been told that once I am cleared to start weight bearing exercises progress is much faster. I’ve started ‘spinning’ the legs with zero resistance on an under desk pedal cycle thingy. Even though it’s zero resistance my right leg gets fatigued after just 5 minutes but it feels great to be able to spin at all! The range of motion exercises are pushing and pulling my leg to go flat and bend, very much against its will. I cannot believe how the muscles and tendons get so inflexible after being stagnant for just a couple of weeks.

Obviously the inability to do what I love – ride bikes, run with the dogs, ski – is difficult. Sure, it makes you appreciate the simple things more but that trite fact doesn’t help the day to day reality of life for the next several months. Researching recovery time for my type break indicates that I’m over a year out to being back to 100%. The bone itself will take 3-5 months to heal and the flexibility and strength will take the rest. The unknown is that I don’t know whether any ligaments were torn. The surgeon is waiting to do an MRI until all the swelling is gone and the bone is healed. That means I could be in for another surgery to stitch up any torn ligaments, although it’s possible to strengthen the muscles that support the knee to avoid another surgery until any issues become intolerable. It’s also possible the plate and screws will cause irritation when moving the knee. If that happens I’ll want to get those removed in about a year. They tell me i’ll probably have arthritis in the knee and may not get full range of motion back, but that i’ll eventually be able to do everything I was doing beforehand so that’s what i try to focus on: at least i’m not dead and eventually i’ll be back to normal, more or less. All this from a ski tip diving into heavy snow.

I just turned 49 last week and it’s hard not to think that there’s only so many years left to do the things that i love at the level I love, and only so many seasons left of ever-shrinking winters. This injury has especially kicked my mental ass. I’m not sure how confident i’ll be skiing anymore, and if I’ll ski the same places solo as I used to. I’m sure people deal with this all the time and get past it but right now I don’t ever want this to happen again.

I envy bookworms right now. I lose interest and zone out fast when reading books. Listening to podcasts is great but I can only listen for so long before getting bored. I’ve never been into video games but i should probably get a Playstation to help pass the time. Iphone Sudoku is fun but only for short stints. I’ve tried the Headspace app to meditate but it’s really not working. Maybe if i had gone into this as a meditator…? Most days I wish i could take a pill and wake up in a couple of months. But then i see stories of one-legged skiers skinning up mountains and skiing down couloirs I could barely ski with two legs. People much worse off than me that are happy and having fun in untenable situations. People overcoming cancer and adversity with that glass half-full attitude. How do they do that? If I can’t be happy without being active outdoors for a handful of months at 49 what happens when i’m much older and can’t physically do as much as I’d like? Is there something in the brain that turns down the volume on this “need” to be moving and doing stuff all the time? A certain amount of exercise is good for the body but a lot of exercise becomes like a drug. Once you stop, the body goes through a similar withdrawal but with hormone levels. I first encountered this when i stopped racing bikes. There was the redefining of yourself but mostly i’d get depressed and not be happy or fulfilled unless the bike ride was of a certain intensity or took me to a place i hadn’t been before. I still struggle with this. That goal of the ride that racing provided got replaced with something else and that became adventure. Backcountry skiing fit that very well and became my next passion and drive. It was even better than bike racing since it hit chords I’d never hit before and didn’t have the “down” when getting a bad result. When any passion is taken away withdrawals set in and the mind doesn’t know what to do and how to act. That’s my experience at least and hopefully by self-reflection i can whittle away at the negatives and learn the positives that will propel me into coming back and getting back to do what I love to do.

Building bikes has always tested my patience but as long as i could troubleshoot and fix my way out of challenges all was good. It took years to become comfortable with the skills and process, and of building things for people that would get thoroughly ridden and abused. There is a groove to the process of building frames, you’re always moving around the shop – catching up on email while snacking, measuring-marking-cutting-coping-deburring and then cleaning tubes, setting them up in the fixture to tack then weld. There’s always a next step, another frame, another handlebar, a new idea to pursue. Parts can get tedious but it doesn’t get boring and still feels like every frame has a personality to match it’s owner. That’s the beauty of one at a time full custom. Not sure what that has to do with my broken leg but it’ll be good to be building again. For now i am working my way down the queue designing the future bikes in BikeCAD, ordering dropouts, tubes, and parts, and doing my best to take the needed time to heal up. At this rate the components will arrive by the time the frames are done! 😂