Sunday, July 05, 2009

The Short Version

Friday was a beautiful day for a ride.  I rode into Santa Rosa, stopped downtown for a soda, then started home.  I was riding up Old Redwood Highway, wanting to get to my son's Geometry class (the last of his difficult summer school session) before it ended, so I could surprise him.  I started to make a right-hand turn onto Angela Drive, but realized at the last second that I was going too fast.  I tried to brake and turn to avoid a decorative rock pillar on the left side of the road, but was unable to, and crashed directly into it, leading with my left forearm: a hard, sickening crash that threw me onto the pavement and left me stunned.  A very kind couple took me to Kaiser.  These pictures are not for the squeemish; I was probably going 25 mph and stopped all of my momentum with my forearm:





I needed surgery immediately, and ended up with a steel plate and 9 screws in my arm.  Yesterday all the pain medicine made me sick; today all the other non-arm bruised and battered parts of my body are aching.

The staff at Kaiser were fantastic, and some very funny things happened during the experience, which I will post later, but all in all it was not at all fun.

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