This Is "The" Bike. After the accident.
Oh wow, lots of riding in the back seat with this surgery.
Taking a break from that itchy brace. It's pretty much 24 hours and 7 days a week.
In June of '08, I was involved in a motorcycle accident. Broke right femur (in 2 places), right ulna, right elbow, dislocated the metacarpals in left hand, broke left ankle and last but not least, tore PCL, ACL and LCL in the left knee. After a 13 hour surgery to fix all my broken bones, two weeks in the hospital and almost two months resident in a rehab center I was able to walk again.. as long as I had a brace on left leg to keep the knee somewhat stable. The doctors did not repair the ligaments during the first surgery because of too much swelling and they wanted to wait till the right leg was healed/strong enough to handle "full weightbearing". Needed a good leg to stand on, right??
Originally scheduled for Oct, then mid November, the triple ligament reconstruction surgery was in Dec '08. To use the words from Molly's story, it is now a "nice tight knee". So far so good, it's still pretty "tight". Lost some ROM (can't touch heel to butt anymore), but it's all good. I've been hitting the gym hard to get back in shape. Also been riding the bicycle, started doing short runs and scuba diving. Two weeks ago I did a 12 mile hike in the mountains. The knee felt sore after that! Then last week we just did a 5 mile hike. No more motorcycles....at least for now..
Had awesome doctors who literally put me back together and the PT crew who helped me get moving again. Can't thank them enough. Oh, lets not forget the nurses who made sure I was comfortable and of course the donor
- Peace.
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4 comments:
Chris! You are a hunk! Look at how handsome you are. I'm glad you are recovering - your injury was horrible. It's amazing how much a body can stand, isn't it? I think it must be worse on the left leg, too - getting in and out of the driver's seat with a delicate left leg would be tough.
P.S. Where are the handlebars?
Yes, this was some accident. I consider myself very lucky, as it could have been much worse. (broken neck / back...)
This June will be two years since it happened, recovery has progressed real well.
People say they can't tell anything happened. And yes it is amazing how resilient the body is.
On these types of bikes, there really aren’t handlebars, let’s say, like on a Harley. Technically they are called “clip-ons’. They’re still on the bike. If you click the picture to enlarge it a bit and you can see the right one (viewed if you were sitting on the bike) doesn’t have the rubber grip, it’s just a bare metal bar. The left one still has the rubber grip on it and half a clutch lever.
BTW, thank you for the compliments.
Molly, do you plan on going thru this again to fix your PCL? How / why is it disintegrating?
My immune system is so quick to respond to anything now, starting with the arthrofibrosis I developed 5 months post-reconstruction. I scar badly now (from anything - even blemishes and cuts), my seasonal allergies are much worse than normal, I react to metal, I've developed osteoarthritis, etc. Yikes - I sound pathetic, but it's really not all that bad and it certainly wasn't for lack of effort. It's more disappointing than anything. I'm not a good candidate for a revision or knee replacement at this time. I might look into it again in a few years.
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