Broken collarbone

Saturday night I had a bicycle accident.  I think I know what happened, but I am not sure.  I was riding my regular route starting at 5:20 pm after I put a large bale of hay out for the cattle.  I think the accident was around 6 pm.

My route is 6 miles out and 6 miles back.  I remember turning east at the 5 mile mark. I remember thinking about the road being slippery.  I also remember my bicycle chain had been occasionally slipping due to wear for much of the ride though it slipped less the longer I rode.  Was this combination the cause of my accident?  I don't know for sure.

I think the accident happened around the 5 1/2 mile mark, give or take a tenth of a mile.  I have a few vague recollections after the accident.  It seems like a dream.  Such as: someone in a pickup stopping to ask if I was alright and whether I needed a ride and me turning the ride down, then looking for my bicycle computer which came off onto the road.  I believe I thought I was glad the pickup didn't run over the computer after I found it.  I also thought about whether I should turn around now or continue to the 6 mile turn around.  I believe I continued on.  Later when I checked the bicycle computer mileage I did indeed ride to the 6 mile turn around point.

Around the 8 mile point I remember feeling confused.  I have ridden this route hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of times so it was familiar.  But I now felt like I was in a fog and struggled to understand what was going on.

At the 9 mile mark I rode past Donna's house so I stopped. I left my bicycle at her gate, climbed over and went to her house.

I needed to sit down and gather my thoughts.  Donna said I was pretty dazed.  I knew it was Winter but I didn't know the date.  Slowly I figured out it was January.  Then after more thought I remembered it was the 30th and Saturday.

Less than an hour I cleared up.  My left side was wet and my shoulder and hip hurt.

Donna took me home.  I let the cattle out of the corral so they could eat from the hay bale.  Then I had supper, took an ibuprofen, watched some TV with Daisy.  Once Daisy got up and off me I went to bed at 1:30 am.

This morning my shoulder hurt.  I realized I had fractured or broken it.  Donna took me to the hospital emergency room to have it checked out.  That took 4 and 1/2 hours.  At one point I had to ask someone to tell the nurse I was still there and ask if they had forgotten me.  In the meantime I had "neighbors" with a wrist injury, inner ear problem with balance, and a woman who had teeth pulled last Monday as prep for dentures and whom had gotten an inflection which the doctor then operated on to drain.

One chest x-ray and four shoulder x-rays later and the doctor told me I had a broken clavicle.  One part of the break is under the other part.  The doctor was amazed I wasn't in more pain as apparently collarbone breaks are very painful.  I had one ibuprofen at 11 am that morning and no breakfast.  He referred me to an orthopedic surgeon that I am suppose to call tomorrow to find out what is next.

Apparently this is a common injury for bicyclists.  And yes, I do know not to put my arm out to catch me in a fall.  It is my instinct to tuck my arms against my body and try to use the outer meaty part of my arm and thigh to take the blow.  This isn't my first fall.

My arm is now in a sling to restrict movement.  The injuries are on my left side and I am left handed.  I can move my arm though some positions are painful.  Putting on and taking off my shirt or coat is no fun.

The other injuries:

1. Two bumps on left side of my head.
2. Sore neck muscles on left side 
3. Swollen left shoulder
4. Bruised left ribs
5. Sizable abrasion on my left hip.

I never had a headache.  The doctor said I had no neurological damage though he doesn't think the memories of the accident and the later 2 1/2 plus mile ride afterwards will ever come back.  While I think I could have ridden the final 3 miles home I am glad I didn't have to and was able to sit for a while and rest.

For more info on broken clavicles:  http://orthoinfo.aaos.org/topic.cfm?topic=a00072

This situation is annoying.  The only good thing about it is the timing.  Better now for healing than during Summer.  Back in 2000 I had a non-displaced fracture of my right collarbone when a car hit me so I know that it takes a while to heal.

Late January sunset

Late afternoon I was shoveling the snowfall from a few days ago from the yard when the sun came out.  Its been a long time since I seen the sun.  Here are a couple photos.

Swan Mountain Range

Moving

After all this time Jan's daughter finally found an apartment and I helped move some of her stuff - since I have a pickup.  First I had to get a large wooden entertainment center and large bed headboard Jan had bought at the Veteran's Pantry.  Both were used and had scratches so that made moving them a little easier even though both were large bulky and heavy.

We also loaded a sofa and two heavy wooden side tables into my pickup.  I tied a bed mattress and box spring on top of Jan's SUV.  Off we drove to Whitefish.  Jan in the lead; me following; and the daughter bringing up the rear.  I would watch that the bed and box spring did not come off Jan's SUV and the daughter watched that nothing came off the back of the pickup (as I couldn't close the tailgate and still get everything loaded).

We didn't lose anything.  I was glad we didn't have to go further as the mattress did move a little to the back when Jan drove 50 mph.

I asked if the front door and then the elevator or stairs was the way to go and was told yes.  I got the mattress squeezed in the elevator.  We had to carry the box spring down the stairs as I couldn't bend that.  Then we were told that a back door on the first / lower left would be better to use as we would avoid using the elevator or stairs.

We barely got the sofa through the initial corners.  We turned it this way and that before finally getting it through the doors. I only had the entertainment center left to move inside when a guy told me another door would be better to use.  No corners to get inside the building.  Now someone tells me!

Most things I manhandled but a few items were too big and bulky and I needed a person to guide the other end.  Moving the furniture was me, 70-something Jan, and her 50-something daughter, neither with strength or endurance.  I'm glad neither dropped dead from the effort.  They were pretty tired.

The apartment complex residents are either senior citizens or disabled people.  In the beginning a number of old ladies with their walkers were loitering about to watch the activity.  (Guess nothing else goes on for excitement there).  A few were in the way as they were slow in comprehending we would be carrying stuff down the hallway past them, else slow to move due to age.  After I almost ran one old lady over they finally got the idea that hanging in the hallway to watch the activity was not a safe place to be and left.

It took four hours from start to finish.  Jan treated me to supper at Nickel Charlies for helping.

Snow on mountains, etc.

It appears to have finally stopped snowing.  Yesterday I finally finished shoveling the snow off the driveway and yard.

The last couple of weeks in 2015 my bicycle's front tire leaked air.  At first I only had to add air every three to four days. Then every two days.  Then the last half week, every day.  Over the weekend I patched the inner tube.  My first attempt didn't stop the leak.  So I took my time, and several days, on my second attempt and that appears to have solved the problem.  The cause of the leak?  I found a very thin wire sticking though the inside of my tire.  It looks to be from a wire brush.  Over the Summer, in the backyard, I had used a wire brush to clean one of the cattle water troughs.  I had to use pliers to remove the wire from the tire.  That thin of a wire going through the tire is like a straw driven through a board by tornado winds.


Moved another bale of hay for the cattle today.  I am getting better at scraping the snow.  Very little dirt gouged today.  When I let the cattle out of the corral to go to the bale tonight one of the cows was walking slow.  I couldn't see a limp.  Also in the dark I couldn't tell if it was the same cow that was walking slow a week or so ago.


This afternoon's view after the inversion weakened.

Far mountains are in Glacier Park

Here a photo of Lake McDonald from the Glacier Park Apgar Mountain webcam today.  Notice the temperature was 33.8 F on top of the mountain.  In the Valley, under the inversion, we barely made it up into the 20s F.