I'm not a doctor... but this isn't good!

#3 is a healthy collarbone

my collarbone

February 18 at 4:30 PM - my right clavicle snapped in two places. I was on a mountain bike ride when my front wheel suddenly stopped, and my body didn't. I was going about 15 mph and landed really hard, banging up my helmet, to boot! All that I can imagine happened is that I rolled over a stick that flipped up into my spokes causing my front wheel to lock up. I haven't gone out to the garage yet to look at my bike, but I am betting that there are a couple of spokes that are badly bent.

February 19 @ 7:30 PM- laid in bed all day. I am controlling the pain with medication. I have to make sure my arm is supported at all times or a shooting pain from my collarbone to the palm of my hand is intense. My right hand has had varying degrees of tingling ever since the accident. There is some minor swelling as well. I have good grip strength with my right hand, but juggling seems a long way away.

Tomorrow at 9 a.m. I go to see the orthopedic doctor. We will take new x-rays and review what has happened to the injury in the last 48 hours. I have read that only 5% of clavicle injuries require surgery. Most of those cases are when the bone actually pops through the skin.

February 20 @ 3:20 PM - First things first... one of my friends called me and told me I should be resting and not keeping a blog on my injury. I must tell you I could be no more restful - between the pain medicine, lazy boy chair that Annie bought me, and this fantastic voice recognition software which I'm using... it's amazing. So, relaxation is covered. I am going to do everything I can and then some to put this behind me. Plus,you know me, I am incapable of completely shutting down!

I must say that Annie has been amazing since the moment this happened. Full-time Zed duty, full-time Barry duty, and even taking time to read her books and do her writing. Today we went to the orthopedic doctor who was recommended by the emergency hospital, and he was not the right answer. After about two minutes it became obvious that he was better suited for putting on casts, then he was for putting my collarbone back together.

He did, however, prescribe me a much more serious pain medication. He said the Vicodin 5 mg that I had been given by the emergency hospital, was nowhere near enough to keep me comfortable. Speaking of which, last night was very intense. I woke up three times for shooting pains down my arm so bad that I screamed, right out of sleep. Poor Annie, went from sleeping to having her heart racing, and she took it all in stride.

In about two hours I am going to see an orthopedic surgeon named Dr. Soto. He was recommended by my physician and by my good friend who is also a physician. There is a sports clinic in Sacramento with a doctor who is highly recommended as well, and if I don't connect with Dr. Soto, I will make an appointment with him.

The one thing that is painfully clear to me now is that this is going to require surgery. This is not the kind of break that goes back together by itself. There are two breaks in the piece between the breaks needs to be put back in place. So, considering this is the first time in my life I've ever broken a bone, it looks like I did it right!

February 20 @ 7:20 PM - So today we met the man will do the surgery on my collarbone. Dr. Gabriel Soto will do the job on Thursday afternoon at Sierra Memorial Hospital in Grass Valley. We had a 20 minute consultation with him and he was very passionate and positive about the operation and the outcome. He said I could do a show again in 10 weeks, and as we talk he said I would probably be ready even sooner. We both liked his energy and his enthusiasm for his work.

He showed us a couple of x-rays of similar operations he's performed, and I imagine one day my x-ray will be one of the samples he shows. As I sit here tonight with a fair amount of pain in my right arm, and a big lump on my collarbone where two bones are pushing together, I feel a lot gratitude. I am healthy, strong, and know that this will soon just be a memory. It could have been so much worse.

Tonight I will sleep in this new recliner chair that Annie bought for me, take a couple of the serious Norco 10 pain pills, and sleep with a sandbag over my right hand to hold it down. With all that are in place, I anticipate a much better sleep than last night.