Today marks four months since the accident so it seems a good time for an update.
In some ways things seem normal. In many ways my life is picking up where it left off before the crash, if you leave a few things out of the equation: I am not cycling outdoors, nor doing very strenuous or long activities, my most-injured leg is still swollen and still weak to a degree that is hard to understand, my pelvic torsion has not yet corrected and is causing my right leg to be shorter – which impacts my gait, balance and mobility IOW ( much less than it did though) – so there are important issues still to resolve. I am also not quite back to being my previous energetic and fit self. I so miss that self. Will I ever see her again? Honestly I think not, not like before anyway.
However, I am still so grateful! Grateful my injuries were not more, well, injurious. Grateful I have made the gains I have – which I am told by my exceptional physical therapist are miraculous – and she does not throw complements around let me tell you – but I work so hard to improve and she respects that. And I have improved so much! When I think of where I was after being hit, the surgery, over 2 weeks of hospitalization and rehab, the physical limitations, etc., I cannot be anything but grateful for the gains I have made. They have been hard-won to put it mildly.
It is also true that I literally do not remember much of August – except for things I wish I could forget – or September or a lot of October. It is so strange to have big gaps in my memory. I do not know if it is due to the concussion or medications or both. Or the trauma of it all. Likely, all three – how could it not.
I continue to work with my “team” of professionals, who were/are a big part of where I am now in my recovery. I literally could not have done it without them, (nor my husband, Mark – certainly no one has helped me more), as my rehab and recovery support system. That’s a good name for them because they do support me and keep me moving in the right direction – not too fast or slow. I don’t really do slow more than I have to, but I also don’t do fast any longer and I am okay with that. I am learning to have patience with myself. And compassion too.
I am now able to ride my trainer down in the basement some. I use a little step stool to get on and off my bike and it works. Riding is actually part of my rehab, great for range of motion and strengthening, and to hopefully encourage my pelvic/leg issue to return to normal. It has not changed yet, but PT is addressing it along with my musculoskeletal doctor who is renowned with these types of injuries so I am hopeful. The leg length difference still throws things off and makes walking (something you do a lot you know) more difficult – even with lifts in shoe – and a little unstable but I am careful. My lower back was also whacked and that is another problem.
By soul work, I mean the work I have done in therapy and through my writing practice to recover my soul, my essential self, not the self blindly constructed to fit in. Initially, I resisted going to therapy for the same reasons others do: a belief that I should be able to handle my problems myself, the vague shame and stigma attached to needing therapy in the first place, and lastly, I feared making myself vulnerable. Without that openness though, therapy can’t work its magic.
I had this sense I was being held back in my life by all I had been holding in. Therapy and writing helped me to reconnect with my soul and heart, and consequently also led me to view my mind with healthy skepticism. We should all be skeptical of what our minds tell us, always, still, I started seeing my mind, body and soul as interwoven aspects of myself, rather than separate parts, each needed and important for living fully.
So what does this very personal confession have to do with cycling? Therapy is helping me deal with the overwhelm of the accident. My therapist supports me as I feel and process the many consequences of the accident – including the emotional trauma of my injuries – the wounds to my spirit and soul – which have all been overwhelming. For much of the first few weeks, I had reoccurring nightmares replaying the accident from the hit to being thrown to crashing onto the street. Thankfully they don’t happen like that any longer but I notice even being in the car I am anxious and have an overreaction to the typical bad behavior of drivers – and that’s as a passenger. I can’t even begin to imagine ever riding on the road again. When cycling on roads you have to stay calm, focused, and just fully attuned to everything happening around you – in front, behind, to the sides, the road surface, other riders, etc. to ride and keep yourself safe – and still, you can be hit!
At times it all feels like more than I am capable of withstanding, like an assault on my very being. The pain, emotional and physical, is overwhelming at times and I end up in the emotional equivalent of the fetal position. Curled up against the world, tucked inside myself, hiding – trying to just survive. I have been in that curled-up state a lot over the last eight weeks.
I write to keep from going under completely and it helps, but only so much. Two days ago it all overwhelmed me and I gave in to the emotion, the pain, and I let it out. On paper and then in my therapy session. I let go, and felt, and cried – I grieved for what was and what now is.
Afterward, I felt a shift, maybe a bit of healing. And yesterday, the day after, I went out into the world, to my favorite place to hike and walked using my cane. Not far at all, but it was uplifting and soul-full. The sunshine and birds and the signs of autumn all around me helped me feel a little like myself. I snapped this selfie to capture this ‘coming out’ moment.
Writing here, like riding, connects me to the bike. Presently I am writing about my love of riding in lieu of practicing that love.
Driven back into writing because of the accident, it seemed like a poor substitute for the real thing initially, and is, sure, but it is also a good thing in its own right. Both riding and writing require commitment and practice and both will reward you for it. (My bike skills consequently are way better than my writing skills).
No way am I saying writing here is as good as riding out there. But posting here connects me to my love of riding while I recover and for now, that’s what I’ve got. That’s life sometimes. It giveth and it taketh away but it also leaves us with possibility.
Texas Hill Country, I loved cruising along these quiet rural roads
Riding
The best summer of riding I can recall ever having was last summer, then fall too. I actually remember thinking at the time that I would likely never have another year of cycling like it.
For one, the weather was perfect! Day after day of the best weather a cyclist could ask for – nice temperatures, no wind to speak of, and little rain. Five months of the best fun two wheels can offer and I loved it. It was so great, and I was so grateful to have it and experience it all. It was months of nothing but cycling because the summer of 2020 was marred by the pandemic. Not like there was a lot that was safe to do, stores and restaurants were closed, people were home and if you wanted to be somewhere other than home it was outside. *Yes I know it was a horrific year for all of us because of what happened to so many of us, but this piece is not about that – no disrespect intended.
Summer 2020
Summer of 2020 was about the bike in a global way and in a personal way. I rode nearly every day. I rode to deal with loneliness and isolation but by far the reason I rode is because I loved it.
I am laid up recovering as I type so I can calculate the number of days. From my first to last ride in 2020 there were 168 days, of those I missed riding 22 days. Since being hit I have missed 53 days of riding, more than twice as much as I missed last year. No wonder I am so down.
I went from one of my best years of cycling to my worst. So I am feeling a big void and a huge loss. I lost so much August 2 that I am just now starting to comprehend. I lost cycling, I lost fitness, but I also lost part of myself, well beyond the injuries to my body. What about the injury to my spirit, my soul? I am at a loss as to what to do or how to be or who I even am if I can not be how I have been. That person last summer is me and I want her back desperately and if I indeed give up riding on the road isn’t she gone? I think so and I am grieving that loss.
I am an injured athlete now, but based on my age I have also been an aging athlete for a while now. Easy to write out in this post, but I struggled with accepting that I was past my prime – and on a downhill slide. I had accepted it somewhat, but then last summer blew my previous fitness levels and limitations on the bike away. They just weren’t as real as I had made them, not if I was willing to do the work, and I was, and did.
Cycling Story
Sonoma County, CA (that’s me in blue)
Let me tell you a story. Besides all the miles last summer, I already had a large mileage base built from riding 31 years. With yearly totals in the range of 2000-4500 miles, I had a cycling base of around 100,000 miles.
In July, feeling strong, I started playing this little training game. As riders would pass me I would try to catch them. Not overtake them, usually, but just see if I could reel them back in by pacing myself back up, and often I could.
One time two cyclists passed me going fast. I hadn’t noticed them as they came up stealthy and quiet, my riding partner and I had been talking. No cars around, so they took the lane and zoomed past us. I was in front of Mark so when I geared up he knew I was giving “chase”. Not chase in the classic sense, rather a slow chase. More like fishing, attempting to reel them in. Although they had a big jump on me, I was able to close the distance over the course of a few miles. I never actually caught them, but for most of the ride they were just ahead of me, until they disappeared and I thought they had dropped me for good.
I had driven to my ride start and as I pulled into the parking lot, who was there but the two cyclists who had passed me. One was still straddling her bike, the other looked up at me and grinned. They obviously hadn’t been there long and maybe were a little surprised to see me. The thing is they looked to be in their 30’s, way younger than me.
Those “chases” besides being fun made me stronger. One Sunday morning, one of those Sundays when the cyclists outnumbered cars, a group of 3 guys swung out into the lane to pass me. Don’t get me wrong, I am used to being passed by faster riders, over the years it has happened a lot. Most of the time I don’t even give them a thought when they pass and stay in front. The problem was these guys misjudged my speed, perhaps because of what they saw me to be, a woman, and a not-young woman at that. I ended up catching, passing, and dropping them. Later I slowed to wait for my husband and he rode up with the guys. One of them said to me something like what a good cyclist I was, (no mention of “for a girl”) to which I replied, “if you do something long enough you get pretty good at it and I’ve been doing this for 31 years”. That was met with a double-take.
Experiences like these had me questioning the whole “aging athlete” thing that I had just accepted without question and starting to consider that maybe it wasn’t as true as I had believed. That gave me a renewed enthusiasm and new-lease-on- cycling-life. It was exciting!
That excitement carried forward into 2021. I started my indoor training early on my Wahoo Kickr Core and began riding outside a month earlier than I had in 2020. Things were looking good, promising! I was excited, then I was knocked off my bike, my plans, goals, when a car hit me on a training ride August 2, 2021.
Recovery
My recovery will be a long road I am told. So far it is depressing as hell and mentally and physically very difficult. Fortunately, I have recently found a group of people who get that. They not only get it, they are living it too because they are also injured athletes, trying to cope with this profound loss we all feel and share. Many are much better athletes than I am, most are younger, we may participate in different sports, but we are all a part of this club no one wants to be a part of. I am so grateful to have them. (It has taken a while for me to see myself as an athlete – to own the word – because of my age and my lack of status, but I earned it so I own it.)
I notice that as I interact with them more about their recoveries, I am connecting more to my own loss and feelings, specifically my grief. As I heal from my physical injuries and have less physical pain, it is allowing my emotional pain to come to the surface. Another stage of recovery I guess.
In this group, there are people spread out all along the recovery continuum. I have had conversations with some about their injuries and sports. Some are similar to mine, others not, but there is one similarity that seems to be always present: the athlete archetype. There is tremendous grief with it too.
We are connected as we recover, we discuss our own experiences and support each other. I personally don’t have that in real life so that connection for me is invaluable. I have found my rehab tribe. Here is to recovering and riding again, and more writing too. If you made it to the end, let me know – you get a medal!🥇
Today I walked with the assistance of a cane about a third of a mile at a park, my first *outing*. I have been in pain ever since.
This is what I was doing a year ago today: cycling 52 miles in 3.5 hours.
I am so depressed and angry. My words fail to describe the depth of what I feel.
Sometimes I think I can’t do this. At times I am sure of it. The road is too long and difficult. One really long climb with an unknown destination.
No one knows what I will be able to get back to. It was damn hard to be where I was – to even get there. It was work. Yes I love to ride my bike. Yes it is fun. But it is work too! It’s hard! I had my best year of riding in more ways than one last year, which makes this even harder to deal with. I did rides like the one pictured below over and over racking up the miles and fitness.
In the years prior, I believed I had passed my cycling prime. To combat it I read a lot about aging athletes and what I could do to minimize the negative and maximize my abilities. I did it through diet, vitamins and supplements, indoor cycling, cross-training, improved rest and recovery practices and more – and it worked.
At my age I had still managed to improve. I had improved my climbing and my endurance and I was better than years before.
So when that car hit me August 2, I was knocked from as high a place as I have been in recent years.
I lost a lot. It isn’t going to come back easily – if it comes back in any meaningful way at all.
It’s disappointing and frustrating and depressing. I’m pissed about it but I feel way more sad. Overwhelmingly, I feel lost. Yes, I know it could have been much worse, but it could have also not happened.
As someone caught in an emotional riptide, this resonates with me so much. I am caught in the flood, overcome by it, drowning. Not seeing a way across or through, but I will begin again.
Do you relate to this, in any way? I would love to know what any of you think if you are comfortable sharing.
Acceptance doesn’t mean succumbing to what’s going on. When we succumb to a situation, we collapse into it, or become immersed in it or possessed by it. While trying to cross the flood, instead of moving we linger and we drown, we get possessed by the waves of the flood, we are overcome by them. Yet acceptance clearly doesn’t mean we struggle against the waves. Trying to push against the waves or push them out of the way exhausts us and is futile. We have to use the momentum of each wave on the crossing to help us go along. But it takes a special kind of strength to be able to be this delicate, to be able to be in the middle of the flood, not sinking and not thrashing around. The crossing of the flood is only accomplished one moment at a time. The art of this accomplishment is the ability to continually begin again. This is the other side of letting go, the doorway letting go reveals. We set forth, we struggle or get muddled or anxious, we lose our balance, and then realizing it, we begin again. We don’t need self-recriminations or blame or anger. We need a reawakening of intention and a willingness to recommit, to be wholehearted once again.
Excerpt from ‘real change: mindfulness to heal ourselves and the world
For the Love of Bikes Blog (2009 – 2021) is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.loveofbikes.com.
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