Battered but not beaten..

I came home from my first knitting class-it was great of course. There were all middle aged women such as me, who just wanted to learn something new. I caught on pretty quick at least to the basics.

I hopped on the trainer. Hartley had decided it would be a good day to ride the Bosque Trail so I said go for it. I wanted to ride inside because of the lateness, coldness (although it turned out to be a nice day). About one hour into the ride, the phone rings. On the other end was a voice I didn't even recognize for a split second. Then I had the "oh shit" feeling momentarily, like something is wrong here. Well, it was Hartley, who said in a very calm weird voice that he had taken a spill on the bike, on the trail and that he was in the boathouse. Now I couldn't quite compute the boathouse thing, I mean we live near no bodies of water with boats that I remembered. I kept asking, what boathouse? Oh and "how are you" finally came out? He said he was OK but had a pretty bad cut over his eye..His eye? He said he think he landed on his sunglasses, he thinks someone helped him up but couldn't really remember what happened-but didn't pass out (that is debatable-denial runs deep in his family). He said the ambulance was on it's way. OK, I am on my way-tell them to take you to St. Joe's (our insurance, etc). He said oh no you don't have to come yet. I was like-are you kidding?? So off to Lovelace I went after I called Heather-she is good in crisis mode and I knew I needed back-up here. I was really stressed on the way to the hospital,thinking of brain injuries, etc. Sometimes too much knowledge is not power, as they say. Heather was awesome and met us at the hospital. The first thing I see is Hartley on a stretcher coming out of the ambulance. His head was wrapped in a bandage, kind of like he was from some scene out of a war movie or a zombie.



He sounded alert and talking, saying he was fine and I am thinking, but too embarrassed to ask-where the "F" is your bike?" The paramedic, bless his heart, is a cyclist and immediately offered-"the bike is fine" Hartley said it was locked up in the boathouse, which by the way is at Tingly Beach, I guess where the restaurant is-they rent out boats. The manager there was locking up for the night and saw Hartley and called the ambulance. The bike trail south of central has those nasty bumps. Well, now they have gotten worse from the cold. He apparently hit one of those and basically did a face plant. The whole left side of his face and eye were swollen, with a big hole in one part of the gash-I think he must have hit a rock or something. The amazing thing is, he got up and rode his bike about 2 miles after that, thinking he was OK. I was like-"and no one stopped you and asked if you needed help?" Well, I guess not and if I saw someone that looked like Frankenstein on the trail, I would be scared to stop too. When he stopped at that bathroom at Tingley he finally saw what had happened and freaked out.

We ended up being in the ER about 4 hours, which by ER standards isn't bad. The CAT scan showed no internal damage or broken face bones (thank god). The Dr. who sewed him up is the son of our neighbor (that is funny-we are seeing sons of people we know as Dr.s now). He stitched him up with 14 stitches plus some deeper ones in big hole. Here is a picture-it is actually worse without the bandaids but didn't want to scare anyone. I think he looks like a fighter personally. I felt so proud because he kept telling people he was training for an Ironman!






The good news: No broken bones, sprains anywhere else. He has some minor road rash on his hip so he must have rolled some. He was is major pain last night-thank goodness for good drugs, which he took and then felt great-amazing!. We slept good after a long stressful night. Thank God I am not squeamish from the sight of skin that looks like hamburger meat because Nurse Debi changed his band aids this AM already. It actually looks better than I thought it would this morning. And the most important thing is we are going to pick up his bike today, where it is nicely locked up in the "boathouse restaurant". So be sure to be nice to those folks-they may have saved Hartley's bike-oh and life too! We found his "ID band" that Becca gave us this morning and decided after this it might be a good idea to actually wear it while training. And ALWAYS bring a cell phone, no matter what!

I know he is definitely one of us now because the first thing he said this AM was, "maybe I can ride my trainer today" I was like-no way buddy-we are taking the day off!