The Crash and the Road Rash

I went to a local criterium race last Tuesday, like I do every Tuesday, only this time, things went horribly wrong. I was working late in the lab trying to finish up nerve conduction on my mice and didn't finish until about 6:30. I debated whether or not to go to the race because it started at 7:30, and I didn't have much time.I ended up deciding to go, because I have been feeling pretty down lately and trying to internally work things through as they relate to cycling. I ran home, scarfed down a bowl of cereal, changed into my kit, and jumped on my bike.

Well, folks, on the second lap of the race, I crashed. And it wasn't just a little crash. I don't really remember what happened, but I know my wheels just went out from underneath me, I don't know why, or how, but they did. I hit my head pretty hard and smashed the front of my helmet in. All I remember is that sickening feeling when your bike starts to move out from underneath you, sliding along the pavement, and then sitting up to check my helmet. Then somehow was lying on the grass with all of these people looking around me. I don't know if I just can't remember how I got to the grass, or if I lost consciousness...either way, I ended up being surrounded by about 10 people lying on the grass at the side of the road.

Some nice guy drove me to the hospital, which was less than 5 minutes from the race, and the race organizer called my room-mate to come meet me. (We conveniently live directly across the street from the largest trauma centre in Alberta.) I spent 7 hours in emerg, 5.5 of which I was waiting to be seen by a doctor. I just sat there, shivering, bleeding and trying not to throw up on the person next to me. Eventually, when I was seen, I was declared to have concussion (duh) and severe road rash (double duh). They gave me a Percoset, referred me to the burn clinic and sent me home. They didn't even attempt to clean my road rash or put any sort of dressing on it. Normally I am a big advocate of Canadian Healthcare, but I'm seriously a bit pissed off right now.

I am super thankful that the ER doc had the sense to refer me to the burn clinic, otherwise I would be in so much pain. When I went to the burn clinic on Wednesday, and the nurse saw that I didn't have any dressings on any of the road rash (which is covering 10% of my body) and that it hadn't been cleaned she went ape sh**t.  The two worst burns that I have are on my upper right arm and right hip/pelvic bone. Because they didn't clean anything, or really look at the burns, nobody noticed that I had bone exposed on my right hip. (Yes folks, I spent 20 hours with a bone exposed from road rash without it being cleaned or bandaged.)Lets just say that the cleaning of the burns definitely makes my top 10 list of most painful experiences (and I have chronic pain...).

Canadian healthcare has both failed me and saved me since my injuries on Tuesday. I am grateful that I get to wear $200 worth of silver bandages, and that I get to have them changed and cleaned everyday other day without paying a dime. But also super pissed off that the ER doc didn't do the job that I waited 7 hours for him to do.I get that they were busy, but come on, you still have to provide necessary care.

I also feel really awful about the fact that I caused the crash, and the the woman behind me who is an amazing bike racer broke her wrist and can't race this weekend. She didn't seem up set about the fact that I was the reason she broke her wrist, which is good, but I still feel awful about it. Crashing is an unfortunate part of cycling. 

For a long while I have been thinking about giving up cycling for good. It is insanely hard to try and train and race at the level I need to be at without having a functioning lower right leg. It is like I am riding on jello. I might be eligible for para-cycling, but I have essentially been waiting about 9 months to get medical documentation and a proper neuro assessment. I still want to ride my bike because I love it, (well, not at this moment) but racing is not something that I can do right now. (The Tuesday night criterium series doesn't count as racing because it's just for fun.) I am getting super depressed about not going to Canada Games (which are going on right now), as it has been my goal for the past few years, and that goal has essentially been crushed. I am not at the level I need to be to competitive at Canada Games, and I am fully aware of that, it just sucks that it is all because of a medically unnecessary surgery when I was 15. In a way the concussion makes me feel a bit better that I am not going to Canada Games, because even if I was set to fly to Quebec next Saturday, I wouldn't be able to compete with a concussion.

I guess all this time I am spending sleeping and not exercising will give me more time to reflect on what I want to do with cycling, and also time to finish up my application for UBC's School of Medicine. It's just unfortunate that somebody had to break their wrist, and I had to lose a lot of skin and smash my head into the pavement to take this time to reflect.

(This is also concussion number 6 for me, so I should probably get off this computer.)

I think I want to be a Surgeon.

To Spencer,

For a long time I have wanted to be a surgeon, probably since I watch the first season of Grey's Anatomy when I was 12. While Grey's Anatomy is pretty unrealistic (but a girl can dream right?), I still had difficulty wrapping my mind around how a person could operate for 10-12 hours straight. How is it possible to focus for that long without eating or going to the bathroom? I feel like I need to eat every 37 seconds and go pee at least once every 3 hours.  (Lets just say I find exams challenging...)

But this week I had to do 20 sciatic nerve crush surgeries on mice, and each one takes about an hour. For two days I did 10 hours straight of surgeries without eating or going to the bathroom. I got the lab at 8 am on Tuesday and left at 9pm, and on Wednesday I got there at 8am and left after 10pm. I have the new record for longest time a summer student has ever spent in the lab. I'm pretty sick of looking at mice and I still have to inject them until the 8th of July.

This experience has showed me that I actually might be able to be a surgeon. I really quite enjoy the tedious and fine motor skills aspect of doing surgeries on mice. I am the only one in the lab able to do it without aid of a microscope. I can see details that others can't see with a naked eye. Perhaps surgery is in my future.

This post is dedicated to Dr. Spencer McLean., who sadly passed away on June 24 from kidney cancer. He had just completed his orthopedic surgery residency and passed his boards two weeks prior to his death. He was my ski coach for 3 years as a child, and every year I hoped that I would be assigned to his group. Spencer was my absolute favourite coach, and he always will be for he taught me a lot more than just how to be fast on a pair of skis. He taught me that skiing makes you one with the mountain, it makes you a part of something magnificent. He taught me that you must first love what you do, be passionate about what  you do, and then you must work hard in order to become great.

From what I have heard, he became an amazing surgeon, dedicated to his patients in every way. He loved what he did, he was passionate about it and he was great at it. I think I have always wanted to "be like Spencer," he was the perfect mentor. He is a person I will never forget and who I will think of often as I begin my journey to becoming a physician, and hopefully a surgeon.

Thank you Spencer for inspiring me to reach high, work hard and to enjoy the ride.

Sincerely,

A Yiper

The Flood of 2013

My city is flooding.

This morning I went to neurology/neurosurgery grand rounds, and everything felt completely normal. They had two crazy cases they discussed, and I walked out feeling awesome. Then I went back to my lab, and saw what was going on in the city. I felt like I was being punched in the stomach. This can't be real. This stuff doesn't happen where I live, only on the TV in distant lands.

I have spent my entire life watching other cities all over the world crumble in natural disasters such as earthquakes, tsunamis and floods, but never have I ever had to live it, that was until yesterday. My city is flooding and there is nothing I can do about it. I live on top of a hill, or as they would say in Ontario, on top of an escarpment.  I'm safe, I don't think the river is going to rise over 100m, yet I also feel the panic. So many people have been forced to evacuate, and the entire downtown area has flooded. The upside is that I had to leave work at 11:30 because they shut the power off in our building (I still don't know why...), but the rest of the hospital is fine.

I went to go buy water at the store today...and of course its all gone. I then went to target, and thankfully got four 1L bottles. I didn't want to buy more than that out of fear of being too greedy in this time of disaster. I brought 2 L to my grandmother, along with an umbrella. As of yet, our water and power are all on, but I fear that it may change in a few days. I also bought more food, such as a dried goods, canned things, 4L of milk, a crap load of juice because I couldn't find anymore water, and some more fruit. I have never had to respond to a natural disaster before, so I am new at this stocking up on supplies thing...I was proud that I remember to buy a flashlight though.

I feel very trapped here. I get that feeling on a normal basis, but when I do, I just drive back to the mountains of BC to my parent's house or to one of our cabins. But those roads are closed and/or completely washed out. So I am trapped in Calgary. I HATE FEELING TRAPPED!

I just want to go home....(which is also flooding, but I feel safer in the mountains).

Ready or Not?

Tomorrow is my last day to study, as per the recommendation of Examkrackers I shouldn't even be studying tomorrow, but I have few more things to review. Really, I could review until I'm 30 years old and I still wouldn't feel ready. 

I'm hoping for a 30, and if I could manage a 32 I might actually have a heart attack. I'm going to give it my best shot on Saturday, and I know that no matter what my score is, it was the best that I could do given the time that I had to study. There is no shame in needing to write it more than once, I would just prefer not to have to go through this torture again. 

In other news, I meeting with my lab supervisor and one of his new MSc students on Friday to go over what my research project will be. Its looking like something along the lines of a tumour suppressor knock down and then looking at the function recovery of an injured nerve. I'm really hoping that I get USRP funding, otherwise my move to Calgary might have been for nothing. (Missing out on the Human Anatomy Dissection class at Guelph is a bit of a bummer, but I am going to get into medical school someday and I will get to learn anatomy the way it has been taught for centuries.)

If you have any extra available brain power on Saturday between 8 am and 2pm  Mountain Standard Time, please direct it my way.

Peace Like a River

The Swell

I haven't posted in a while because I have been super busy with that thing called work and that other thing called the MCAT, neither of which I fully enjoy. I have been spending a fair amount of time on my bike and the weather is beginning to look a bit more like summer...which is nice because I had clean my bike 4 times a week there for a while.

I bet you are wondering about my good ol' leg eh? Well, truth be told, so I am and so are my doctors. My whole leg below the knee is swollen and spongy like (yuck) with some nice vascular changes (aka my veins are popping out) and a heck of a lot of pain. Now, I know what you are thinking...I should probably stop riding my bike right? Wrong. Cycling doesn't make the pain any worse or any better, but it keeps the muscle spasms in check and keeps me from going insane, so really I don't see any good reason to stop riding.

I have another appointment with my family doc this week...I have pretty much seen him or his locum every week for the past month. There is something not right about what is going on, after the neuroma resection 2 years ago (almost exactly) I knew something wasn't right and everybody just kept telling me it was fine. Then I almost had a below the knee amputation...I don't want to repeat that, this time I am not settling for "don't worry."

On a completely different note, I almost had a heart attack today (not really, but my heart rate went to about 205). I was out for a ride on my usual 65km route, I was just starting up a bit of a hill when all of a sudden this giant thing ran out of the forest 20 feet in front of me, across the road and into the forest on the other side. That is the first time in a while that I have seen a bear whilst out on my bike. It scared me a lot because it wasn't very big, meaning that mama bear might be around waiting to pounce and I was going up hill with a head wind having only spandex for protection. I live in a rural area (obviously) and bears aren't exactly a new phenomena (I'm really not afraid of them) but today seeing that bear with nobody but lil' me around made me realize how vulnerable I really am on my bike.

Pro tip of the day: Bring bear spray when riding in the BC Rockies.