No gain?

It's now two days since the 2:08, and I have not had any pain. If you live by the 'no pain/no gain" rule, then I wasted two hours of my Sunday, but two hours of sunshine is always good. Unless you live by the 'avoid sun or die of skin cancer" rule, in which case I really had a bad Sunday.

The ankles, in particular, didn't care one whit about the bike ride. In fact, riding a bike is the one exercise that my doctor actually recommended if I felt a need to sweat. It's non-weight-bearing and really has very limited ankle movement (some, but nothing like the elliptical machine), so as far as the ankles are concerned, the bike ride was a non-event.

I'm thinking about getting a new seat, and sometimes I think about getting a new bike. Then I look at the bike and the seat and think, "You have a perfectly good seat on a perfectly good bike. And you have another bike in the corner over there. Stop this nonsense immediately." The practical Smukke is not nearly as much fun as the silly Smukke, but she does have a nice house.

Bike #2 is a mountain bike. The ex & I bought a pair of these one year as an anniversary gift. I rode mine once & realized I hate mountain biking. I rode it a few more times after that but I really do not like being out of control, having roots, ruts and gravel grabbing my wheel & trying to tip me over, and having constant threats of pain & worse. When I was explaining this to my boss at the office today, he pretty much summed up the mountain bike experience: "If you aren't bleeding when you get home, you didn't have fun."

The bike is a few years older than the snazzy, shiny thing on the Trek site, and it's bright yellow. It's actually not bad for geocaching because it does allow you to follow nice trails off into recreational areas where geocachers like to hide things. However, it's not nearly as much fun in a daily basis as a road bike, which can take you to the grocery store for milk, the library for a new load of books, or over to mom & dad's with the paper.

My road bike is a sweetheart, but she's a hybrid road/touring bike, a Trek 400. When I went to look for a link, I found it under "vintage steel road bikes." (sigh). I bought her in the late 1980s when I was living in NJ and needed to replace my 9000-lb Sears monster. She has ridden innumerable centuries (100 miles in a day), one double century (200 miles in a day) and across the US (LA to Boston, but no, not in a day). She's a hard worker, is happy to carry panniers (which I use almost all the time to carry stuff) and has no problems. She is not as shiny as she once was, and she is not a color I would choose on purpose, but I can't really justify replacing her.

2:08:55

That's how long the computer says I rode my bike today.

It was a perfect day for a ride. I started off with the foolish notion of riding down to my office & back, just to see how long it would take and determine whether the roads were relatively bike-friendly. My normal driving route is 13 miles and definitely *not* bike-friendly: skinny, two lane roads with no shoulder & lots of trucks. So I had this plan to go a different way.

I actually started off going that way, but I went to mom & dad's instead, a little 6-mile jaunt. There, I sat on the couch, blabbed with mom (who was fixin' to go play golf) & sucked down a bottle of water. When I left, I meant to loop around by the new Wal*Mart and back home, but it was a nice day. So I did the stupid thing & rode all the way to the office :)

The relatively bike-friendly one-way route is just shy of 15 miles, which is pretty much an hour in each direction. Or, according to the bike computer, one hour and one minute there & one hour and not quite eight minutes home. Aside from being tired on the ride home, there was a headwind for the last seven-ish painful miles. (whine whine whine)

The headwind is one of those 'matter of perspective' things. The trees aren't moving, so it's hard to say "oh yes, it's windy." But the weather page says we have a 10 mph wind. When you are on a bike, pedaling your brains out to achieve an average speed of 15 mph, that 10 mph wind is a brick wall. The nice thing about a good wind is that The Woodlands has lots of big fountains in ponds alongside the road. When it's windy, the fountains spray water all over hot, sweaty, tired cyclists, making them smile. (The fact that the water in those ponds is sort of yucky is another matter entirely.)

The other thing that is a 'matter of perspective' on a bike is the definition of 'hill.' For example, when I left my house, my street was flat. When I got home, after 2 hours on the bike, it was entirely uphill, including the driveway. Go ahead and laugh if you are from NJ or upstate NY or any other place with real hills, but for those who think of southeast Texas as flat, you may see it differently from a skinny, hard bicycle seat.

Parts that are going to be complaining tomorrow: butt (already complaining), neck (already complaining), hands (a little whiny), thighs (not complaining yet, but extremely likely tomorrow).

Life update

The 'boot' is off, YAY! Doc says I am healing well, but I have a few weeks before I can run, jump, use the elliptical machine or basically do anything else fun or healthy. The ankles are still very swollen (and not very pretty), and there's a bit of an ache most of the time, but the doc says I should just get used to that because it's going to be around for a while. Great, eh?

I took in another stray dog today. I think he belongs to the neighbor, although I'm not sure how he got out of the fence, and they're not home to confirm that they are missing him. He's a cute little guy and very affectionate, so his owners had better find him soon because I don't *need* another dog.

Lakrids sort of enjoys having another dog to play with. The two of them romped around the yard for an hour or two this afternoon, and I loved watching them play. Then I gave the little visitor a bath because he was a bit stinky. While I'm writing this, they are both trying to get on my lap. But I don't *need* another dog. One pest is enough!!

X-ray says....

.... that I'm healing up just fine & won't need any hardware surgically screwed into my bones. *phew!*

Doc also wants me to "wean" off the crutches, which means start trying to get around with just one crutch, then just walk in the boot. In 14 days, I am to be hobbling around without crutches. Meanwhile, I'm allowed to drive, even the manual transmission Mini, as long as the boot doesn't get in the way of the pedals.

Why is it that hearing these words from the Doc makes it *poof* ok to do this stuff? One second after mom dropped me in my driveway, I was in my garage trying out the clutch pedal, then taking the Mini for a spin around the block. An hour earlier, if you had suggested that I do such a thing, I'd have thought you were trying to kill me. Go figure.

I did use both crutches today, until I got home. I figure it makes no sense to hurt myself at work & not be able to drive home. But now that I'm here, I left one crutch at the back door. But after only dealing with the dog & dinner, I'm fixin' to go fetch it. No use overdoing it. But I'm not going to be sorry to see the crutches go back into the closet (forever).

This morning, I picked up a temporary handicap tag so I don't have to hobble the half mile from the parking lot to my office. Instead, I walk about 5 steps. Opening doors is still an interesting issue. Doors are not my friend. The bathroom door at work, in particular, weighs about 20 tons and has a very tight return spring. It has tried to kill me or at least knock down a crutch a number of times, but so far I have managed to sneak past it. The car door also likes to snap at my boot.

Regardless, I'm still me: It was not raining on the way home from work, so the top was down. I'm ok with driving, although I would not wish to take a long road trip or sit in bumper-to-bumper traffic for any period of time.

Mom & dad had a nice giggle at my expense the other night. Mom drove me to the doctor's office Wednesday afternoon. Apparently it tickles my parents to no end that at their age, they are still taking their child to the doctor, rather than the reverse. I suppose at some level I'm tickled, too.

Shoe Shopping

The Martian thought this was a very funny photo. After some consideration, I decided he is right, even if he is a brat.

Obviously, we made it to the Mall, and yes, the wheelchair was free to use. But not that convenient. The wheelchair/information counter is in the center of the mall on the bottom floor. The mall has entrances in the center as well; one that opens to the parking lot on the second floor, and one that opens to an outdoor promenade of shops on the first floor. To get from the second floor parking lot to the first floor wheelchair lender place, you can hobble with your crutches down to either of two elevators, about evenly spaced 20 miles apart, or you can take your chances on the escalator. Alternatively, you can park out by the outdoor promenade & hobble with your crutches 20 miles up to the Mall. Go ahead and ask me if I think somebody planned out the whole wheelchair thing.

I made it down the escalator alive, and lept into my free wheelchair. Happily, most of the stores we visited were wheelchair accessible. Some -- specifically those aimed at The Martian's pre-teen nieces for whom he needed to buy gifts -- were not. Tsk, tsk.

I did look at shoes. I can't help it: I have the shoe-shopping gene. And anyway, I needed a large shoe (wide & longer than my normal shoes) to fit over the brace on my right foot so I can hobble in rain or cold. I didn't find one in my price range. Wal*Mart had some cheap black sneakers with Velcro closures -- but not in the size I needed. (pout)

So today, in the rain, I wore a fuzzy slipper. It's almost as fashionable as the Boot. I am pretty sure I am going to be on the cover of Vogue very soon.

Colorful feet

Voila, the colors of New Year celebrations at my house!! That's the outside of the broken ankle, in glorious purples and blues. I'm not sure which hurts more: the ankles, or my hands & armpits from the crutches. This is *so* annoying! But I feel a lot better about my situation after one of the other Miniacs (who broke his ankle in a bicycling accident a couple of years ago) pointed me to mybrokenleg.com. It's hard to keep whining about a simple broken ankle when you read some of the stories of people who have some seriously messed up bones.

Last night, we went to the grocery store for a dog food run, and oh no, I didn't hobble around the Kroger with the critches -- way too much work. Instead, I rode in one of the slick motorized carts they provide for those in need. Which was me, yesterday :) It would have been more fun if The Martian were kinder about "Hey, watch out for that POLE!" every 5 minutes. (No, seriously, The Martian was very good. It was my dad, later, who was wondering if I hit any non-moving objects while driving the cart.)

Doc had said I should ice the ankles at night & heat in the mornings, so this morning The Martian filled my wonderful garden tub with nice, warm water & I soaked my poor self in there for a while. The nice thing about heat in the morning is that the ankles get very stiff overnight & the heat loosened up the one I still need for walking, at least.

The plan for today is to go to the mall & rent a wheelchair. The last time I did this stupid broken ankle thing, the local mall (in Pittsfield, Mass.) had wheelchairs you could use for free -- you just left your driver's license. Not sure whether The Woodlands Mall will consider wheelchair 'loaners' to be a free service or a money-making opportunity. But at least it will get us out of the house.

Owch, Redux

They talked me into a doctor visit. Left one is broken. Right one is just smacked around.

Doc said if I move the left one in the next two weeks he is going to knock me out and put a screw in it to hold it in place. So I'm not moving.

When I can just sit here with such fashionable footwear, why move?????

Ho, Ho, owch

The Martian and I have been enjoying the holiday with some old movies, including some favorites suggested by readers here. After Miracle on 34th St, we took in A Christmas Carol (ok, it's not American but what American does not know who Ebenezer Scrooge is, and the phrase, "God bless us, every one"?). To balance the serious stuff with some silly Americana, we found time to watch Talladega Nights, a goofy satire of NASCAR (and F1) that's worth a few good giggles. The Unnamed Male Relative also gave us a collection of Frank Capra films, which we plan to start on, maybe today, since I can't do much besides lie here....

It's been a quiet holiday so far, and so when the Houston Mini Motoring Society came up with the idea to go Karting, the Martian & I decided we wanted to go fast. So we drove out to the southwest side of Houston and met up with six other Miniacs for a bit of fun.

The fun ended for me in the middle of our second qualifying session, when another driver (who did not see me, I think) squeezed me into the wall -- or more accurately, a large, iron pole. Neither the pole nor the kart had nearly enough bumpers, and so in slowing from 15 to 0 mph, the vast bulk of the force transmitted directly to the first possible compression zone: my ankles.

Having smacked a concrete barrier at some 100 mph in a Spec Racer Ford some years ago at Firebird International Raceway, I was familiar with the sensation of an ankle taking a big impact. It is not my favorite feeling in the world. In this case, both ankles immediately began filling with the fluids that the body rushes to such injuries. Lucky me!!

A regimen of RICE (rest-ice-compression-elevation) is keeping the ankles reasonably happy, under the circumstances. The left one is less happy than the right, but I don't think either one is actually broken. I've taken a couple of Advils and slept well through the night.... that's a good sign, in my view. My logic on the doctor thing is, if it's not broken, I'm going to have 3-4 x-rays at $xxx per shot, and a $xxx doctor visit just so they can tell me to do exactly what I'm doing. If it is broken, it will still be broken in 48 hours, which is about when I finally saw an orthopedist (is that a word?) after the last break, so it's no biggie.


The Martian will tell you I'm a lousy sicko. I'm an independent cuss, I hate not being able to do everything myself, and I'll hurt myself rather than ask for help. And I'm grumpy. Not a nice holiday for him right now !!!