It appears the saga of my bike accident wasn’t quite over. I had had two days off work and decided I was well enough to go back in work on Thursday. My wrist was pretty much OK and my hip was sore but not really painful. There was only my knee which would stiffen when I sat for long periods of time, but soon loosened whenever I got up and walked.
So I set off for work on Thursday. Not on the bike: I’m not up to that yet, but I caught a bus to the town centre. I did notice as I walked up to the train station that whilst I was walking my knee really wasn’t painful at all. However, as soon as I stopped walking the pain became very severe! I thought it a bit strange but carried on. Work was fine. I’m sat down at a desk all day anyway so there wasn’t a problem with my knee. Same pain when getting up from my chair which eased quickly. But then that strange extra pain when I stopped walking.
On Friday morning in the shower I decided to have a good look at my knee. I remembered that on Monday, I had noticed a black area in the would. I’d asked the doctor if it might be a piece of grit. She looked and decided that it wasn’t. Friday morning in the shower I realised it was indeed a piece of grit or gravel. I got a pair of tweezers and had a poke around! As soon as I put the metal tweezers to it, I knew it was a piece of stone! The grating sound was a give-away! I tried for quite a while but couldn’t shift it. I could get a grip but it wouldn’t come out. It seemed like the hole was too small. It was also quite pussy and getting painful.
I decided to go back up to the hospital and have it looked at. I rang work to let them know and took a bus up to the hospital.
Despite the A&E department being almost empty I was told it would be a 1 hour wait. By this time my knee was extremely painful in any position but walking. So I paced up and down for what turned out to be about 40 minutes.
An aside: I had to go outside the waiting room for a while to get away from the blaring TVs positioned so that wherever you sat one was in your line of site. I knew daytime television had gotten bad but I hadn’t realised just quite how bad. Mindless, moronic, antagonistic, sensationalistic, offensive even, with bad grammar galore, and infantile buzz words, all served up at high volume! The half a dozen people in there were all sat staring at the TVs. I’m sure if I’d waited long enough, I’d have seen a couple of them drooling.
Anyway, eventually my name was called, and I went through to see the doctor. After a quick examination she agreed there was something in there and explained that I needed to have two X-Rays. One so they could see where the FB (Foreign Body!) was positioned, and another after it had been removed to check it was all gone.
So after my first X-Ray I went back to the doctor. She expressed surprise at the size of the gravel, I asked for my knee to be numbed: I’m a bit of a wimp really. I learned that they no longer use a freezing spray and four injections and a 5 minute wait later she was able to dig about in my knee. And dig about she did. It took several attempts with a couple of different instruments to try to get it out before she eventually had to get a scalpel and cut into my knee to make the hole big enough.
I should explain that this piece of gravel turned out to be no more than about 6 or 7 mm in diameter at it’s widest, but at the time felt like it must have a been an inch wide!
After it was out I went back for my second X-Ray. This time I had a much longer wait: around 20 minutes. Finally it was back to the waiting area to wait to be seen again, this time by a senior nurse who applied a dressing and huge amounts of bandage. I was advised to rest my leg and so took the rest of the day off work.
I was back in work today and my knee has not been bad at all. Up to now this accident has cost me three days off work and probably two weeks off my bike. All because of some fool! 🙁
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Youch! Very sorry to hear this Mike – I hope you learned your lesson about being healthy and getting exercise. 😉
That’s a bummer to be sure. After reading your original post about commuting on bike I was taken with the idea. I should have stopped checking back here then. You’ve thoroughly changed my mind. 😀
Lemius,
Don’t be put off! This is my first serious incident in over 8 years of cycling and something like 15,000 miles.
It wasn’t that bad: I got up and cycled home afterwards.
Honestly, I’m way fitter and healthier, I’ve saved a huge amount of money, and it make me feel great!
Go for it. Start slow, work up to it. You will benefit from it.
Knee injuries are the worst. You can never get a banage to stay where you want it to be, and they keep openning up when you move about.
My exboyfriend once ended up with quite the cut on his knee while jogging. For some reason he fell and landed in someone’s front lawn, and ended up splitting his knee wide open. At the time, he didn’t realise how serious it was because the cut ended up packed with dirt and grass and he simply got up, brushed his legs off and continued his jog. It was only when he got back home he cleaned it out and decided that since he could see his kneecap it might be a good idea to get it checked out.
hi mike
unlucky about the bike accident, some drivers are just so inconsiderate when it comes to cyclists! Anyways, I hope you knee improves and you get back to cycling soon