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Sunday 4 February 2007

My helmet saved my life

Well, what a day yesterday, Saturday 3rdFeb. Beautiful sunshine and the ideal day for a bike ride. And yet after 1 hour of riding I found myself lying on a road with people around me and an ambulance on it's way.
I spent yesterday in Poole hospital from 10am to 7pm. I have shattered my cheekbone and I have to go back on Tuesday for surgery to push my top teeth on right hand side back in place.
The impact of the crash forced my upper jaw right side into my face. I am not a pretty sight.
I was coming down Kingston from Langton Matravers into Corfe. At the Scot Arms pub, I lost my back wheel on a bend, hit some grease on the road, and fell onto my right side. Thank god I was wearing a helmet, otherwise I might not be here today, and that's no exaggeration.
Some people came to help. I lay still in the road for 30 minutes before the ambulance came, took me to Poole. Cold, agony, shaken, and concerned, as I could feel my whole right side of my face has moved. Nice load of road rash on my face!!
So after lots of x-rays and finally getting cleaned up and spending 5 hours of my time in a full on head brace, they gave me the news. I got to have surgery on Tuesday, and they will put a plate in my jaw. Bit worried, 1 in 9 end up with an infection, which means they will take it out. But it will be there for all time if all ok. There is a very minor risk of blindness in my right eye, but it's 1 in every 10,000. So that's it, very sore, hard to sleep sitting up, was full of morphine yesterday, now worn off.
No cycling for 4-6 weeks but I can train on my indoor trainer. Very lightly. Swimming is fine after 2 weeks and so is running. So not all bad. But it will set me back a long way in my training.
I am determined to get back on my bike as I can't let this dent my confidence in riding. I want to say a big thank you to the cyclist who helped me and the Scot Arms in Kingston kindly looked after my bike which will be picked up today. The ambulance crew were terrific and the doctors were great.

So there we are, my weekend ruined, but at least I'm still here to tell the tale, and will have some serious scars to make me look all manly!!

Note to self: take your time, be positive and come back stronger after the rest.

2 comments:

tracey said...

Well if Richard Hammond is the Hamster, then you must be the Chipmunk!!

Sorry only joking!!

Keep strong and you'll be better before you know it.

Lots of love xxx

Anonymous said...

Shocking to read your blog today - I hope that you are going to make a full recovery - you sound very positive- but your blog has always given that impression.
I'm sure you will listen to all the advice the specialists and doctors give you and will in due course return stronger and wiser - good luck for all the treatment - will watch your progress with great interest.

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