The Summer of Broken Bones
#2.We were riding on a park trail this morning, and this particular trail has several small bridges that are cement at the arch point, but have a rough, cobblestone-like section at the base.That means you have to ride over a section of very rough stone to get over the bridge.
There's one bridge in particular that is very demanding, because the stone section is longer and steeper than the others. When we reached this bridge, I sped up to help me with the slope, but somehow I lost my balance. I only rarely fall now (this was my only fall of the ride, and I've only had one other in the last several months), but none of that exemplary history was going to help me at this particular moment.
It was a very benign fall, seemingly--not even a knee scrape--but somehow my right foot whipped around and kicked the stones at high speed.
Understand that as I was learning, I fell quite often, but I've never hurt my feet. I can't even re-create what happened, because I have no idea how it's even possible.
When my shoe hit the stones, my big toe exploded with pain. My first thought: I broke that. My second thought: I have to ride a mile back to the car.
Which I did, and when we got home, I called the local orthopedic factory for an x-ray. Within three hours, I was talking to a doctor, who informed me that I had a "non-displaced impaction fracture." He also said it would heal in about six weeks, and in the meantime, I could do pretty much whatever non-weight bearing exercise I wanted as long as I could stand the pain.
He also said I should batten down the hatches for the next couple of days, because it was going to hurt more before it hurt less. Noted.
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