Tough Luck

Tulsa Tough 2009.

In hindsight, Tulsa last year was pretty successful for me. I can say that now that I have attended the 2009 edition.

Tulsa Tough consists of three days of criteriums, each day in a different part of downtown Tulsa. It is very well organised, has huge money, and attracts a lot of riders. Last year the finishing packs were around 60 women, but this year it was around 90. A 50% increase on entry numbers is HUGE, especially for a womens field.

The bigger fields meant more agressive riding, a faster pace, and an increased chance of crashing. The first race on friday night I ended up behind three bad crashes, but fortunately missed them all. Teammate Sammy was not so lucky and went down, but recovered enough to get back into the mix and finish third, an excellent effort with regards to the lineup and the injuries she sustained (sore wrist and left side).

Saturday dawned and Sam and I were pretty sore and tired from the Friday night crit.

Sam's father Dave and boyfriend Andy had driven down from Wisconsin to watch the racing, and made sure we ate well before each race. In the pic below, Dave is giving me heaps as I try to pose with the biggest drink container ever seen. It is also my last evidence of being able to raise my right arm.

With limited typing ability, I'll copy what I wrote to our PR dude, Sean Weide, with regards to the massive crash early on in Saturday's race which left me with 3 broken vertebrae (T3, T4, T5) and a grade three separated shoulder which requires surgery.

...there was nothing that exciting about the crash. we were coming through the start/finish and the bunch swelled slightly. i had a lane along the fenceline and was moving up. a clash of wheels in the middle of the pack started the chain reaction, and at first i throught i'd missed it. suddenly bikes and bodies were sliding out in my direction. it was a classic, 'nowhere to go' scenario. a bike slid into my bike, wedging itself between the front wheel and the downtube and bringing me to an extremely sudden halt. i was catapulted over, landing on my neck/shoulder, then my back. i have extremely high bone density and do not expect to break bones, but this was a bad landing and my back was immediately sore, forcing me to sit up as soon as i could. i felt a big lump in my shoulder and had trouble seeing, so knew things weren't going so well for me on a couple of fronts.

I was helped to the medical tent, unaware that around forty women had also crashed. They stopped the race, not because of injuries (pretty sure mine were the worst and I was up (I think) fairly quickly), but because so many required mechanical assistance for their bikes.

I sat in the medical tent and was surrounded by ice offerings. Yes please on my neck, yes please on the back of the head, yes please to ice on my shoulder. 'My back'. I kept saying. 'My back is sore. Can I have ice on my back?' Eventually ice was added to my back area, which required someone to stand there and hold it into place. Very grateful for this.

EMT were called and as soon as I mentioned neck and back, they had me in a collar and moved onto a stiff board. This hurt a lot.

Ambulance arrived soon after and I was loaded up and transported, not without some comical events surrounding the location of my insulin pump. Apparantly word got out to the announcers that my pump was missing, and they used this story time and time again in their commentary for Saturdays and Sundays race. The crash was 'so bad' that a diabetic rider from Team Type 1 lost her insulin pump! The reality was that I was asking for my pump to come with me to the hospital, but it couldn't be found in my backpack. I knew it was in my backpack but was too out of it to work out why they couldn't find it. Plus in my neck collar thingo I couldn't even see where they were searching for it. I don't race with my pump - as I pre-set it for race conditions, then leave it in my backpack for safekeeping. Turns out that not my backpack, but teammate Sam's which had accompanied me to the hospital. My backpack was still sitting at the team van waiting for the ladies to finish the race, with the pump safely stored inside it!

At hospital we had the painful experience of moving onto a bed, and then going through a ton of x rays. The whole time I had my neck brace on and was unable to move much. I was hoping it was all precautionary stuff, but the pain wasn't reassuring me.

swollen shoulder/neck area, which is hard to tell with the bib & braces still on!

The x rays showed a suspected problem with my spine, but did confirm a grade three shoulder separation. I couldn't believe that I hadn't broken my clavicle or shoulder. But I remembered my bone density and assumed that this is what prevented any fractures here. The concern about my spine faded as I knew the shoulder had taken more of the impact - or so I thought. A cat scan was ordered to check on the spine. Yeah, whatever, precautionary stuff, I was thinking. It just must be badly bruised.

Another hour wait and the doctor returned with suprising news: spinous process fractures in T3, T4, and T5 of my spine. This is from the info they sent me home with:

A fracture of the spinous process is a break of a part of one of the bones in the spine. This part extends out from the side of the main body of the bone (called the vertebral body).

It takes a lot of force to cause this type of fracture. Because other organs and so many other parts of the spine are close to the transverse processes, these fractures usually occur at the same time as injuries to:

- other bones

- organs

- possibly the spinal cord

major organ concerns are with the lung, kidney, spleen and liver.

Patients with spinous process fractures have severe pain even if the actual break is small or limited and there is no injury to nearby bones, organs, or the spinal cord.

Luckily, I don't have any other issues with other organs or lungs or the rest of my spine. Just a lot of pain.

I was able to be released from hospital with some pain meds - this is me after some morphine:

Other benefits of being on a womens team was having assistance with showering - thanks to Avery on Saturday night, and Kori on Sunday. Really really appreciated that!

The ladies came round to visit me before Sunday's race:

And gave me some shoulder separation sympathy:

There was a bit of publicity about it too:

Cyclingnews

Velonews

Fyxomatosis

Team Type 1 Blog - news story

Team Type 1 Blog - update

On Monday I flew back to Philly and am now back at base in Newtown Sq, west of Philadelphia. Flying yesterday was a bit of a struggle. I can't carry anything, so had to receive help from airport staff, including getting pushed around in a wheelchair. I had no idea how much to tip them, so it ended up costing a bit more than I anticipated (maybe I should have asked them for a receipt?).

My housemate Colette has been looking after me with important tasks such as opening bottles of drink, bottles of drugs, and grabbing the ice from the freezer. This is from this morning's ice session:

Yes I even dressed myself today! The jersey is great as it is full zipper. I don't have a lot of full zipper summer wear. Bit of an issue for now!!

I have been worried about the impacts of my blood sugars since the accident, but to tell you the truth they have been excellent so far (touch wood). I expect them to start rising as the impacts of lying around and not doing much kick in. Bring on the Apidra to help me out with this!! I have never been more grateful to have such excellent tools like the Freestyle Navigator and the OmniPod to help me out, especially with so many tasks needing to be performed with just one hand. Both gadgets are so easy to operate one handed.

But there is one positive thing from the whole experience so far: I scored a 99 last night (= 5.5 in Aussie scale).

This week the focus is on dealing with the immediate pain impacts from the crash, getting a more detailed assessment of shoulder surgery requirements, and trying to reduce the swelling to help facilitate some action in this area as soon as possible.