Kathy Crandall advises that John has been shifted to a new room in rehab at Memorial Hospital. She’ll provide room and phone numbers later today for would-be visitors.
One caveat: No visits until after 5 p.m. on weekdays so John can do his therapy and get some rest. Weekends will be more flexible.
“He’s already, as you can imagine, very involved in his physical therapy,” says Kathy. “He’s even helping his therapist to adapt the equipment! Thank you all for caring so much.”
There is something dreadfully wrong about awakening to the sound of the furnace clicking on in June. If I wanted to be cold and wet all the time, I’d be a fish. At least then I’d be getting plenty of healthy exercise, swimming here and there. When was the last time you saw a fat fish?
At least it’s not raining right this minute, so maybe I have a chance of getting out and about on a bicycle today before the skies crack and the deluge resumes. A two-fer would be the lawn drying out enough for me to mow it. It looks like friggin’ Vietnam out there. Every minute I stay in this room, I get weaker, and every minute Charlie squats in the bush, he gets stronger.
At least I’m still alive to walk (or ride) the earth. Kwai Chang Caine is not.
Kathy advises that John Crandall is being transferred to a rehab unit today. Boy, the medicos sure don’t let you lounge around in the sack anymore, do they? You could be a disembodied head in a glass jar after a sneak attack by killer robots and they’d sic’ the physical therapists on you after 24 hours of bed rest. “Come on, pal, up and at ’em, you’ll never get any better just floating around in that jar. OK, deep breath — now drop and give me twenty.”
OK, seeing as we have a man in the hospital following one of the nastiest crashes I’ve ever heard about, let’s poll the readership here: What was your worst crash involving a bicycle and a motor vehicle?
I’ve had a ton of close calls, but the only real O’Grady-auto impact of my illustrious cycling career occurred nearly 20 years ago as I was doing a sprint workout on the narrow bit of Bishop’s Lodge Road through Tesuque, north of Santa Fe.
A woman driving a Chevy Blazer passed me, then pulled onto the right-hand shoulder and executed a lazy U-turn right in front of me — just as I was winding out a slightly downhill sprint, doing about 35 mph. The damn SUV was practically curb to curb on the skinny road, and so I threw the bike into a two-wheel drift, slammed into the left-front quarter panel and shot over the hood and onto the asphalt, breaking a brand-new carbon fiber Specialized Epic right at the head-tube lugs.
Oddly, though the bike was a total loss, I came away with just one minor injury — a long scrape on my right shin that looked like someone had been after me with a potato peeler. I made her drive me to the ER for X-rays anyway. And since I had the good fortune to tangle with what was apparently the only motorist in New Mexico driving with insurance, I got a new frame and headset out of her husband.
As war stories go, it’s not exactly a thriller. So leave yours in comments.
The mom-in-law (a.k.a. Herself v1.0) is getting set to jet home after visiting for the past few days, and how do she and Herself v2.0 spend the morning? Watching coverage of the disappearance of Air France Flight 477. This strikes me as not unlike preparing for surgery by reading stories about doctors absentmindedly leaving gloves and/or tools in body cavities or sawing off the wrong bits.
I hate to fly, myself. I’m not frightened by air travel — I just despise the procedure, which is reminiscent of a bad day at the Murmansk DMV. Take this off and that out, then sit down and shut up. We’ve oversold your flight, so you may be napping in the concourse for the next few days, and if we do have a seat for you you’ll find it and your plane at Gate X99. This is Gate A1. Run, you fat bastard, it’s wheels up in 30 seconds. Either that or we’ll be leaving when we’re good and ready. Have a peanut. That’ll be five bucks. Perhaps I was a feedlot cow in a previous life, being prodded down the long, shit-stained feedlot chute that eventually leads to McDonalds.
