Rearrangements

It's amazing how much one can get done while under the influence of drugs. I slept surprisingly well last night and was up bright and early making one-handed coffee and leaving messages at the Sports Medicine Institute so I could get in to see the orthopedist. It's still kind of difficult to get in to see a doctor around here, so I was really happy when they were able to slot me in at 1:30 today. First, though, I had to get a ride downtown to pick up the CD containing my x-rays from the radiology lab at the hospital. That went smoothly, though, leaving me time back at home to get some work done. Of course I've had to rearrange some things even to be able to do that.

The visit to the orthopedist went fairly well, I think. He got me strapped into this two-part brace and took a few x-rays. It looks like the brace is able to rearrange the broken collarbone so it's in pretty good alignment, so we're going to go that route for a week and then take some more x-rays to see if it's working. It would be nice to avoid surgery. If it looks good, then it'll probably be three weeks wearing this contraption and then another couple of weeks in a more traditional x-brace.

The downside is that, at least for now, it hurts a bit more and the Velcro around my ribcage pretty much rules out any possibility of heavy breathing. I've got a whole different apparatus to use when I sleep, so we'll see how that goes tonight. At any rate, I'll be staying home again tomorrow for sure since driving or riding with one had while under the influence of painkillers is probably not such a swell idea.

I spoke with my friend Gina in Atlanta this evening and we commiserated about our injuries. Last weekend she locked handlebars with another rider in a crit and went down pretty hard, breaking both blades off of her fork, fracturing her handlebars, and generally getting pretty banged up. There's been way too much crashing going on lately!