Bicycle Paper.com :: Articles

Not the Same

By Maynard Hershon

As you may recall, I fell off my bicycle in August of ‘08. I landed on a big trail-side rock, broke a femur and hurt a couple of fingers. I’m doing well, thank you. My thighbone has healed around a titanium rod, and the two fingers now allow most of their natural motion. The two knuckles remain enlarged and my left thigh is still visibly smaller than my right, but I walk without limping and hardly notice a loss of strength or fatigue resistance. I’m fine.

I say I’m fine but I’ve changed from before I crashed. I have more fear. If you catch me in most situations and ask me if I’m afraid, I’ll say “no,” or “hell no.” But I am more frequently afraid now, and more easily startled. I didn’t realize it right away or even after a few months, but I sense it now. I expected to heal as thoroughly emotionally as I did physically, to be the guy I was before, but I’m not.

Just after my hospital stay, I remember riding in a car and reaching for the grab handles for security — on a one-way street at 35mph. When Tamar pushed me to a nearby coffee shop in my wheelchair, I was afraid the chair would turn over or get away from her and roll in front of a moving car. The first few times I walked with crutches, especially downhill, I was afraid of falling forward, re-injuring my healing leg.

I thought: “You just got hurt. No wonder you’re afraid.”

I am not haunted by the memory of pain from the crash or the recovery. I’ll occasionally relive the moment when my bike’s front wheel hit the deep patch of sand, which must have grabbed my wheel and turned it to one side, sending me, in a millisecond, off the trail and onto large, decorative rocks that have since been removed. One of those rocks broke my femur. I don’t wince when I get that flashback but it’s not comfortable, as you can imagine.

I do remember feeling helpless in the hospital and for a couple of weeks after I got home. Tamar had to help me over the side of the tub so I could shower — sitting safely on a plastic stool. I had to keep a jug by the bed because I couldn’t get to the bathroom by myself at night. I wore shorts and my largest pair of clogs for weeks because my leg and foot were swollen ugly.

I remember being shocked by the amount of money it all cost: The ambulance, the surgery, the bed in the hospital, the meds, the physical and occupational therapy afterward, the frequent outpatient visits with my surgeon. Fortunately, I got help from Medicare with the bills and help from the hospital. I paid my part of it within a year — not easily, but I did it.

When friends would visit we’d talk about getting hurt. I was surprised how many of them had never been in an ambulance, never broken a bone, never spent a night in a hospital. I’d been hurt, ridden in emergency vehicles and spent time in hospital beds. I’d broken collarbonesfrom falling off of bicycles and motorcycles, and fingers, falling wrong on my hand as a kid. I’d hit my head in a mountain bike crash and damaged a nerve that aimed one of my eyes. I lived with double vision for a few months. I suffered a spontaneous detached retina that had to be surgically repaired; doctor’s orders kept me from riding anything for six weeks while it healed.

But I got over each of those injuries. As soon as I could see correctly or took the sling or cast off, I was fine. Climbed right back on the bronco.

Maybe because of the severity of this injury, breaking the biggest bone in my body, or maybe because of the length of the hospital stay and the expense. Or maybe because I’m older this time, I think I’m recovered, but now and then I act in ways I wouldn’t have before the crash.

I’m uncomfortable walking on icy sidewalks or snow-covered trails. I like secure footing. When my foot slips, it isn’t fun; it’s a close call.

Even though I fell because of sand on a bike path, in the shadow of an overpass, and even though no other vehicles were involved, I’m nervous now around automobiles. If someone across the street remote-locks their car and the horn beeps, I flinch. Even when I have the right of way I resist walking past stopped cars — in a crosswalk maybe — I wait and let them go. I don’t like walking through parking lots behind nosed-in parked cars. I imagine their drivers backing out of spaces without looking behind them. When I walk on an urban sidewalk and cars come out of alleys or driveways, their sudden presence startles me. I want to hide behind a tree.

I’m far more cautious than I was, maybe so cautious as to be called paranoid. I’m especially afraid to fall and break a hip — surely a life-changing injury for an older guy. Maybe I think that I’ve been hurt and recovered enough that I’ve used up eight lives.

I can’t tell if I’m writing this for some sort of therapy or if I’m reaching out to men and women like myself who’ve been hurt and are themselves experiencing lingering fear. Lingering fear isn’t something we talk about, those of us who venture out on tippy vehicles. Maybe it’s not a problem for most of us. Maybe it’s just me.

If it isn’t just me, if you were hurt or badly scared and you notice you’re easily spooked, write me, care of the editor. Or if you were hurt or scared and passed through a time of skittishness but you’re done with it now, write and tell me how it went.

I’m functioning, no question, but I’m not quite the same guy I used to be. Thanks for listening.

Maynard has been writing about cycling for the Bicycle Paper (and the Rivendell Reader) almost forever. He says he’ll keep doing it as long as he can get away with it. “I do it for the money,” the Denver-dweller says, but we think there must be something about cycling that interests him.