How an Easy Spin Ended the Season

The Executive Summary

The 1998 cycling season ended for me on Monday, 2/9/98, when I had a solo accident while riding in Los Altos Hills. The result was a Garden 3+ fracture of the left hip - fairly serious. Five screws were used to repair the fracture, officially known as a femoral neck fracture. The initial plan was to be on crutches until at least mid-June, with no weight on the left side until May.

A narrative about the accident is next. For the gory details, follow that link for xrays, descriptions, and links to everything you ever wanted to know about hip fractures. Note that some of that stuff is not for the squeamish. This page, on the other hand, is very light.

The Accident

It was all Kyle's fault. (HA! Just threw that in there to see if he's paying attention.) Actually, the accident itself was extremely boring and unspectacular. We were not riding fast, and weather was not a direct factor. It was just simply dumb luck. Remember that I got this great new custom-made bike in December. And, being an el-nino year, we were pounded with rain in January. So, when a sunny day comes along, we ride! We were descending a slight hill side-by-side. I asked Kyle if he wanted to continue straight, or go left which would extend the ride by about 4 miles. We decided to go left.

I got ahead a bit, and made the left turn at 15mph through some gravel. The road was dry, but it had rained the day before, and the pavement under the gravel was probably slick. I went down hard, and landed on the gravel. Initially, I thought it was just a bad bruise, so I resisted having passers by call for an ambulance. A runner finishing her run had a minivan stashed nearby, and offered to drive me to my medical center which was only about 5 miles. When we got there, even the doctors were surprised to find out that there was a pretty serious fracture.

At this point, my first thought was that I had just wrecked our vacation, since my wife and I were scheduled to leave that Friday for New Zealand and Fiji. My second thought was that the cycling season was over. Ironically, I needed to be transported to the hospital in an ambulance, anyway, so by not going direct from the crash site, I just postponed that trip.

I was at the hospital by about 4pm, and surgery was at around 7. It's a very short procedure, but by then my concept of time was gone. In the spirit of modern medicine, I was home about 24 hours after surgery. Although there is some benefit to a short hospital stay. The initial prognosis was:

At the 2-week follow-up, the surgeon had me knock off several of the exercises initially prescribed by Physical Therapy, and concentrate on quads and gluts (although as many per-day as I could stand). In the interim, I was getting used to crutches, as this was my first broken anything. Being something of a klutz, I did manage to goof up a few times. This brought new meaning to the phrase "putting my foot down"! Thankfully, I've only done that a few times.

At the 7-week followup, there was some evidence of healing. But, the docs wanted no weight on it for another 6 weeks.

Progress!

On June 9, four months to the date from the accident, I had another followup. Finally, Dr. Conservative was satisfied with the healing and I graduated from crutches to a cane. New exercises were prescribed, and spinning on a stationary trainer is now allowed! So, although riding the PMC is out of the question, I hope to be on the road by the end of August.

What about the bike? It was fine, of course. Bikes seem to be smart enough to get out of the way...

So, the cycling season is over. Nevertheless, I am registered for the 1998 PMC, and I am raising money as always: this year's goal is $8000. I will be in Massachusetts for the PMC, and I will find other ways to participate.