Another anniversery of sorts

2 years ago was the day that change my anatomy forever. oh well shit happens.

On to bigger things. Didn't ride into work this AM. It didn't take much to change my mind but the 40 mph winds & following deluge were enough incentive to go back to bed for an hour. Last night the winds were 30-40 mph sustained. Totally wrecked me. The last 8k of my commute went straight into the wind. I was pedaling my ass off & only going 14kph. Crazy! I did have a cross to tail wind @ one point for quite awhile. I thought I had set a 5min PR but just fell short. I'm discovering that two a days messes with your Perceived Exertion. I think I'm nailing it & really I'm just futzing along. The tiredness in the legs sneaks up & fools you. My commute in the other morning I thought I had put in a pretty good effort only to discover my average heart rate was 116. I'll write that one off as a recovery ride. All things considered I'm starting to like getting my training in by commuting. You rack up the kilometers & if your careful you can get the intensity in too. Now I just have to commute in on the internet junk a few times before I have to race it. The hills by Fantastic Caverns will be a ball on that over geared lead weight.

Rolling right along

I can't believe how good my shoulder is feeling. My range of motion is almost back to what is was before this surgery. I took the sling off for awhile yesterday. Today I've taken the bandage off & going without the sling again. I've not been taking the pain pills. Not because I'm a bad ass, because it doesn't hurt. The swelling is almost gone. Hopefully on the 20th when I go to get my staples out the Doc will put me in physical therapy & we can really speed up my recovery. At the rate I'm going I'll be back on the bike training for CX season in no time.

All's well

Everything went great & I'm on the mend.

This was my ride for the day.

I'm laying there before the surgery contemplating the 2nd surgery the Doc just told me I might have to have. If the bone was unstable he was going to go back in a couple of weeks. Drill some holes in my collar bone & thread some ligaments through it which he would harvest from my leg. That would have involved several days in the hospital. Luckily that crap didn't have to happen. I won't quote my exact words but they were pretty graphic.

Right after surgery showing off my hardware. I felt about a million times better after this surgery than the last one. Probably the anti nausea patch they gave me. My throat is about a 10 on the soreness scale though. I got the whole knock out process which included a tube down my throat.
I was surprised how heavy this little booger was. It was pretty roughed up, like they had trouble getting it out.

17 weeks till cross nationals!!

E Day

Here in a few hours I'm getting my little buddy removed. Sometime around 1pm if all goes well I'll be on my way back to "normal". For me that is a quotation remark since I've never really been considered normal by anyone's standards. Anyway of the the Hospital; Cox this time, figured I'd spread my business around. Amber will probably guest blog for me tomorrow to let everyone know how I'm doing.

Wish me luck.

Extraction..... Finally!!!

August 9th @ 3pm my little Alien buddy gets removed from my shoulder. If all goes well I might be recovered in time for cyclocross season. Lets keep our toes crossed. If all goes bad the Doc will have to put the hardware back in. But only if the bone is completely not connected & floating around. I don't think we'll have to worry about that.

132 Hours Post Op

Yesterday was a big day in my recovery. Twenty four hours without pain medication! I got a shirt on. I went outside for a walk. That's 3 pretty big steps. I did take a steady stream of I Be Brokens, but who doesn't? I didn't sleep the greatest last night but was better than I thought it might be. Yesterday the weather was just to insane not to get outside. Really windy but who's going to complain when it's 67 degrees? I walked for about 40 minutes, baby steps.

That's a shirt on. Granted you could get 2 people in that shirt but I had to start somewhere.

Starting to look better.

This pic is for Skip. I know how he likes to see me shirtless. Perv. The swelling makes it look like I have a man boob.

108 hours post op

Made it through yesterday only taking I Be Brokens for pain. Stayed out of the sling most of the day as well. Went out side & walked to the end of the driveway & back for my workout (baby steps). Did take the pain meds before going to sleep for the night. Figured better safe than sorry. Today with the high supposed to be 56 I'm going to try & go for a long walk to stretch the legs.

Mia now can climb like her parents. Guess I'll have to start looking for a harness.

Lacy has been on full mother alert being concerned for me & watching out for her "puppy" Mia.

Now if Mia could figure out how to continue her forward motion.

Lacy watching out for her "puppy" Mia.

I figured everyone needed a change of pace from my bitching about pain. A very happy baby.

84 hours post op

Last night took a step back in the recovery. Pain spiked & had to go back to whole dosage of meds instead of half dose like I had tapered too. Did manage to sleep through most of the Snooze Bowl. Woke up around 1am suffering from an overwhelming sense of claustrophobia. Had to bail out of the sling. This sling has a strap around it to keep my arm close to my body. Just got to be too much. Took it off & slept fine after. Been icing my shoulder like a mad man. Seems to help. I'd say I managed to over do it yesterday thus the increase in pain. I started walking the stairs to fight the boredom. 10 sets of 13 stairs. Hopefully by the end of the week I'll be able to get a short session in on the wind trainer. I hope. Crazy when you want to get on the wind trainer.

48 Hours Post OP

After 48 hours of hell I was able to get out of the sling long enough too remove the bandage & take a shower. The act of taking a shower totally exhausted me. Slept the rest of the afternoon & most of the night. Appetite is slowly coming back & I've started cutting back the pain meds. I've also added walking around a bit. Been packing my shoulder in ice which has been helping a ton with the pain & swelling.

Here's the hospital bandage job.

No bump!

Still looks pretty nasty. The black line is the sharpie mark they used for reference.

Doing just about anything wears me out for now. Probably do to the negative calorie diet I've been on.

Lots of pain redux

Why the redux? Because F'ing blogger dropped the first attempt. Try typing with one arm in a sling when your used to typing without looking at the keys. A real pain in the ass!

Here's the gist of things so far. It hurts a lot, enough that the Dr. is upping my pain medication. I'm normally not a pussy but this hurts way worse than when I broke it. I hardly medicated at all then. Amber is currently cruising seeded corners downtown looking for the appropriate doses.

I wouldn't recommend a nerve block. They shoot an electrical stimulation into your neck trying to figure out which nerve ending goes all the way down your arm. That gets to shoot straight through my new plate. Guess what? That hurt like a mother F'er! If the nurse hadn't have given me a shot of morphine first I could only imagine how great it would have felt.

Sleeping in the recliner for now. If you ever think your going to break your collarbone get a comfortable recliner.

Shane spell this A_ _ _ _ _ E. Hogan glad to see Karma nipped you in the bud. Ha misery loves company.

Post unbeknownst to Scott

Since Scott is on heavy duty pain meds, his mom and I have decided to share some pics from the day. Enjoy.

Weighing in....






Looking spiffy from behind in that gown!!



















Please initial the area we're supposed to cut on!













Waiting and waiting.....
















The after :( :( :(

Pre Op Post

At the time most of you will be reading this I'll be under the knife. Hopefully then on my way to a full recovery. Finding out I was going to have to have surgery was a real motivation killer for training. So instead of logging kilometers I've been reading others on their blogs racking up the kilometers. I feel a new wave of motivation brewing though. Hopefully Dr. Crites will be able to unleash it with his shiny scalpel (that's for Amber, its from a Scrubs episode we're watching). Just wait though new plan in the works.

Took the night off from work since I can't eat or drink after midnight. I figured work would be a pain in the butt without being able to drink coffee all night. So now I get to screw up my internal clock even more. Oh the joys of nights.

Looks like we'll have a descent snow fall tonight. Already about 1.5-2" already. That should keep most of you indoors riding. Had an urgent call from Cale this afternoon trying to track down a mag trainer since he blew his up. Something about a a 5 min effort causing sparks & shooting fluid out the mag. Too much power in Cale's legs or faulty engineering?


If I'm not too looped I'll post a post op post. (like that sentence grammar cops?)


Are any of my fellow bloggers having trouble uploading pics with the new Blogger? It usually kicks me back & tells me to log in with the new Blogger or kick me out an error? Anyone? Very frustrating. Have to restart my computer to get it to work.

Cuts like a knife

Yesterday was my semi annual trip to the bone Doc. Guess what? Still looks like crap so now I get to go to a surgeon to be told what my surgical options are. Great! Should have had my collarbone operated on 6 months ago. Hind sight. The part that I don't like was there was mention of cutting the broken section of bone out. I bet that will feel wonderful. All in all yesterday was a pretty crappy day. Maybe I'll luck out & surgery won't be necessary. I get to stew over it till the 24Th which makes my motivation to ride plentiful(read very sarcastically). I mean what the hell is the point if I'm going to loose another 2 months to freaking rehab. I guess the one upside is its winter so the trainer won't be too bad.