We’ve all heard it before but when you have something happen to you, it really makes you think. I flew over the handlebars of my mountain bike twice on one outing about 10 days ago. Not sure what happened this time out, as I don’t recall ever falling (like a real fall) before, or at least going over the bars! The second fall turned out to be really painful especially in the rib area.. Landed on my side on the ribs pretty hard. It was slow motion and I knew it was coming, but couldn’t get my hands freed up to break the fall. A loud thump and me thinking, “this isn’t good, that was really hard, but I don’t think I heard any cracks” Then I thought, man this is not going to feel good tomorrow. Actually it progressively got worse over the next 5 days, enough so where I decided an x-ray was in order. So got the X-ray and the dr thought she saw a cracked rib or two near my spine. Turns out a day later that a specialist looked and said I was fine, no breaks. So great news! I would heal much faster!
I hadn’t been able to sleep very well as it was hard to find a position without pain. I try not to take pain meds unless it’s unbearable. Anyway I managed, but worse than the sleeping was the limited exercising that I could do. I told the dr that I wanted to try riding my bike and she looked at me like I lost my mind. Anyway, I said I would test it out and if not painful, then ride. Well it was painful, as was running and weight lifting. I could lift a little with certain muscles, but anything where I had to lay on my back was out. Push ups were very limited as were any heavy weights. Well this sucks, I thought, I can’t do anything! But I also thought it could have been worse.
So I have once again been reminded that our health is really the most important thing. So I will gradually get back into all my exercise routines and push even harder. I will eat even better and keep reminding myself how lucky we the relatively healthy ones are and that I am really nothing without my health.