Where’s Mike?
Do you remember the Where’s Waldo books? They were a popular kid’s item twenty or so years ago. We had two of them, each filled with page after page of puzzles where the purpose was to find where the Waldo character was hidden. The problem was, those pages were chock-full of images cleverly designed to hide Waldo. I remember spending at least a couple of hours sitting in the back seat of our van as we drove to Minnesota one year helping my kids search through page after page in search of Waldo.
If you’re one of the two regular readers of this blog, you may have noticed a frequent subject of many of my blog posts has been missing. Where’s Mike? Is he mad at us? Has he given up cycling? Has he left town? What’s with him? It’s been a month since I last mentioned him. Did I offend him by making fun of his kit the last time we rode?
Well, the good news is that the answer to all of those questions is “no”. Mike’s still around; he’s just in recovery mode.
That picture above is Mike. Ignore what you can almost make out. Ignore the fact that he’s got a zipper installed in his groin. Do you notice anything else? Yes, it’s hard not to.
That big deck screw pointing up into his hip is the result of a crash he had about a month ago.
We were out on our Wednesday evening ride from church, and he crashed. It was one of those silly crashes we’ve all had, but for some reason, this one was bad.
I didn’t see it happen. He was in front of us, and when he crashed, he managed to get back on the bike with the help of one of the guys with us. Pam and I caught up with him about three blocks from church, and he was pedaling really slowly. The first sign of trouble we noticed was the big gash in his elbow and blood running down it.
Pam and I even jokingly started to give him grief for crashing on such an easy little ride. Then, I realized he must be hurt pretty badly. His face was gray and pallid. I asked him how bad he was hurt, and he just looked at me and said, “I don’t think I can get off this bike. You’re going to have to catch me”.
That’s what we did. We managed to get him loaded into a van, called his wife, and hauled him to the hospital where x-rays confirmed my suspicion. He broke his hip. They performed surgery to repair it while I was in Colorado.
From all accounts, his recovery is going well, but it’s not going to be quick. He’s anxious to get back on the bike, and I’m anxious to have him back.
Through it all, though, you know what amazes me? The fact that Mike managed to ride his bike nearly a mile with a broken hip. Wow! Talk about a tough cookie!
God bless….
TW
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July 9, 2012 at 1:08 pm
Ouch! I know from experience how bad that hurts.
I fractured my hip running. Slipped, my feet went out from under me sideways, and I landed right on my hip. I managed to stand back up and take a couple of steps and realized that something was really wrong and sat back down.
In my case it was about 3 months before I could walk with full weight on my left leg and 6 months before I was back to as normal as I was going to get. I don’t run anymore, but I can bike, go hiking and do just about everything else I want to do.
Give Mike my hopes for a speedy recovery and tell him that I’ve found that swimming with a kick board and fins and taking the occasional yoga class are extremely helpful.
July 9, 2012 at 4:32 pm
OMG! I just figured that since you were in Colorado Mike was off doing his own thing. Tell Mike I wish him a speedy recovery, from Arizona.
July 9, 2012 at 5:05 pm
I like Mike!
July 10, 2012 at 12:34 am
Hardcore!
July 10, 2012 at 3:33 pm
I have been swimming alot. at least an hour a day. I spend 45 min hanging on to the edge of the pool kicking, then try to use my arms alot, Some days I hang on to the edge on my back and kick like I’m riding a bike, one day I did this for an hour. I can tell it is going to be hard not to gain weight. Thanks for the prayers everybody. I go in for a checkup on the 16th to see if I can start therapy.
July 10, 2012 at 4:32 pm
Sounds like you’re ahead of me recovery wise. Good luck!