Critical Exponent

Today, I bike-commuted to work and back for the first time since the bike accident. I’ve been meaning to do it a few weeks ago, but kept finding excuses. Mostly, I felt intimidated by having to hold up the bus as I put my bike on the rack (no biking on highway 520, and all buses must stop to let on cyclists), and slightly on guard remembering how easily it could all go awfully wrong….

Thousands of cyclists, noses dripping, thighs burning, converged on Bainbridge Island for, what to many of us, was the first serious bike ride of the season: the Chilly Hilly. Though only 32 miles long, it had some steep hills that required perseverance and low gears. Unfortunately, I seem to be having gearing problems on my new bike—it could just be grime from today’s rainy ride, but I think I’ll have to take the new bike for its first “well-baby” tune-up.

Listen to the NPR story Moving Parts Make Holiday Music.

Today, my friend Arnav gave me a ride to to the Newton police station so we could pick up the remains of my bike. I thought it would be a tangled mess, but it doesn’t look too bad from afar. Get closer, though, and it’s obvious that it is completely totaled. The frame is bent and broken in several places. The spokes are bent. Even the rear rack does not line up with the (rear part of the) frame.

Sigh.

Here are the grim stats of that fateful ride:

My bike served me well. My bike computer reports 2980 miles on the saddle, and I’ve only had it a little over a year.

Eventually, I’ll get a new bike so I can start riding as soon as I’m healed. My more immediate task, however, is daunting: I need to remove the month-old protein shake that’s been sitting in my pannier and stinking up the police station and, now, my apartment.

Speaking of healing, I have the hand splint for two more weeks and then I start rehab—I couldn’t even make a fist yesterday at my follow-up appointment. I am getting a bit of exercise by walking every chance I get; that’s pretty comfortable, even if it does not feel completely normal yet. My left knee is very sensitive, so I am trying to be particularly good to it.

Interesting factoid: My doctor told me that bone is piezoelectric, and that property might help it regenerate. I didn’t know that.

How does one deal with trauma? It’s been five years since the terrorist attacks that marked my generation, and one month since the bicycle accident that left me with permanent scars. Construction at Ground Zero has begun; my fractures have been healing

Memories of both events are, in their own ways, painful. The collective tragedy woke us to the fact that being the lone superpower would not bring us safety, that our brawn would not guarantee us peace, not even at home. My personal accident brought an emotional immediacy to the realization that my youth counts for nothing, that no matter how hard I train and how many products I buy, how many Men’s Health tips I follow and how many supplements I take, I am an all-too-vulnerable piece of flesh affected by what others do.

There’s a fear that comes after your foundations have been cleft by trauma. You yearn for things to be as they once were: innocent, unsullied. You strive to turn back the clock. But, of course, you can’t. The event becomes an indelible part of who you are, and the best you can do is hope that the sediments of later experiences that form your life will grow strong and stable. With time, perhaps, it ceases to be an an ominous every-day presence: the rift becomes less noticeable, the scars fade somewhat.

What of our choices in the aftermath? Our nation chose to lash out, at a credible party at first, at a red herring later. Caught up in a defensive reaction, our maladaptive response has only made us more hated and less safe, even as we lose touch with the values that define us.

As for me—well, it’s too early to tell. I like to think my choices remain reasoned and deliberate, but I’d be lying if I said there’s no emotional fallout from the accident. I am feeling cautious and vulnerable; when I get on a bike again, it will be with some trepidation. Nonetheless, cycling and taking calculated risks are part and parcel of what it means to be Victor.

And so, acknowledging the pain, we strive to move forward constructively, with grace and optimism. The future remains an open book.

“What th–”

The van’s dark hood was right in front of me. I caught a glimpse of the passenger-side window as time slowed to a crawl. Powerless, I saw the bike approach the car. A glimpse of the trees and sky. And then, the pavement. I held myself up on my forearms, moaning. A gash on my left arm. Blood. And some white tissue—fat. I whimpered rhythmically, too sore to move, too shocked. Work. I needed to get to work. That’s why I had left early in the first place.

The driver got out of the van. “Are you all right?!” he asked. “The sun was behind you, I didn’t see you.” He flipped open his cell phone, called 911. A stranger stopped and knelt beside me. “Don’t try to move. Did you hit your head? How many fingers am I holding up?” I had no patience for silly games, but I wanted to reassure them I was fine, and I answered.

The police came, and the ambulance. As the paramedics pulled out the gurney, a police officer asked me if I had any ID. I told her to look in the handlebar bag. As they rolled me over so they could slide the stretcher under me, I could see the officer take out my driver’s license and copy down my info. They put a padded orange head restraint on me. I called out to make sure the handlebar bag came with me. “I can’t get it out.” “Push the orange button… and lift,” I feebly tried to shout.

Up I went, looking at the sky, then into the ambulance. We waited there for a moment. What for? Paperwork? I tried not to panic, but my thoughts were swirling: this had happened to me. This would disrupt my plans. Would I ever bike again? Would I want to? Finally, they closed the doors and we were off. The EMT tried to put an IV in me, but it was difficult; I was sweaty from biking. Then he came over to my left side, “I know these bike clothes are probably expensive, but I’m going to have to cut them.” Bye, bye, polka-dot jersey that Knox gave me. “You have big gash right there.” He covered my now-naked form as the ambulance pulled into the hospital.

I watched the ceiling lights stream past, just like on TV. In the big room, a whole team of doctors was expecting me. They lifted me onto the bed. Everyone was talking. “Do you want us to call someone?” They looked up Knox’s number on the cell phone, but couldn’t reach him on the land line. “Oh, it’s long distance.” We decided to wait until after I’d been sutured, which wouldn’t be long, they promised. All the while, nurses and doctors were talking. “Where does it hurt?” “We’re going to stick this in you” “I’ll need to probe your butt to make sure there’s no bleeding.” Like a rag doll, I lay there, trying to be helpful and agreeable, but just letting them poke and prod me.

Finally, I was wheeled to my own curtained-off room. I had a chance to calm down. But I didn’t, not consistently. I was trying to go with the flow and accept this, let it be, but then doom and despair would hit me. One of the nurses came back to talk to me. Then they wheeled me off to get X-rays. A police officer stopped me to get my signature on a form, and said he’d leave an accident report for me. “Your bike looks like an L,” he said. “You might want to get in touch with a lawyer.” Great.

The periods of inactivity were the hardest. When people were doing something, I could hold it together. But during the lulls, in the X-ray room when the film was being swapped out and later back in my room waiting for the resident to come back and finish my sutures, a disconsolate anguish would take hold and make me quiver. A few hours and a couple of doctors later, however, I was finally all stitched up and had time to myself. The nurse had handed me my cell phone. I called Knox.

“How are you?”

“Not so good. I— I’m alright, but I was in an accident.”

And then I completely lost it.

That was three weeks ago, Friday, August 11. During my morning bike commute through Newton, an oncoming driver waiting to make a left turn did not notice me and cut me off. It was one of those chance encounters that would not have happened had I left home five minutes earlier or later, but which instead became a reminder that control over our fates is not as tight as we like to imagine.

At the end of the day—and a long day it was, twelve hours before they discharged me—I had a gash on my groin (off-center, thank goodness!) and one on my arm, both of which required stitches. Two metacarpals were fractured in my left hand. My left shin had a large arc-shaped scab (chainwheel?). Both my left shin and foot were swollen, making it hard to walk. My right buttock was bruised, making it painful to sit. I also had a respectable case of road rash on my right shoulder.

All in all, I was lucky. I could have been killed. I could have had internal trauma. As it was, I was wearing a helmet, did not pass out, and suffered injuries that will heal just fine (with some battle scars I can use as a conversation piece). In the days and weeks that were to follow, I would keep this fact in mind: things could have been worse. Oh, yes, they could have been much worse.

My friend Bill picked me up from the hospital and put me up for two nights in his guest room. As the doctors had warned, the day after the accident was the hardest. I was sore all over, could hardly get around, and was still getting used to having my left hand in a splint (another lucky strike: I’m right-handed). Bill helped me get set up at home on Sunday with a cane he lent me and first aid supplies we bought. Mike brought dinner that night, and the next day I was able to work remotely.

The doctors in the ER and at the follow-up appointment at the hand clinic both said I could go ahead with my previously scheduled trip to Seattle on Wednesday. Knox and I had discussed whether it made more sense for him to come to Boston to look after me instead, but I felt that it would be too frustrating to give up the trip I had so been looking forward to. Having gotten no medical vetoes (but an email warning from my primary care doctor to get up often in flight to prevent deep-vein thrombosis, for which I was now at higher risk), I decided to get on the plane.

As it turns out, that was absolutely the right choice.

From The Boston Globe:

He was a fin-de-siècle Lance Armstrong, celebrated in the streets of Paris for his blinding speed and his unflinching endurance. He was a black world champion, a decade before legendary heavyweight boxer Jack Johnson. He was an athletic prodigy akin to Tiger Woods, a quietly defiant racial pacesetter almost a half-century before Jackie Robinson broke baseball’s color line.

His name was Major Taylor , one of the world’s greatest cyclists during the sport’s heyday at the beginning of the 20th century, when people would flock to velodromes by the thousands to see the “Worcester Whirlwind” outpedal white competitors for lucrative purses.

..gets the fireworks, apparently.

I was biking through Gloucester with Todd when we came across lawn chairs and beach towels and coolers lined up on the main esplanade in anticipation of the July 4th fireworks– tomorrow. Pretty funny.

Todd and I finally did the lobster loop, biking from the train station in Beverly all the way to Rockport. I wanted to eat some lobster at our destination, but we got early enough that it made sense for me to catch the 12:00pm train back and get ahead on the rest of my day. (Good thing, too! It’s been hectic…)

The Boston Globe talks about vacationing in Newfoundland. Hah! Been there, done that!

Today was the first peduting (pedal-commuting) ride of the season on the just-tuned-up bike. It is so good to be outdoors in the morning!

(Funny story: as the clouds cleared during my ride, I realized I had forgotten my sunglasses— until I went to shower at work, when I found them in my jersey pocket, where I had put them so I wouldn’t forget. My foresight would be a lot more useful if I remembered I had it!)