Bills and Bills

Simple, right?

Congress passed, and the President signed, the CARES Act just before the weekend, so I've spent some time looking through not only the complete text of the bill, but also various summaries of key provisions in order to write up some summaries and things that we will need to communicate what is relevant to the university and medical center. The bill itself is 335 pages long, so it's been difficult to decide exactly what to include for one audience or the other.

A little while ago we heard a huge crash outside on South Claiborne Avenue and everyone ran out to see what had happened. Apparently someone was driving toward town in the right lane while texting and suddenly realized he was about to hit a parked car in the curve near Lowerline. He over-reacted, went across three lanes, across the neutral ground, through a concrete light post, across the three oncoming lanes, and hit the house on the corner of Pine and S. Claiborne. Apparently he was OK. The car, not so much. Anyway, that was our excitement for the morning.

Just making stuff up out of thin air

Meanwhile, I've been dealing with the other kind of bills, namely medical ones. I've already spent quite a bit of time confirming to numerous entities that the accident did not involve a car or anyone else they can get money out of in order to avoid covering the costs for my medical care, which I suppose will probably come in at around $30k. The disturbing thing is that some, such as University Medical Center, are making up stuff and incorrectly checking off boxes on claim forms. At no time did I tell anyone that any automobile was involved in the accident, yet I received a form in the mail yesterday on which they had checked "Yes" for "Auto Accident?" and put in "Auto Insurance" for "Insurance Plan Name." I don't know what to call that except attempted insurance fraud. Hopefully I got it all straightened out over the phone, but I'll bet I will be dealing with the same thing for months. I had already had to submit a report over the phone for BlueCross/BlueShield because they denied the insurance claim on the assumption that it might be an auto accident. My medical record from both hospitals clearly explains what happened and does not mention a car.

On the recovery front, I can walk unaided right now, but it is not without some pelvic pain, so I will be continuing to minimize my left leg load-bearing. All I can do right now is to use pain as my guide especially since no Physical Therapy was prescribed and no follow-up x-rays or CT scans were done. The broken ribs are coming along slowly. It still hurts a bit to take deep breaths, both on the left side where there are the confirmed broken ribs, and up high near my sternum on the right where they never noticed anything but where I assume there was also some kind of fracture or separation since it still hurts over three weeks out. On the plus side, I can no longer feel the broken pieces moving when I take deep breaths. Right now I keep going back and forth about trying to put the bike on the trainer to see if I can tolerate that. I'm pretty sure the pelvic fracture, which is near the root of the inferior pelvic ramus, is probably what I sit on when I'm on the bike. Changing my position radically so that I'm sitting much more upright and therefore more on the back part of the pelvis may have to be the solution, but I think I'll give it a few more days.

TMC Team for Roche Testing

Here in New Orleans there are starting to be some hints that the Social Distancing efforts may be having some effect in "flattening the curve." It really remains to be seen if it's real or just a function of reporting issues, though. We can hope, anyway. Meanwhile, Tulane and LSUHSC cooperated to set up the Roche rapid testing which is up and running as of today at Tulane Medical School. Results in about four hours, so much better than sending samples off to Baton Rouge and waiting days for the results.

Three Weeks

No caption needed

Well, it's been three weeks today since the crash and I guess the recovery is going as expected. It's been a little easier to sleep and I feel like I could walk unaided if necessary, although it will still be a while before I'd advise that. In the meantime, it's been pretty much a routine of taking pills and trying not to eat too much out of boredom. Despite my best efforts, I'm sure it will be a long climb out of the fitness hole I'm in. My own recovery has definitely taken a back seat to the COVID-19 pandemic, however. New Orleans is definitely one of the nation's hot spots with the highest per-capita number of cases. I got out of the hospital on March 10, which was the day after the first presumptive COVID-19 case showed up in Louisiana, actually I think in New Orleans although the individual was a resident of Jefferson Parish. That was quickly followed by more and more and more, increasing exponentially. People are scared, doctors are scared, nurses are scared. Supplies continue to be in short supply.

We've both been working from home all week, juggling Zoom meetings and conference calls and email, and trying not to trip over the dog who insists on sleeping in the same room we're in, usually right up against one of the chairs. This looks like it will be the new normal for a while for many of us, and we're the lucky ones. My sister Ginger is out of work. USA Cycling just laid off or furloughed 40% of their staff including some of the people I've known and worked with for years like Stephanie Sexton, Randy Shaefer, and Don Losole. A lot of races scheduled for late May and June are kind of hanging by a thread right now. I emailed Covington to see what dates we might be able to use in the August - October timeframe but, not too surprisingly, have not received a response.

The Medical School has been extremely busy. Aside from dealing with the rapidly escalating and already critical situation at local hospitals, conducting research, setting up a testing facility, etc., they have also been doing public Town Hall Zoom/Facebook sessions, responding to interview requests from various entities, etc. We have been tracking the quickly evolving federal funding landscape, state legislation, city activities and responses to the COVID-19 pandemic, etc. They city is setting up a large surge facility in the Convention Center on the expectation that some of the downtown hospitals will soon become basically COVID-19 hospitals.

I keep hoping to see some sign that the trend is beginning to slack off, but I know better. With an incubation period of anywhere from 5-14 days, it is too soon to expect to see much impact from the "shelter in place" order. Of course there are still lots and lots of people out there doing essential work, and probably a fair number doing non-essential work, but I think the message about social distancing may be finally soaking into some of the most dumb.

Followup

The mask is to protect the doctor, not me.

I was a little bit worried about going in for the followup appointment at the trauma surgery ambulatory (I use the term loosely here) clinic this morning. I'd called the day before, gotten a voicemail instructing me to leave a message and a call-back number, which I did, in order to ask if they were still seeing patients at the clinic. Since the entire State of Louisiana is under a "stay home" order starting tonight, and University Medical Center is handling multiple COVID-19 patients, it seemed possible that they might decide to limit non-essential clinic visits. I never got a return call. So Candy dropped me off around 7:45 for my 8:30 am appointment. They wouldn't let her come with me, and before I could go in I got a quick screening and a surgical mask. I hobbled over to the elevator, checked in, and was promptly brought to an exam room where I sat, rather uncomfortably, for about an hour. My doctor finally arrived, we had a brief conversation where I asked him a couple of questions, complained about how much my back was still hurting (that's where most of the fractures are), and verified that nothing else was going on. I left about five minutes later wondering why we didn't just do that by telephone to avoid the potential exposure to SARS-CoV-2.

Desolate French Quarter

I was back at the home office for the rest of the day, where I set up a COVID-19 alert and page on our office web page . It's mostly just so I can keep track of things, but will hopefully be helpful for some other people as well. Danielle texted me this evening to say that she had finally gotten the official "stay at home" order up in Washington. She's a little worried about having to order her medications online since she can't really afford to have a gap. Hopefully it will all work out fine.

6 pm, sitting on the front porch covered in oak pollen

The weather here continues to be great for riding. At least that's how it looks out the window. I did manage to find a mint condition Campi Super Record rear derailleur on eBay, so at least the bike will be back in shape before I. Local riders are riding alone, or with just one or two friends, or staying inside and riding various Zwift rides and races. On the one hand, I'm kind of glad I'm injured because otherwise I might feel the need to go out and buy a power meter just so I can ride a bike without going anywhere while pretending I'm going somewhere. I have really mixed feelings about Zwift. On the one hand, I absolutely hate riding inside on a trainer. On the other hand, I like the technology side of it all. Meanwhile, the city is practically shut down now. The French Quarter and tourism industry is at a standstill. Hotels are empty, streets are empty, shops are empty.

Edith and Buddy Gulotta

The other day Glenn Gulotta let a few of us know that his father, "Buddy" had passed away last Saturday. Glenn's parents owned Gus Betat & Son, where the New Orleans Bicycle Club was born. For years they were the sole sponsor of the club, annually donating the merchandise prizes for the Tour de Louisiane. More than that, though, they would actually come out to the races to watch, so we all got to know them pretty well. Back in the 70s I used to spend a lot of time just hanging around the bike shop, sometimes even helping customers find the right bike, but mostly just drooling over the racing bikes and parts. At the time they sold a lot of the high-end Raleigh Professional and International bikes, Atala road bikes, and custom-order Bob Jackson and Pennine frames. I ordered my Pennine in 1972, I think, and still ride it. I brought color samples in to the shop so they could send them to England to match. When ordering the frame I picked out which lugs I wanted, where I wanted the braze-ons, which dropouts I wanted, what fork crown I wanted, where I wanted chrome, etc. A few months later it arrived, complete with a headset. I think the total price was around $120, which was a lot at the time. Anyway, I have some very fond memories of Betat's, Buddy, Greg, Glenn, Grant, and the other people who worked there. It's kind of sad that it's all gone now.

Two Weeks Inside

Getting kind of long.

It's hard to believe it's been two full weeks since "the crash" and at something around eleven days since I've been out of the house. Before the Red Bluff Gran Fondo I was already badly in need of a haircut. I hate getting haircuts, but I was planning on getting one the next day. Well, obviously that didn't happen since I spent that day in the hospital with a plastic tube sticking out of my chest. So now my hair has gotten pretty long. I mean, like 1970s long. All I need is a pair of hip-hugger bell-bottoms and peace symbol neck medallion. This morning everything seems particularly achy. Maybe it's the slight change in the weather? For the record, my main complaints, in order of severity, are (1) the still significant pain in the back of my ribcage near the spine on the left, (2) something near my sternum on the right around ribs 2 or 3 where it was swollen for over a week, and of course (3) the pelvis. Surprisingly, the pelvis is causing me the least trouble, although I am by no means ready to be walking around without crutches.

That printer! Why?

It was fortunate that I already had a pretty complete home office in place, thanks mainly to the years of cycling-related work I've always done at home. All I needed was my backup external drive from work, and the VPN client so I could get to the financial data, and I was pretty much fully functional for Tulane work. Candy, however, was a different story altogether. She was full-time at her office at the Tidewater Building all week, which I guess spared me from hearing her complain about how nothing was working right on her little laptop at home. She was always using her laptop via a remote desktop setup which was just a constant problem, especially since it was all running through our low-cost home wireless setup.

A "mandate"

On Friday afternoon the mayor held this big press conference where she offered "further guidance" related to the "proclamation" from a few days ago, adding a "mandate" that residents stay home except for essential needs. It's pretty unclear if that constitutes an enforceable law or not, although I wholeheartedly agree that the city should be doing everything possible right now to slow the spread of the virus so that we don't overwhelm our healthcare capacity. No doubt we will be seeing a huge increase in "confirmed cases" over the next few days as all of the new testing starts to yield results. It will look alarming, but of course that will just be because we had such a bad count of cases before testing was widely available. The city has a few drive-through testing sites set up thanks to the CDC, test kits are becoming more available, and Tulane is setting up to run an initial 5,000 PCR tests at the Medical School building.

Louisiana confirmed cases and deaths as of yesterday

Anyway, the Mayor's "mandate" finally convinced Candy that she would actually have to work from home. On Friday she decided to bring her entire desktop computer, and an enormous printer, to the house. Everything is kind of packed into the "back room" office putting more strain on both my borderline OCDness and the hundred year old wiring running through the walls.

The update from Tulane's morning conference call reported:

• Tulane Hospital, 24 positives, 58 PUI (people under investigation)
• UMC, 29 positive, 9 ICU, 65 PUI
• VA, 11 positive, 15 PUI

That doesn't include other large hospitals like Ochsner, East Jeff, etc., etc., just the ones in the downtown medical district. They are starting to see some supply chain problems for personal protective stuff, as expected. As a whole, the country is still on a trajectory that looks a lot like Italy, which is not a good thing. I am already beginning to seriously doubt that Collegiate Road Nationals and the Tour de La will happen. I'm thinking it may be September before things settle down enough. It's entirely possible it will be longer. The only people who are immune are the people who have been infected, and survived, so either those numbers will have to get very high, or we will need to have a safe vaccine ready for deployment.

The dog and I have been spending a lot of time on the front porch lately.

Meanwhile, I've been spending a lot of time looking out the window at the nice riding weather, wondering how my bike, which I haven't seen since the crash, is doing all alone at TUCA headquarters, and occasionally hobbling out to the front porch which is covered in Oak pollen. The past week, and likely the next three or four, has provided probably the best opportunities for training I've had since college, so it's particularly frustrating to be stuck in the house right now. All of the local group rides have been basically suspended for the duration. It looks like there was a handful of riders who did the Giro Ride this morning. I have mixed feelings about that. My gut feeling is that the risk of contagion is pretty low among a small group of five or six moving through the air at 20-28 mph, but on the other hand, it's probably not zero. My main risk is that Candy will bring the virus back from the grocery store.

Missing the Bike

Chainring??

It's just a couple of days short of two weeks since my unfortunate tumble and I'm really starting to miss the bike. For that matter, I'm also missing going outside as well. I've been locked up in the house since I escaped from UMC. On the plus side, there is at least a faint perception that what's broken is beginning to heal a bit. Over the past few days I've discovered a few other remnants of the crash that I really hadn't noticed before. One of the ribs or costals on my right side where #3 meets the sternum has been painful and swollen since day 1. That feels a bit better today. Yesterday, when taking a shower (a rather difficult ordeal all in itself) I noticed the scrape marks on my left ribcage that look suspiciously like they came chainring teeth, which would suggest an explanation for the broken ribs underneath. The bottom inside of the right ankle, while not painful, has been black and blue, so I guess I did something around there that caused some bleeding. Likewise, there's been a swollen area just below the inside of my right knee. Overall, though, I'll give myself a slight upgrade over how I felt a few days ago. I have been able to get around OK with the crutches. Surprisingly, there is no pain at all in my pelvis when I am standing up straight, even if, and perhaps especially when, I put some weight on that left leg. What hurts, however, is when I completely un-weight that leg or twist while it has any weight on it. Fortunately, it doesn't hurt (much) when I'm sitting. Most of the pain seems to be coming from my back, where the ribs meet the spine. Whatever, it is all progressing, albeit at a far slower rate than I'd like.

Bizarre daytime scene in an empty French Quarter

So in the midst of the CoVID-19 situation I've been rather involuntarily quarantined the whole time, looking out the window at what appears to be perfectly normal traffic volume out on South Claiborne Avenue. But of course it's not normal. Nothing is normal right now. Restaurants and bars are basically closed, some offering take-out only, others just shuttered with employees laid off. Schools are closed, Tulane students are mostly gone, lots and lost of people are working from home. On the plus side, we're seeing lots of families walking and riding bikes in the evenings. As I'm writing this, I learned that Dr. Reynolds, a family friend, passed away yesterday afternoon. He was living at Lambeth House which is where the main cluster of COVID-19 deaths have been, although I don't know if they had yet gotten confirmation that is was indeed COVID-19. There's an article in nola.com about him. My sister has been a good friend of his daughter, Mary, since childhood.

Yesterday morning I contacted Stuart at USAC to see what they were thinking about possibly extending the event cancellation window. He told me confidentially that it was going to be pushed out to May 3, which was the date of our Time Trial and a week after our Westbank Speed Fest date. So I spent a fair amount of time yesterday morning dismantling those two events, cancelling the Westbank race entirely since that was the only date we could ever get the track, and officially postponing the Time Trial to a yet to be determined date. The Tour de La is still on the calendar for June, so I'm holding out some hope there. Yesterday evening USAC made the announcement. Of course there will be some event promoters who will be really pissed off about this action, and it will cost USAC a lot, but at the moment it seems the right thing to do. Had we run our two events I have no idea if they would have been well-attended by riders hungry for some competition, or sparsely attended for obvious reasons. There's really no way to tell where we will be a month from now.

This morning I'll pull together some lobbying expense numbers for Tulane's 1099 filing. Rather un-exciting stuff. Candy is again at her office where I can only hope she's limiting contact with other people and using lots of hand sanitizer.

New TeleWork Week

Monday afternoon.  Yellow are cases outside of China

Things have changed pretty dramatically over the past few days, and we're heading for a pretty tight lockdown around here, and elsewhere. It's getting a little hard to keep track of. In the meantime, even the little 6 am group ride has been discussing whether they should keep meeting. Given that it's a small group, usually five or six but sometimes as many as 10 or 12, and most are healthy, it may be worth the risk to keep riding, assuming anyone who shows up with a runny nose is immediately sent home. Within the past day Tulane has instituted more stringent social distancing guidelines, wisely threatening students putting on house parties with suspension. Yesterday, Broadway Street looked like party central down around campus. The city has imposed some pretty severe restrictions today.

• Bars, nightclubs & casinos closed
• Malls closed
• Entertainment venues closed
• Gyms & fitness centers closed
• Restaurants take-out/delivery only
• Public & private gatherings banned

Tulane hospital has set up an entire floor for COVID patients and has at least 4 positives there already. Similar preparations are being made at other area hospitals.

Guess I picked a bad time to puncture a lung.....

Quarantine

How coincidental is it that I am stuck in the house at just the time that many people are being self-quarantined and others are practicing "social distancing," a term I'd never heard until yesterday. Sitting here at my home office, feeling very socially distanced, looking out the window at a beautiful warm spring day, and all I can think about is how nice it would be to be out there on the bike. Meanwhile, practically every other email I've been getting has be a notification that something else has been cancelled or closed to the public or otherwise taken offline. This is going to have such a terrible impact on people who work at restaurants, hotels, conferences, etc. Practically every bike race I know of for the next few weeks has been cancelled already.

Tulane's campus will be pretty quiet within a week as the residence halls close down and most students head home to continue their studies online. Quite a few of our Tulane cycling team members, however, will be staying in town since they have been living off-campus anyway. Tulane staff are still reporting to work as usual, but there are still preparations being made in case they are directed to start working from home. Since I am already basically working at home as best as I can under the circumstances, I had Candy go by my office today and grab my external backup hard drive. That gives me access to everything that was on my office computer since the end of last week, which was also the last day I was in the office. Today, in order to be able to access our financial reporting software, I installed a VPN on my laptop. Most of the other systems I use are 3rd party systems, so they are still accessible as usual from home.

Danielle, who has a vast amount of experience getting around, or not getting around, on crutches send me a cup holder that attaches to one of the crutches (yes, I had already been thinking about clamping a carbon water bottle cage there) and a Kasa smart switch. I moved the little Echo Dot we had in the living room that we hardly ever used for anything into the bedroom and added the Kasa device, so now I can turn the bedside light on and off via Alexa. That actually helps a lot because in my current situation it's really hard, if not impossible, to roll over and reach out to turn the light on or off. Since I have a few medications that I need to take at various times during the night, that will make it a lot easier. One really shouldn't be employing guesswork when deciding which pills are in which bottle! It's about time to ease off the narcotic and switch to just Tylenol, so I'll see if that's feasible tomorrow.

This morning the nursing home where my father lives sent out a robocall saying that the home would be closed to visitors, including family. As we know, COVID-19 has been particularly dangerous to older people, and whether most of us realize it or not, much of the response to the pandemic is, in effect, an effort to save our older family members. I'm a little worried about this, of course.

So the situation update right now is that I am having slightly less trouble getting around on the crutches. The pelvis seems to hurt mainly when my left leg is suspended, so when that foot is on the floor just enough to support the leg's weight, it doesn't hurt much at all. When I lift it to move on the crutches it hurts a bit more, but really most of the pain in that situation is coming from my lower abdominals that I obviously strained the day in the hospital when they were showing me how to use the crutches and I was going up and down the stairs with relative ease while unknowingly tearing the the hell out of those undeveloped muscles. Above the waist, most of the pain actually feels like it comes from my left back, even though the fractures are, as far as I know, on the front. I really wish I could see one of the x-rays. Anyway, I guess things are progressing as one might expect, which is slowly. I'm starting to think about trying to get someone to retrieve my bike from the Tulane Cycling facility so I can at least assess the damage. If all I need is a new derailleur and a straightened hanger, I'll be pretty happy.

Crutches and Cancellations

This is around where the crash happened. That ditch on the left was deeper than it looks in the image!

I was wheeled out of the hospital Tuesday afternoon after the final x-ray showed no evidence of pneumothorax, or I guess anything else that would call for more time there. I have a couple of crutches that got me up the stairs and into the house, although even by then I could tell that my abs and various other long-neglected core muscles were going to be sore as hell even from the minimal use of the crutches I'd already attempted. Keeping the leg with the pelvic fracture off the ground by using the already stressed muscles on the same side with the broken ribs is pretty difficult. I came home with three or four prescriptions, including Hydrocodone, and the timing of those was complicated enough that I set them all up on Medisafe app I'd already been using for the statin I started taking some time ago.

Good to go

Consistent with all of my prior experiences, the broken bones are taking a long time to stop hurting, which is to say they hurt just about as much as ever. Getting in and out of bed is a challenge. Hell, anything aside from sitting in a chair is a challenge right now. It will come as no surprise that this is no fun, but it's made even worse by looking out the window at the spectacular riding weather out there. Anyway, I am pretty much immobile right now and will probably remain that way for a couple more days until, hopefully, things start to show tangible signs of healing. Sigh...

Yesterday, due to the COVID-19 situation, Tulane made the call and is ending all classes on Friday. There will be no classes next week when on-campus students will have to leave. The rest of the semester will be done entirely online. All events with participation over 50 have been cancelled. Of course, we had our Green Wave Classic race scheduled for the weekend of the 21st and 22nd. We had a few pre-registrations, but zero collegiate registrations outside of Tulane, and with the current panic over corona virus and the fact that every event I can think of has already cancelled, we had to make the decision to cancel the race. So I spent much of the morning un-doing what had been done, starting with an email to USAC to cancel the event, then cancelling it on BikeReg, issuing as many refunds as possible, which wasn't all of them. BikeReg had already made one disbursement to the NOBC account, so Mignon will need to make those refunds separately from the club bank account. I also had to remove the event and/or links from the Tulane Cycling website, LAMBRA calendar, and NOBC calendar page. Hopefully I did all of that right. I was under the influence of hydrocodone throughout. Meanwhile at work plans are being made in case the university decides to have the staff start working from home. No decision on that yet, however. Meanwhile, bike races are getting cancelled left and right. The big race in Birmingham just got cancelled today, which is really a shame. That event was no doubt a very heavy lift and already had 450 riders registered. Such a shame.

Since I'm kind of stuck chained to my desk at home I thought I'd see if I could find the place where the crash on Saturday happened on Google maps. It wasn't too hard. Starting with Strava, I could pretty easily pinpoint where my ride ended. At the very end, the grade on the elevation chart went from -1.2% to something like -10.5%. Anyway, I then found the location on Google maps and could see the street view images. So there it is. I ended up at the bottom of the ditch on the left wondering what the hell just happened and why is there someone on top of me.

So hopefully things will get better bit by bit over the next few days. It would be a big step forward, pun intended, if I could get to where my abs and core could again handle my body weight so I could easily keep my left leg off the ground like I could back when I was in the hospital and practicing stairs with the occupational therapy folks. That little episode, however successful at convincing them I was safe to release into the world, resulted in some seriously painful and practically useless muscles the following day. If I can get to where I can move around on the crutches without pain, that would really help.

Ditched at Red Bluff

The start of the Gran Fondo

I'd been looking forward to the Red Bluff Gran Fondo for a while. Bo had made a number of improvements since the inaugural one last year. Friday evening Debbie Milne would be doing a nutrition seminar, and then both Phil Gaimon and Lauren Hall would be doing a kind of meet and greet. The only problem there would be getting up to Brookhaven by 5:00 p.m. on a Friday. As it turned out, one of the two Tulane vans made it in time. Mine wasn't one of them.

Cool support cars!

Getting out of New Orleans at 3:15 on a Friday is no simple matter, and we spent a good half hour stuck in slow-moving traffic before we got to Kenner, so I knew we wouldn't make any of Debbie's talk. Fortunately the earlier van did make it, however. On the plus side, we were able to pick up our packets and have a nice dinner before heading off to the "America's Best" motel, which was surprisingly nice this year, in a central Mississippi kind of way. When I went to get a Coke out of the vending machine it wouldn't take my dollar bill, so I went into the office to get quarters. The person there told me, "Yeah, we just got that vending machine and couldn't figure out how to program it."  I guess that also explained the pieces of paper taped to the buttons that said "Coke" and "Sprite."

Chest tubes hurt!

So Saturday morning Dustin and I left early in Dustin's car since the others were doing the metric century that started an hour after the full 103-mile century. We got a nice parking spot and went across the street to the Monticello courthouse where there is a spooky little restroom down in the basement. With that business taken care of, I had a few minutes to say hello to Bo before going back to the car to figure out what to wear. It wasn't a simple decision, since the temperature at the start would be in the low 40s, but by then end it would be closer to 70. I opted for just a short-sleeve base layer under my summer jersey, knickers, and arm-warmers. I knew I'd be chilly for a while, and probably hot by the end. Typical for a long ride this time of year.j

So after the national anthem and prayer and other formalities the group of 100+ riders rolled out right on time for a short neutral section before getting let loose. Maybe 5 miles into this course there is a kind of longish climb where the group split last year. That happened again this year. Of course I ended up in the second group that finally came together afterward, which was what I'd expected. This group was going at a reasonable speed considering what lay ahead, so that was good. I myself was feeling fine once I recovered from the effort on the climb. I'm never very good when there's an early attack like that, and this had been no exception.

Vaping, hospital style

Now we're riding along at a nice pace and I'm thinking this is a good group to be with. Branden and Steve are both there as well as "Little Joe,"and I'm just kind of chilling in the middle of the group. We're coming down a little downhill on a narrow road called Hammond Road and people are kind of spreading out across it. I'm behind and to the left of Randy T and I see him motioning and saying something to someone on his right, I think about an upcoming climb. As he slows down a bit I start to overlap his rear wheel and he starts drifting left. At first I'm not concerned. Surely it was just a temporary movement and he'll straighten out in a moment. But then he doesn't. He has no idea there's someone to his left, and before I know it He bumps me and I'm off the road and heading down into a big ditch and he and I are clearly doomed. Now I'm on my back in the ditch and most of Randy and his bike are on top of me. I hear him asking if I'm OK, and all I can say is, "get your leg off of me!" I was basically pinned down underneath him. He finally moves (he said he probably had a mild concussion at that point) and I just lay there for a moment to collect myself and do a systems check. I can feel a lot of pain in my chest and mid-back. Branden and Steve had stopped with me and Branden offers me his hand so I can pull myself up. When I finally get back on my feet, I feel the pain around my hip. Branden takes a look at the bike and says, " Well, you won't be finishing this ride. Your derailleur's broken." I look at the bike and see that the derailleur is basically shattered up around the pivot. The handlebar is twisted and both brake levers are turned inward, so I figure I must have gone straight over the bars. One of the fire department guys is already there with a trailer, so Branden puts the bike in the trailer and I climb painfully into the pickup for a ride back to the car. We had been only 13 miles into the ride. When I climb out of the truck I start thinking that something must be broken. I can already feel the crunching of some of the broken ribs (not my first time for that). More concerning, though, is the fact that I can barely put any weight on my left leg without serious pain. I know the hospital is just a couple of blocks down the road. I also know I can't walk there! So I hobble over to the finish line to find Bo Bourne who finds someone to drive me over to the little hospital.

Monticello Courthouse

This was a quiet country hospital in Monticello, Mississippi, so I wasn't expecting much more than some x-rays. I would be pleasantly surprised. Despite the 1970s vintage blue wall tile and everything, they wheel me into a small room with, surprise!, a CAT scanner. A few minutes later the ER doctor comes in to tell me I've got at least 4 broken ribs (1,2,3 and 6), a fracture in my pelvis (posterior pubic ramus), and a break in one of my vertebrae, fortunately just on of the transverse processes. We do a telemedicine consult with a trauma doctor up in Jackson who says I need to go to a trauma center. My nearest options are Jackson and New Orleans. Since Candy was, by then, only about half an hour away (I'd called her as soon as I got to the hospital) I figured we may as well go straight to UMC in New Orleans. Fortunately, the pelvic fracture was causing no pain at all unless I tried to stand, so the drive back was fine except for a rather painful pit stop at a Rest Area. At least I knew my kidneys were working OK.

Ready for discharge

Back at the hospital in New Orleans there were more x-rays and CAT scans (the Monticello hospital had given me a dvd with all of their imaging too) and after looking at the lung x-ray they decided I needed a chest tube to resolve the pneumothorax caused by one or more of the broken ribs. The pelvis was a nondisplaced fracture, so not the immediate concern. The chest tube was pretty painful and I spent the night basically trying not to move - at all. It basically felt like I had a knife in my side. We increased the pain killers Sunday morning, so that helped, and by Sunday night I was feeling a lot better. By the way, it's taking me forever to type this because there's an O2 sensor taped to my index finger!

Final view out the hospital window before leaving on Tuesday

Most of my interactions over the weekend were with Tulane and LSU residents. On Monday morning Dr. Marr and a few residents came in early in the morning. After another chest x-ray they turned off the vacuum on the chest tube. It looks like the plan now is to let the pelvis heal on its own, which is good. It will mean something like three months without weight on it, which is bad. The P/T people cane in this afternoon to see how I could handle the walker. I think we have both a walker and crutches at home from when Candy had her hip replacement.

At the start. Don Losole, Chris Brown, Branden Morvant, me, and Steve Johnston. Might be Butch Sims next to him.

Anyway, if things still look OK tomorrow, I could theoretically be out of here late tomorrow, but I'll believe that when I see it. Anyway, hopefully I will be able to do most of my work from home where I'm pretty well equipped for that, Then I'll have to rustle up some additional help for the four races we're putting on over the next couple of months because I will definitely not be able to haul equipment around or set up finish lines or anything for a while. Hopefully I'll be in better shape by the time we put on the Tour de La in early June, though. It should be an interesting few months ahead.

Just Wait

The Clydesdales stay at City Park for Mardi Gras and were getting ready to head back home on Wednesday.

As they always say around here, "If you don't like the weather, just wait, it'll change." That pretty much sums up things over the past few days. When I went out to ride on Thursday morning the temperature was somewhere around 39°F and it was still plenty windy. Charles was the only other rider to show up, and so of course we did a shortened ride out to the "little dip" and back. It seemed quite enough. Then on Friday I rode over to campus to see if anyone would show up for the Tulane Friday coffee ride. It was cold and windy again. I was a little surprised to find Gavin heading my way just as I was coming to the realization that I'd be riding alone. So we went ahead, just the two of us, and did the regular coffee ride route. At least the sun came out and warmed thing up a bit.

Up in Tangipahoa Parish on Saturday

Saturday was a planned 70+ mile Tulane Cycling ride from Independence. I figured I should take advantage of that since I'm registered for next weekend's Red Bluff Gran Fondo, especially since it felt like I'd taken a couple of steps backwards, fitness-wise, over the prior week between Mardi Gras and all of those shortened rides. Gavin offered to give me a ride, which was great since the wife wanted to take the car to the grocery store Saturday morning. When he arrived he said, "We have a problem." He had put one of those strap-on bike racks on his car and there wasn't enough clearance for the clips that basically hold the whole thing on at the top of the hatchback. A little field modification involving vice-grips and pliers solved that, and we were on the road pretty quickly. Fortunately I had not looked back at the bikes while we were on the interstate. More about that later.

Store Stop on Saturday

We started with a good group of nine, which ended up as eight. It was mostly the usual route to the north of Independence, with some additional miles thrown in at the top. The roads around there are pretty much like those on the northshore - low rolling hills, very light traffic, nice scenery. The ride itself was mostly steady double paceline with long pulls with, a few surprise short but fast segments thrown in. No flats, everyone staying together, no complaining, no surging. A long winter ride as it's meant to be. The ride had started out at around 42° but by the time we got back it was more like 72°. There's really no way to dress for that kind of temperature change. You're either going to be cold at the start or hot at the end. I had chosen the latter, as usual.

A long line at the Giro on the way out along Chef Highway

Gavin and Julia were in a bit of a rush to get back because they had to do a presentation for Club Sports for next year's budget request, so we loaded up the bikes quickly and hit the road. Once on the interstate I glanced back to see my bike, which was the 3rd one on the 3-bike rack, almost horizontal to the ground, held on by just the two rubber straps on the top tube. We hadn't tied down the wheels and so the wind had caught mine and Julia's. I watched for a while and figured it might be OK. Then, just before we got onto the elevated interstate between Pontchatoula and LaPlace I looked back again. "Uh, Gavin we need to stop!"  One of the rubber straps had disengaged, so now my bike was held on by basically one rubber band while flapping in the wind at 70 mph. Luckily I had a short bungie cord and a couple of toe straps in my bag, so we were able to secure everything, but it was definitely a close one.

The Giro group finishing up and cooling down along Lakeshore Drive on Sunday

Sunday morning it was again down in the upper 40s, I think, when I rolled out to Starbucks for pre-Giro coffee. Knowing it would be getting even warmer than Saturday, I was wearing knickers, a short-sleeve base layer, and a long-sleeve jersey. It was perfect for the easy ride out to Starbucks but of course I was pretty warm by the time we were halfway back from the turnaround. Being the first of March, there was a solid turnout on Sunday of 45-50 riders which made for lots of protection toward the back of the group where I spent most of my time. Even though I didn't think Saturday's ride had been particularly hard, I guess it did take a little out of me after all. I probably should have forced myself to go up to the front a few times, but all that draft at the back was just too tempting. I think my hardest effort was somewhere on Chef Highway a couple of miles before the turnaround when someone a couple of bikes ahead let a big gap open. It took me a while to get to where I could go around the two riders who weren't showing any interest in closing it, so I ended up with a pretty high intensity, but short, effort to get back up to the group that was, by then, starting to string out pretty badly at around 28 mph.

After the turnaround the pace remained pretty slow for three or four miles before ramping back up to the more normal 26-27 mph. Riding back home I was surprised how much the wind had picked up. I was also starting to feel like I'd had about enough riding for the week. In spite of all those short mid-week rides, I ended up with 279 miles for Mardi Gras week, so I guess I can't complain.