Crash

I had a crash this week so I'm going to hijack your thread. Text is copied directly from my post on another forum so apologies if it contains in-jokes or personal references. I find it hard to type so I'm not rewriting it:

I was riding my bike to work on Tuesday morning. I don't actually remember anything beyond walking out the front door with my bike and the next thing I knew I was in A&E but pretty out of it (morphine). Turns out I broke my clavicle (collar bone) when I fell off my bike. I was at Marble Arch (approximately) when it happened so I was 97% of the way there (I was working on Henrietta Place behind Oxford Street).

I don't know how or why I fell off my bike or if anyone else was involved although I'm guessing if they were I'd know about it by now. Some guy picked me up off the road and put me in an ambulance and locked my bike up for me. I knocked myself unconscious for a while but somehow I have his number and a piece of paper explaining who he is and what hospital I'm going to (it literally says "Tom - guy who picked you up. Paddington. Fell off your bike.").

I texted him already to say thanks and he says I fell off quite spectacularly. I really want to know what happened now though so I'm going to ring him soon and find out.

Anyway I was drifiting in and out of consiousness in A&E (partly the accident and partly the morphine) as a result I can't remember much of that beyond talking to one of the nurses and having to pee in a bottle. Its a shame really as I really want to know what Morphine feels like but I was too out of it to actually remember.

I had a bit of head trauma too and have bleeding in my brain which the doctors were really worried about and when they asked me things I'd respond by shaking my head yes or no which made them freak out but its just instinct to do it really isn't it? Anyway after some experts looked at the scans they said not to worry and that the blood would just get re-absorbed. EDIT: according to my patient discharge sheet I had a temporal intracerebral haemorrhage. Also according to this sheet I collided with a car although I don't know where they got that info from. Possibly not true.

They decided (after a huge amount of deliberation and changing their minds) to not operate on me and I just have to wear a sling and wait for it to heal (a long time unfortunately). I'd have preferred the operation but they weren't too wild on that idea due to my head trauma. So I've got to put up with a useless shoulder for a while.

No bike for a long time and I can't work for a while. Shoulder should take 6 weeks minimum to heal apparently which sucks cause I'm skint and need to be working - I'd just started a temp job 8 days previous to the crash but can't possibly go back to it.

First time I've been unconscious and the first time I've broken a bone (not bad at 30 years old).

My only other injury is some scratching on my back and some nasty road rash on my knee (its gone black but it looks like its mending already).

I'm not a big fan of the helmet debate but just to say I was wearing one and it now has a split in it due to it hitting the ground. If I wasn't wearing it that force would have gone to my skull which may or may not have been very bad. I don't want to preach but I'm pretty much 100% convinced now that a helmet is a good thing (not that I really had many doubts before). I'm most impressed with my Canondale gloves. They're not scratched or ripped at all and my hands are fine (unless I just managed not to land on my hands at all which would be a strange seeing as its instinct to put them out and a broken clavicle is usually as a result of landing with your hands out).

Anyway that took ages to type and my shoulder is killing now.

BTW my bike is apparently fine! just a bit of damage to the mudguard. Lucky escape Mr Bike! (I've not seen it though as my GF collected it for me and left it at her work till I'm well enough to fetch it).

I'm all dopey too from all the pain killers. Its like I'm a lazy stoner again but not as much fun.