3 Strikes and I’m Out

I should not have been on a bicycle, especially on single-track in the woods.

Like many stories, this one started before I knew it.

My long, bony, finger-toed feet started hurting worse about seven years ago. I say worse because they have hurt since I was in my teens, developing multi-layered blisters on the basketball court.

Seven years ago, my dogs started hurting, tingling, and became numb — the nerve-ologist called it neuropathy. Whatever you call it, my narrow tootsies became a reason not to hike, dance, bike, or garden.

Later, my arms, prostate, and sense of doom kicked in, and the feet didn’t seem so painful — but that’s a sadder story.

This tale comes from the Adjustment Period, after the Middle Ages and before the Old Old Ages.

The docs prescribed Gabapentin, and then Lyrica, and I found myself staggering to the bat-room several times a night, banging into the walls on the way.

That brings me to flogging Lower Sidehill at Bent Creek with my Lil Brother William under the influence of pain med Lyrica. The first time I fell was trying to navigate a sharp uphill turn. Slogging along slowly, I fell into a soft patch of poison ivy, wounding only my ego. The second fall dumped me in the mud. Third time, I was trying to ford a rocky seep, and fell off a steep bank — but an angel (AKA a giant Oriental Bittersweet) caught me. I landed upside down, with my bike above me, tangled in the vine like a polyester-clad spider in a leafy web. By this time, William was worried about me, with good reason. My cycling buddy Tracey (who’s also a nurse and former leader of the Erin Middle School Bike Club) rode up just after I pulled my bike out of the vineyard, and she told me to be careful.

Let’s pause to count the warnings: the Lyrica label mentioned loss of balance; my docs had probably said not to ride my bike; the three falls MIGHT have been a warning; and then Tracey’s caution.

But testosterone whispered in my susceptible ears: Don’t be a wuss. Get back on that bike and show the young man how it’s done.

I mounted up and we rode Lower Sidehill down to the main gravel road in Bent Creek. Heading back to the car, William rode ahead. We coasted down a hill, and he took his hands off the handlebars and played “We Will Rock You” on air guitar. Panicked, I rode up beside him and said, Keep your hands on the handleb — .

That’s the last thing I remember until I woke up down at the car with a stranger (who was certified in wilderness-first-aid) wrapping my head in gauze. The
Samaritan said, You might not want to drive in your condition.

Condition!?

Where was I and how did I get here? I checked out my skinny frame: blood under my fingernails; two deepish holes in my left leg; another crater bandaged on my right arm; and road-rash scarred my face and torso. I checked the rearview mirror: my glasses were shattered and partially embedded into my right eye socket, which seeped blood from under the bandage.

William, what happened?

You fell off your bike.

How did I get back to the car?

A guy loaded you in his truck and drove you down here.

How did the bikes get on the car?

I put them there.

Wait, what happened?

You fell off your bike.

How did I get back to the car?

A guy loaded you in his truck and drove you down here.

How did the bikes get on the car?

This continued for about 20 minutes. I remember William repeating himself in a very annoying way. He kept saying, You just asked me that!?

After a while, the fog cleared a little bit, and I called my wife to tell her I was fine and OK to drive. She begged me to let her come get us, but, instead, I drove us to William’s house, and then I got lost trying to drive to the minor emergency clinic in Biltmore. My frantic wife called back and told me not to pass Go, not to collect $200, but to come directly home.

At home, I talked her into driving me to the clinic at the corner of New Leister and Smoky Park. At the clinic, a friendly woman asked, Did you pass out?

Yes.

Then you need to go to hospital.

OK, I didn’t pass out.

She shook her head and folded her arms, spoke woman to woman with my wife.

Take this eejit to the hospital.

Yes mam.

At the hospital, I had long rambling talks with strangers and with RAAM racer and Mission/HCA employee Mike Small.

You look like Dooke University.

That’s cold, man.

Then it was payback time for my buddy Robert Kline, who had fallen off his bike a year or two ago and scrambled his grey matter, to the point that he ended up in hospital asking the same 10 questions for 24 hours. I had first shift in that episode, and he about wore me out before reinforcements arrived.

My wife called Rokli, who came over to check me out for himself, as he is wont to do. He flushed out a hole in my unanesthetized eyebrow so many times that it was beginning to get on my nerves. I asked him a round or two of the same questions.

A hospitalist stitched up my eyebrow, and they scanned my brain. We were home by 1:30 am, where I took a painful shower and eased into bed.

That was the last time I took Lyrica or Gabby-pentin, and the last time I’ve fallen off my bike, but my docs say it’s just coincidence.

Or maybe a cautionary tale.