Saturday, December 24, 2011

Owies, owies everywhere

Hi folks, your faithful poster on All Things Rachel took a break yesterday because of a nasty bike accident I got into late in the afternoon. In its zeal to add streetcar tracks everywhere, the city of Portland seems to forget that a light rail lane in the absence of a bike lane is NOT a safe location for bikers. To wit: I was biking down Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. on a quick, 45-minute afternoon ride yesterday when I suddenly found myself in a regular car lane. To get out of the way of the car behind me, I veered off to the right, got my front wheel entangled in a streetcar track, and fell, hard, on my right side (bike fell on top of me. Yes, I was wearnig a helmet but my head hit the pavement and I felt the reverberations anyway). I dragged myself to the sidewalk in front of a furniture store, rested for about 10 minutes and debated whether to call Drew or not - he was finishing up his workday before we all headed to the synagogue's Hanukkah celebration -- then decided to let him know. As soon as he got on the phone, I started sobbing. I believe I was in shock.

Bottom line: Drew came to get me (my bike's gears are useless; need to go to the bike store to figure out what's up) and he went to synagogue with Rachel while I stayed home and parked myself in front of the TV, icing my hand for about three hours.

Drew called me every hour from synagogue just to make sure I hadn't lapsed into a coma, or something. Turns out they ran out of latkes and the brisket was inedible -- next year we will go only to the service and the music & sufganyiot afterward. Everyone was concerned about me, and Rachel told Drew she wanted to give me a big hug and kiss when she got home. She impressed the heck out of the rabbi when he taught her the word sufganyiot and she responded by singing the Hanukkah song. "In Yiddish, yet!" he said in wonder. She really will be the top student in her Hebrew school class someday...

This morning I was extremely stiff and sore and could barely move my neck, so I took Drew's advice for a change and went to urgent care while he and Rachel did the grocery shopping. No broken bones or sprains, just bad internal bruising. The doc gave me Vicodin and Flexeril, and I am so grateful (although I've been nauseous for the past day or so). I've been taking Vicodin every two hours, and it does seem to dull the pain and is making me sleepy.

One nice thing about all of this is that the doc who was on call today was...Ellen Singer, my primary care physician! (readers may remember that she dropped by for Rachel's baby-naming ceremony). She asked all about Rachel, and as long as I was there, she gave me a Pap smear, checked my ears for excessive earwax, took a bunch of X-rays of my bruises, and we caught up on all the family news. As I left, I told her that the nicest thing about all of this drama was being able to see her after a long absence. And yes, she's Jewish -- of COURSE she was on call on Christmas Eve!

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