Recovery advice/anecdotes? Staying hopeful.

[wheelbuilder]

Mountain descent. Struck Turkey at 41mph. Over the bars, loss of consciousness , transported to trauma center. Broken collarbone, 3 broken ribs, stitches, road rash everywhere, etc. Combined with expensive and numerous bike repairs.....etap shifter, rear derailleur, carbon bars, saddle, possible front carbon clincher........ can seem like a lot to deal with at one time. Especially when combined with missing possibly a few weeks of work. Recovery stated to be 4-8 weeks. Any similar stories? advice? feeling a little depressed. Thanks for any and all responses.

[TonyM]

Wow impressive unfortunately!
I hope you will recover fast!

Long time ago I almost crashed in a very fast descent in the black forest at something like 90 km/h because a squirrel (not a joke a tiny squirrel) decided to cross the road just in front of me. He decided to stop a few centimeter beside my front wheel so I did not crashed. I couldn’t have avoided it otherwise. Now with your story I know it could be.

Good recovery!

[TonyM]

Sorry for that...my wife just asked me if the turkey survived??

[joejack951]

Riding to work, rear ended while going ~15mph by a 40mph SUV. Landed on my ass on the road, fracturing my tailbone and the vertebrae just above it. Decent amount of road rash, somewhat mitigated by wearing long sleeves and tights but roughed up pretty good and unable to sit or sleep comfortably for weeks. I was off my bike for ~8 weeks as a result with the concern being a broken back should I fall. I also got laid off from my job two weeks later (totally unrelated and the best career move I ever made, even though it sucked at the time). Needless to say, I can sympathize with your depressed state. Between being in pain, jobless, and unable to exercise I was miserable.

Starting physical therapy was a huge help as it relieved my back pain and got me out of the house doing something. I also started planning a new lightweight commuter bike build and with plenty of time to overthink every component choice I built something impeccably tailored to my needs

12 weeks after the wreck I was re-employed and soon after back to commuting with a far more interesting and longer ride, once which had me riding the most I ever have in my life (~250 km/week, year round just commuting) on an awesome bike built with a portion of my settlement check. Yes, money can fix some pain!

Best of luck recovering and hope the above helps even a tiny bit!

[spdntrxi]

forget about the bike... heal the body first... f'n turkeys

[Hellgate]

High sided at racing a motorcycle in T2 of Firebird Raceway on the short, night course many years ago at about 110ish. Took a helicopter ride I don't remember, woke up asking for aspirin, was told I'd already had two shots morphine...realized I had problems on hands larger than my crashed bike.

Focus on your health, getting well and not rushing things. Cycling will always be there for you. Right now, you need to be there for you and your family.

Get well and heal fully!

Sent from my ONEPLUS A5010 using Tapatalk

[stax]

Ribs are a horrid injury. I really hope you don’t catch a cold- sneezing/ coughing with broken ribs is the worst. I was off the road for 12 weeks IIRC but I also fell off a small motorbike during recovery, so it was longer than it could have been. It is worth sleeping in a recliner chair if you have one as it is damned difficult to get out of bed, but I’m sure you know that by now. I was off work for 2 weeks followed by light duties.

Give the body a few weeks before worrying about the bike too much- that said, you have time to browse for spares in the sales!

I’m currently on week 3 of 12 of no riding with a broken hand in the Southern Hemisphere summer. Mighty frustrating but I’ll use my trainer a bit and look forward to working back to fitness.

All the best and don’t let it get you down. It will be over soon enough.

[ico]

I had a crash with a rabbit this year. Broken collarbone and lots of road rashes too. It tooks 8 weeks to fully recover, I had no surgery. First few days were worst, sleeping seated etc. It happened to me in May, so most beautiful months to ride were lost. Rehab is very important. Good luck, you will be fine soon. Good article on broken collarbone https://www.trainingpeaks.com/blog/reco ... ne-part-1/

[rajMAN]

Sorry to hear of your accident. Focus on the fact that you will recover and the first day you get out on the bike again it will feel wonderful and you will truly appreciate why you ride bikes in the first place. In the meantime focus on full recovery (its not a race) and take time to do the things you can do whilst laid up. Sometimes an enforced absence from riding is a chance to appreciate it even more. Sadly I speak from experience, a few years ago I was in leg plaster for 6 weeks and 4 of those weeks were the most calm and beautiful Spring riding weather I swear I have ever seen!

[Calnago]

I guess there’s all different degrees of breaks. If they are saying 4-8 weeks and no surgery then I’m presuming your collarbone is not in separate pieces and likely not displaced. That is good. Do you have an X-ray you could post. A little over 18 months ago I broke my collarbone. In ER they said I’d probably have surgery. Recovery would be much quicker. But the orthopedic surgeon, the next day, said no surgery. Some 6-8 weeks later on the advice of others I sought out a 2nd, 3rd and 4th opinions. All of them said they would have done surgery at the time but by then I already had “frozen shoulder” and they didn’t want to risk immobilizing it further at that point, at least not until I got mobility back and the frozen shoulder was gone. Long story long, it took way longer to recover from than had I had surgery at the beginning. Quite depressing during that time. But had I had the surgery I would have likely been back on the bike after 3 months or so versus the hella long time it seemed to recover.

[wheelbuilder]

Thanks so much everyone for the super helpful and kind replies. Especially to those who described the calm beautiful weather outside their window as they recovered inside the house. I'm thinking that the pain level is what is surprising me the most. This happened on the 26th, so I am 9 days into recovery and almost everything is so painful. Breathing, laying down, etc. I was excited about sitting in the living room this morning and reading these replies, so thank you guys!
@Tony..........I remember the Paramedic that was driving the ambulance leaning back through the partition as he was trying to make a u-turn on the narrow road and stating something like "there's the Turkey you hit" So I'm assuming he was deceased on the side of the road or something.

@Calnago.......... it is broken into two pieces. As it happens, I have an appointment with the orthopedist today, to look at it again. As of now, I was told no surgery, but that may change. I will discuss that today considering your story and advice.
One of the problems with this whole situation is I have Kaiser. I like Kaiser very much and have received great care from them over the years. After the collision, I was unfortunately a Trauma activation, and Kaiser does not have Trauma Center designation in this area so I had to go to another hospital. I was there for two days because of head injury. Was seen by their orthopedist and had all the x-rays, mri's etc. So now I kind of have to start over with my provider. I will make sure I discuss surgery. Thanks guys.

[boots2000]

I had similar injuries with the addition of a couple broken vertebrae about 5 years ago.
I was in the hospital for 4 days- largely from the punctured lung.
I was able to start riding again 17 days after the crash.

I suggest you do everything in your power to get them to plate your collarbone- This will get you moving more quickly.

Don't even worry about the bike- just replace everything that needs repalcing. If you are like me you don't want to look at scraped up parts.

Sorry for the accident- Be positive, you will be riding again soon.

Mountain descent. Struck Turkey at 41mph. Over the bars, loss of consciousness , transported to trauma center. Broken collarbone, 3 broken ribs, stitches, road rash everywhere, etc. Combined with expensive and numerous bike repairs.....etap shifter, rear derailleur, carbon bars, saddle, possible front carbon clincher........ can seem like a lot to deal with at one time. Especially when combined with missing possibly a few weeks of work. Recovery stated to be 4-8 weeks. Any similar stories? advice? feeling a little depressed. Thanks for any and all responses.

[Calnago]

To be clear, I am certainly not advising one way or another regarding surgery, as I am not a doctor. I am feeling fine now but it did take an awfully long time without surgery.
I found out that there are basically three criteria when surgery may become the more viable option...
1) complete displacement fracture
2) more than ~2cm shortening (overlap of the broken collarbone sections)
3) comminuted break (more than two pieces)

In my case I had all the above (the overlap was just shy of 2cm). Yet, I guess mine was still a judgement call. So it really depends on who you get as a surgeon etc.
Good luck. Report back as it’s such a common cycling injury that many of us have gone through. The broken ribs don’t help things either. Good luck and speedy recovery.

Oh, and my break was kind of in the middle, whereas if the break is at either of the extremities closer to the shoulder or sternum, then I have no idea what they look at. I just concentrated on educating myself on the type of break that I had in its location.

[numberSix]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tegaderm

and PT PT PT . Whatever you can do, to continue the sanity-restorative, endorphin-supplying addition that is cycling.

If the weather is nice, set up the trainer outside, at the lowest resistance and spin every day. You might need to set up the bars higher (or block the front wheel) so your torso is upright for those ribs. If your road bike is your only bike, don't be afraid to call friends to loan you a slick-tire mtb (higher bars), or a trainer if you need one.

best wishes
6

[wheelbuilder]

Thanks again everyone. Just got back from ortho. My x-ray looks similar to yours Calnago, but i have slightly more overlap of bone on top of bone. He is 95% confident that I won't need surgery but because it is not laying end to end says the growing back together process can be a bit slower. He wants to see it in 10 more days before completely ruling out surgery. Says it should get more solid as a new "one piece structure" in about 2 weeks. Then Physical Therapy. Thinks 5-7 weeks total as an optimistic prognosis. The down side to no surgery is pretty substantial deformity, and it is usually vanity that prompts most surgeries. No trainer for me, as I ride rollers. So that sucks too. Cycling is such a huge part of my life and aid to mental well being. This is going to be tough, but I will probably be back riding sooner that it seems right now.