Stories from Bob's Life

At 72 years of age I had a serious bike accident which put me in the hospital for a week and in rehab for several months.

I had just returned from a 3 day training camp with my bike club Padyak Racing Team (PRT) in Borrego Springs which included some hard rides and a lot of climbing, as well as a  lot of fun and camaraderie.  I was feeling pretty good about my biking and fitness, just before leaving on our much anticipated 17 day cruise to Hawaii, during which we would see Brad and family during the Oahu visit.

I had signed up to do the Tour de Palm Springs century ride with my friend Rich Rawson, 10 days after we were scheduled to return, so I was conscious of trying to get in all the riding I could before the cruise.  So the day before we were scheduled to leave on our exciting cruise, I decided to ride down to the barbershop on Sea Coast Dr drive in IB, about 6 blocks away, get my hair cut, then do an easy zone 2 ride to Coronado and then home – about 20 miles. Easy Day.

RIding to the barbershop was just a cruise thru the neighborhood, lots of houses, slow cars, people taking walks.  So I was relaxed – too relaxed – and not paying attention.  Most of the biking I had done required focus – looking down at the wheel of the rider in front of me, or watching my front wheel to keep it to the right of the white line on the shoulder.  No concerns for any of that on this easy ride to the barbershop.

About a block from the barbershop, I looked up and there was a car going right in front of me, crossing from right to left.  I assume i had not noticed that I was entering an intersection, didn’t notice the stop sign.  I immediately turned my bike in the direction the car was going,, slammed into the driver’s door and went down. I was on my knees and tried to stand up, but couldn’t. Legs and pain wouldn’t let me.  The driver stopped and I vaguely recall him asking if I was ok, and apologizing, and I said it was my fault.  I looked at my left wrist and saw that it was in the shape of the letter “S” and I knew that I was pretty badly hurt and the way that wrist looked did not portend well for my violin playing.   

Pedestrians nearby were yelling “Call 911!” (which I guess somebody did) and told me to not try to get up – to lay down, which I did. Soon the ambulance arrived, and the EMTs put me on a board, transferred me to their ambulance and then went through their diagnosis, and gave their report,  which was essentially the same I had learned in my Wilderness First Responder courses.  I was delivered to UCSD Hillcrest hospital Trauma ER where it turned out that the doctor who checked me in looked at my broken wrist and said, “I had a fracture just like that.”  “Bike accident?” I asked. “No.  Snow boarding.”

He X-rayed it and then asked if he could try something to which I agreed.  He took a long syringe (maybe 5 inches) filled it with Lidocaine, told me “this might hurt a bit”and inserted it into the top of my wrist into the section which he saw was fractured on the X-Ray. He said “Lets wait a couple of minutes to let the Lidocaine take effect,” which we did.   The shot didn’t hurt as much as I expected, and after a couple of minutes he began to manually manipulate my wrist, pushing it hard back into a position close to its proper allignment.  He applied a lot of pressure, which involved some discomfort, but nothing excruciating. After that he said “That gets your wrist into a position where it could properly heal.  Up to you and the hand surgeon whether you need a metal plate in there to hold it.”  I told him I’d do whatever it took to get the hand back to where I could play the violin again.

At some point and somehow they x-rayed my hips and determined that both hips were fractured, but the most serious one was the hip that I’d had replaced 10 years earlier – where the bones holding the hip implant in place in my right leg femur had fractured. The other lhip they said was simply fractured and if I were in my late 80s, they would simply put screws in the fracture to hold it in place, but if I wanted to resume a very active life style, the best and only option was to do a total hip replacement, which I obviously agreed to.  The Trauma Doctor told me they would try to do all three surgeries at once to save me having to go under anesthesia twice.  Then after some consultation,  I was told they’d do the fractured hip that already had the replaced hip AND the wrist that day and the THR on the other hip the following day rather than at the same time. 

What happened after I arrived and left the trauma ER is foggy to me – I was on pain meds and was being wheeled around on a gurney.  I believe i was sent immediately to pre-op, and I recall meeting and having a brief discussion with the Orthopedic surgeon Dr Girrard, then being put under.  After surgery, I was unfortunately coming out of anesthesia when they were still taking the intubation tube out, and I panicked, not knowing what was happening and thinking I was being choked.  I heard a nurse yell “He’s freaking out!” Then I heard a nurse say “relax, you’re getting enough air” at which point I tried relaxing and they got the tube out and I could breathe.  It was very scary there for a moment!  I then somehow ended up in the ICU where I was told that my second hip replacement surgery would not be until two days later, as the surgery on my right leg and hand had been hard on me and I needed another day to recover before another surgery. I later learned that my blood pressure had dropped dangerously low during the surgery, and they had had to pump me full of blood, and take other measures to get it back up, so I was being watched in the ICU for another day before they did the Total Hip Replacement surgery on my left leg.

My time in the iCU was the hardest time I had after the accident. I was not in pain but was very uncomfortable – I was flat on my back, groggy from the drugs, and couldn’t move my hips or legs at all – i regularly called the nurse not knowing what I needed – I asked that they just move me around. DO SOMETHNG!   Nights were worst – trying to sleep, uncomfortable,  while there was activity going on all the time.

One night while in the ICU  the fellow behind the curtain next to me was on a respirator that put out loud and different horn signals with every breath he took and it sounded like a clown show.  I called Mary Anne on my cell and she heard that and exclaimed “WTF is THAT?”  My response, “Didn’t I tell you I was abeing cared for in a truck stop parking lot?” 

I got the other hip surgery two days after the first – this was just a standard Total Hip Replacement, met the surgeon Dr Joe Mitchell who told me that this was a standard THR – that’s all he does – hips and knees.  I found out later that my friend John Waggoner knows him well and likes him.  I guess that all went as planned. Eventually I was moved to regular recovery, from which i was released a few days later to be admitted to South Bay Rehabilitation Center.

Though being in the ICU was the low point of my time at UCSD, the nurses were great, and my spirits were lifted by the  friends who came to visit me.  RIch Marshall brought me a framed picture of us riding at Borrego Springs, just 2 days before my accident, and  Marko Medved and Jimmy MacDonald visited me while I was in the ICU. Mary Anne visited me a couple of times even though she HATES driving on the 5. She found an alternate but longer route that avoids the 5.

One of my funniest stories was when, after 5 days in the ICU, I hadn’t had a bowel movement, I told the nurse we needed to do something.  The various stool softeners and laxatives weren’t working.  When she said maybe we can try a suppository, I said let’s go for it – we need to do SOMETHING.  So she said let me check with the doctor – OK.  

I was still having to lay flat on my back horizontally, so she rolled me over on my side, slipped in the suppository (well lubed – not unpleasant) and then I had to arch up for her to put the hard plastic bed pan under me. I had never had a bowel movement lying on my back -felt weird.   A few minutes later I felt movement in my bowels and a few minutes later good things started to happen.  Hooray!  So as I’m pushing and squeezing what was left of 5 days of hospital food into the bed pan, i look up and there, standng at the foot of my bed looking at me is my friend Marko Medved!  I said “Wow, Marko – this is awkward!” and told him what was going on.  I tried to chat (“So, How ya doin’ Marko?”)  but I was very pre-occupied with my long awaited BM.  And I kept pushing.  Marko then said, “Bob , would you like me to step away for a few minutes and come back and we can talk?”  I replied, “Marko, I think this is going to take a while and a lot of my energy. This is just not a good time. Maybe best if you head on home.”  Which he rogered for and did. I’ve since told Marko that I’ll never have another suppository without thinking of him!  

I eventually left the ICU, to less intensive care for a couple of days to get ready to leave,  I had been given a couple of initial Physical Therapy (PT) sessions and when the hospital believed I was stable, the authorities told me and Mary Anne that it was time to move me to an in-patient rehab center.  After some discussion, and a bit of research, we decided upon South Bay Rehabilitation Center associated with Paridise Valey Hospital on the border between National City and Chula Vista. The woman in charge of Physical Therapy at the hospital highly recommended it, and it was the closest rehab center to our home.  After a week at UCSD Hillcrest Hospital, on 16 January, I was transferred on a gurney in an ambulance (no siren or lights flashing) to Southbay Rehabilitation  Center.

What a wonderful change that was. SouthBay makes a real effort to help those there to recover and rehabilitate feel comfortable and cared for.  Like at UCSD, I had a call button when I needed anything; what was different was that the environment wasn’t so crazy hectic, and I saw the same nurses repeatedly and got to know them, and they me. I always felt that in addition to efficiently following protocols, they truly cared.  I also got Physical Therapy twice a day and Occupational Therapy once or twice a day. OT was how to do practical things like  putting on my socks and shoes, how to take a shower, how to take my walker over, down and around obstacles, get in and out of a car, etc under the new conditions of my disability and having to require a walker or wheel chair.

They also had a recreational therapist who scheduled time to play cards or games, or in my case, take me on a tour of the hospital.  I got 3 meals a day deliverd to me in my room – decent, not great, quality, and the nurses checked my vitals and gave me medications in the morning and before sleep at night.  AND all I had to do was push the button and they’d bring me a cup of (quality instant) coffee! Or answer any questions or help me in any way.

I spent 10 days there and felt like I got better every day.  Most of the nurses were Philipinas – a few from other south Asian countries and a couple of gringas (the PT and OT nurses). They were all great – and I must say, I enjoyed my time there – particularly in contrast to the huge “gerbil cage” environment at UCSD Hillcrest.  If I were to stay there much longer, I would have learned Tagalog! 

I had a number of friends visit me during my recovery, which I really enjoyed and which moved me that they would go so out of their way to come find this obscure rehab center to pay me a call. Rich Marshall, Marko Medved, Jimmy MacDonald, Jacobo Melcer, Juan Munoz, Brian Ehrhardt, Estefania Myhrer, Rick Espinola, Jeff and Francine Howard, Mark Bollong, Armen Katchadourian, Tom and Dawn Cody, Chuck Chaldekas, Tom Campbell, John Roberts, Dave Pittelkow, John Fisher, Susie Owens, Tim Cusick, Mary Beth Parr, Bob Conger.    Several of them visited me more than once. And of course Mary Anne and my daughter Roberta came every day or so.  I remain flattered and moved that they took the time to visit – I owe it to them to respond by visiting my friends in the future who may be hospital or nursing home bound.

After a week there, Mary Anne and I met with Dr Donna Crawley to coordinate when I could go home.  That included a visit by two fn their team – Michelle as PT, and Xenia as OT with me to our home in IB with Mary Anne, to see if the home set up could accommodate me.  That went well and we agreed on my departure a few days later.

The following Sunday 26 January, Mary Anne came by and we departed room 205 at Southbay Rehab Center, with all the stuff I’d accumulated there in 10 days, and she moved me home. My daughter Roberta was a great help – whe had flown down from her home in Teton Valley, Idaho to help Mary Anne with taking care of me, which we both truly appreciated.  She is strong and capable and we learned, a great cook!  She was able to stay for a week after I got home and returned to Driggs Idaho on 3 February. 

Coming home and continuing my recovery and rehab protocols at home was the beginning of the next phase of my recovery.  

A lot of good things have come out of this accident.  

The Good

• My many friends who have gone out of their way to visit and support me
• Appreciate how lucky I have been and how good it is to feel healthy and strong
• Lots of quality time with Mary Anne to enjoy each other’s company and me gaining an appreciation of her caregiving
• Time to catch up on reading and writing reviews and other projects
• Time to stay in touch with friends – phone calls, text, emails
• Watching great movies/series on TV
• Observed, benefitted from, and appreciated the work of the nurses in ICU and Rehab
• Develop empathy for those who are disabled as bad as or worse than I, often without as much hope forrecovery
• More time alone to think.
• Realize the importance of staying focused, even when doing simple and familiar (Safe?) things.
• Appreciate the challenges of being dependent on others for so much.

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The Bad

• I felt I was just getting into good biking condition
• Missing the cruise to Hawail
• My lean muscle mass,strength, and muscle tone atrophying
• broken wrist not allowing much strength trng
• Cant get up staris to my files, office, my things
• Couldn’t drive to help myself or MA.
• Hard to get outside.

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The Ugly

• Getting used to being dependent and asking for help
• Began to get dependent on Oxycodone to sleep.
• Hospital and Rehab ctr giving more meds than probably needed.
• Noticing myself getting lazy, letting others do things I could do, staying in bed longer than I needed to.