First of all THANK YOU everyone for checking up on me. It was really nice of ya'll. I can assure you all I'm not nearly as bad off as most of you seemed to think. So to sum up today:
I woke up really early this morning, and there was a low throbbing pain in my back, right underneath my right shoulder blade. This was kind of ignored though, in favor of the boiling cauldron of hell that I was experiencing in my, you know, area. I also noticed I had been drooling a LOT while I was asleep, which I was pretty much going to chalk up to the percocet, but then I noticed there was a lot of blood on my pillow near my mouth as well. I was also having some trouble breathing
I decided it was time to give up and go see the doctor, and went to go take a leak real quick. Oops, tons of blood in my urine too. Now I was back to panicking a bit. I debated calling an ambulance but settled on a cab. I took the cab to the hospital, got admitted pretty much straight away, and the first thing they do: Morphine.
UMC is like the most morphine happy place I've ever been to. "Oops I stubbed my toe" "10 mikes morphine, STAT!!!" Unlike the phantom side pains I had back in June though, I was pretty okay with it this time. So I wait for like an hour with the resident, the doctor comes in and asks me to rate my pain, tell where it hurts, whatever. He doesn't seem too impressed, and is writing something in those infernal notebooks I'm convinced they write "Patient is a little girl and came in to whine about his owie" in, when I started coughing badly and hacked up another decent amount of blood.
That kind of got them going, so they gave me a CT scan and an echocardiagram. The diagnosis was cryptogenic hemoptysis, which sounded like an awesome House disease, but it turns out that it just means they don't know why I'm coughing up blood. The peeing blood was caused by a badly bruised kidney, apparently NOT by the shot I took to the sensitive bits by the nose of my saddle. The doc assumed it was a bruised lung causing the mouth bleeding but admitted it seemed like a bit too much blood for that. They offered to do a lung biopsy, but honestly if they're not worried I'm not.
They then told me I wasn't to use the bike for at least a month, because the bouncing and stuff was going to fuck up my kidneys worse. I'm going to level with you folks, I've been trying reallllly hard to just give the facts without trying to inject any drama into the proceedings, but at that point I laid back down and while I didn't start bawling or anything, I did start crying a bit. I was exhausted, frustrated, scared shitless of the fact that various parts of me are bleeding, and now some guy is basically blowing up my whole trip by saying I've gotta take a month off. There's just no way i could get back in shape in time if I did that, I'd be done.
So I plead my case, told him it didn't hurt that badly anymore (not that he was worried about that) and that I could just stand in the pedals for any large bumps. It's not like I'm taking it down a cliffside or anything, I'm on improved streets. I could deflate the tires a bunch to soften the ride, I'd come in for checkups, whatever he wanted. He asked why it was such a big deal and I explained it, and i gotta admit, the guy was really cool.
I have to come in for another CT scan and some other tests later this week, to make sure the bruising isn't getting worse, but he said I could keep riding and probably be okay. They released me later, I took a test ride, and it's really not that bad. I even made it into work later on. I can walk fine, it still kind of hurts to sit, and I'm not gonna lie it doesn't feel particularly good on the saddle, but it's certainly doable. All the bike needed was a new wheel and stem, didn't even bend the fork.
I'll be peeing blood for a few more days apparently, and taking deep breaths isn't really an option for awhile, but otherwise all things considered I'm pretty damn lucky. I took another look at where I fell and I have no idea how I convinced myself I landed on grass, the other side of that curb is straight sidewalk. I got all these bruises because I went end-over my handlebars and landed flat on my back on the sidewalk going about 20. Could have been a lot worse, so I'm looking at the bright side.
Again, thanks for all the well wishes and stuff, but it ended up not being a big deal. All's good.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Wow, I read the first paragraph of this post through the drooling part then skipped to the original post under the impression that you woke up this morning sore but okay. Sounds like it was a bit more serious than that. Glad to see you're riding again and sorry about the sarcastic comments on the previous post. Have a speedy recovery!
ReplyDeleteI don't want to contribute to any laziness here, but I think you could easily take a month off the bike and still be ready in August as long as you kept somewhat in shape through other forms of exercise. But I guess you also need the bike for commuting...hmmm...well hopefully it doesn't come to that.
Don't make too many excuses for the driver of the truck. Most roads were designed for cars, it's true, but I think more car-on-bike accidents go unreported than any other kind. You might know some actual figures on that, just seems like it happens all the time around here.