Ouch

Monday, August 19, 2024

A couple of months ago I pulled a tendon in my left knee. I decided to not run to give it a chance to heal but at one point it was feeling good enough that I thought I’d take a chance. Big mistake. I got about a mile out and it was killing me, so I limped back home with the sad realization that I just don’t heal as fast as I used to.

Last Friday I decided that while my knee is healing, I could ride my bike so I got up early and took my bike out for a spin. It was amazing and I’m wondering why I hadn’t done this sooner. I was heading down cardiac hill dreading the climb up the other side when I entered some loose gravel. On instinct I hit the brakes but in the spur of the moment I couldn’t remember which brake was the back brake. I grabbed the wrong brake. The instant I hit the brake my front tire locked up and slid to the left laying me in the gravel on the right.

My first thought was that I was glad no one was around to witness this and my second thought was that it hurt. There was blood all over my right leg but I didn’t want to deal with it there, so I dusted myself off and tried to ride up the hill on the other side. It was just too steep, so I walked.

I rode six wonderful miles and when I got home mom was getting ready to head out on a walk with Linda Bessey. She took a picture of my poor leg and headed out while I showered.

Once I had removed most of the dirt and grime I took a closer look at my knee. Most of it was just scrapes but there was a cut on my knee that was much deeper than I had realized. Because it was on my knee, I knew that it would open up every time I bent my knee so when Lisa got home, I asked if she could put a Steri-Strip on it. She dragged me off to emergency instead.

Nine stiches later we headed home and had a nice lunch on the way. They tell me I need to go back in ten days to get the stitches removed but if the knee is looking good, I think I will just remove them myself.

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A 3,100 year old egyption mummy was found to have had sutures but it is believed that people were stitching up their wounds 30,000 years ago. 

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