After the Crash

I have delayed writing this post with an update after the crash. I was hoping that I would have a triumphant post with a photo of me on my bike.

When I sat in the middle of the road that morning in October still in disbelief that I had actually been hit, I could not imagine that I would not be back to my regular routine more than 2 months later. This is partly because I was in shock and partly because I was in denial.

Something that sticks in my mind that my physician said as I hobbled out of her office a few days after the crash, “She has a great attitude.” That sounds really positive. But what I have found that in our healthcare system, a good attitude coupled with high pain tolerance and low levels of complaining will get you a lot of medical delays.

As a person who tended to avoid allopathic treatments, I had always assumed that these practitioners would be chomping at the bit to conduct a battery of tests and expose me to every kind of radiation and imaging possible.

As it turns out, they seemed to be reluctant to conduct further testing despite my continued pain. Every time I was in the presence of a health care practitioner, I asked the question, would it be a good idea to get some more imaging? Perhaps to look at soft tissue injury?

It took 6 weeks of appointments, phone calls & physical therapy sessions for the health care practitioners to begin to consider what I had intuited all along, there is something more going on than just bruises and strained muscles. Though, there were plenty of those, as well.

Maybe they were trying to save me money? Maybe they really thought it was just bruised bones & muscles? It is hard to say exactly why they were not inclined to order an MRI until time showed that my pain persisted.

On Christmas eve, I spent 5 hours getting my MRI sandwich. MRI followed by Arthrogram of my hip and then another MRI. It was not a pleasant way to spend the day but you know me and my good attitude, I figured I should appreciate it especially if it resulted in a definitive answer. Something clear. Something fixable.

As it turns out, I did get an answer. I have been walking around with a fractured sacrum for all these weeks. Geez, no wonder it hurts so much.

It looks like it could be quite sometime before I am back out on the bike.

I am sad to have had the way of life that I had finally embraced taken away from me against my will.

I am tired from so many appointments at different doctors offices. But, I am grateful that I have access to high quality health care even if its processes and my healing both move at a slower pace than I like.