I’ve fallen and I can’t get up!

This is my ceiling. I’ve been staring at it for a week.

Since I last blogged I wrote how I had sprained my neck. Upon further reflection I remembered how I injured my neck. I was training Sunday and hit a bump. My hands slipped off the hoods and I came off the saddle. Luckily as I was falling forward I grabbed the brake levers and was able to yank myself off the top tube and back onto the saddle. All of this happened within two seconds and I really didn’t think anything of this near death experience other than it was a close call. I visited a chiropractor Wednesday and told her my story. After examining me she said the trauma I had was very similar to whip-lash. So all last week my neck continued to ache, I continued to pop muscle relaxers like Pez candy, lie on my back and stare at the ceiling. I went to the chiropractor today and she said that because the pain still radiates down my arm to my fingers I probably have minor nerve damage. Sweet! So I haven’t trained since Sunday and I have the L’Etape coming up on the 7th. The good news is that by next Monday, if I continue to rest, I should be better. My revised training plan is to now go for an easy one-hour ride today and see what happens. If all is good, I’ll continue to do one-hour rides till Monday. From then on I’m back full-gas training till L’Etape. Plus, I’ll continue to pop muscle relaxers. Let the good times roll! Now only if I could score some Vicodine…

At this point I’m wishing I’d just crashed and dealt with the road rash.

5 comments

  1. Anonymous says:

    if you start riding a recumbent i will kill myself.

    noel.

    ps, if bikesgonewild is the next reply i am going to kill myself. its like the three of us alone in hell together.

  2. SLOVER says:

    Whip-lash riding you bike? That’s funny.I wonder if Chris Lotts will let us race our recumbent next weekend?
    Aram said from “Predatorcycling.com” He can make us custom recumbents with low drag coefficient.
    Get better soon…

  3. Patrick says:

    Nice pic of the 5 mg vicodin.
    As far as the pain and tingling down your arm, you really should get an MRI. You may have herniated a disc in your cervical vertebrae (x-rays won’t pick it up)or even fractured it slightly.
    800 mg of ibuprofen with food 4 times a day + 1000 mg tylenol 4 times a day. Don’t exceed this amount and definitely no liquor with this amount or your liver will get damaged. You need the ibuprofen to decrease the inflammation and the studies support that this is an effective pain combo. If you take vicodins, remember thre is 325 mg of acetominophen (tylenol) in there so do the math to compensate, but the vicodin won’t do much good to heal you quickly. Heat and accupuncture will help relieve muscle spasm. Get checked out and get better. Trust me, cracked my vertebrae and didn’t even know. Good luck!

    Dr. K

  4. Anonymous says:

    hey, now is a good time to watch the divingbell and the butterfly. the parallels are uncanny except he edits a fashion mag.

    noel.

  5. bikesgonewild says:

    …neil…hell, mate, wanna see ya up & putting some quality miles under those wheels…

    …& noel…did you notice the crafty discretion i displayed by not being the next poster up there ???…

    …i thought, “if neil’s off l’etaping & hardly blogging anyway, & if noel commits seppuku, i’m gonna be the only one still here…i’ll have to call neil’s dad & drink beer on-line w/ him & how exciting is that gonna be for the occasional reader ???

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