Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Stitches

A few days ago I was thinking how long it had been since I'd tripped and fallen while trail running.  Three years?  Four?  My luck ran out yesterday.  I was flying (for me) down Ray Miller with my music probably too loud, feeling great, when all of a sudden I caught a toe and went airborne for what seemed like 30 seconds of slow motion as my brain registered the inevitable.  Crap, this is gonna hurt!  The left knee took the brunt of the impact, with a chunk of soft tissue left on the trail, but my right elbow and hands were both a bit scraped.  No biggie there; however, the knee kinda bled a lot (don't worry:  no photos), and the wound was very irregular and jagged.  The weird thing was that it really didn't hurt at all.  ???

My next-door neighbor is a nurse, so I had her look at it when we got home.  "Uh, this needs to be really cleaned out, and you're gonna need stitches."   Crap again.

After finding an urgent care clinic that my insurance would cover, I was seen by a very nice older doctor who had been a medic in Vietnam many years ago.  Cool.  He numbed it up, scrubbed it out, and then proceeded with the stitches.  After a few minutes I asked him HOW MANY STITCHES ARE YOU PUTTING IN ANYWAY?!  He replied that he'd lost count.  I think there were about 20.  After that came injections of an antibiotic (in the butt - haha) and a tetanus shot.  Good grief.

So I am a bit gimpy and taking it easy today.  I have a big run planned for Saturday and hope to still be able to do it.  Of course, I won't tell the doctor.   A funny juxtaposition:  Ten years ago tomorrow (2/02/02!) I ran my 100-mile PR at Rocky Racoon (16:51).  Still not sure how I pulled that one off running only ~30 miles/week!  Oh to be 10 years younger...

5 comments:

Steve Pero said...

Bummer, Sue....heal up. I remember when you fell just before MMT in the Massanuttens and REALLY banged up your knee. I think you still won ;-)
Deb just had surgery on her shoulder and she claims will be ready for our first race in 5 weeks ;-)

Lalaith Means Laughter said...

Good luck this weekend..seems to me that 20 stiches will not stop you...16 hours...omg...I can't make a decision in under 20 hours lol...

Olga said...

Oh, man, really? Over 20 stitches? Did they even fit in? Wouldn't it be easier to just get a cadaver skin and stretch it over? :) Heal up, and when running this weekend, try not to fall, well, not too much anyway!

Bruce Grant said...

pictures!! the public demands grisly photos!! ewwwww! ahhhh!
You'll get wayyy more sympathy if we can see the carnage.
But in the meantime, sorry to hear you took a tumble. I had a bad season for that two years back, with a similar flying-through-mid-air-in-slow-motion whallop that I shoulda got stitches for and left me in a bit of shock for a while. Nasty stuff, but don't let it put you off your game.

Hope it heals you up quickly, not much can ever keep you down anyways. And stop picking at it! Stop!

Take care, my friend :-)

metsky said...

Well, you got your injury out of the way for the next 20 years or so.