It was spectacularly stupid. Riding my bike to the Saturday morning farmers market on the last day in August here in Montpelier, my ball cap started to loosen as I picked up speed down a wicked hill. Reaching for it to keep it on my head, I lost control of my bike, flying over the handlebars and landing on my hip. I sat in the middle of the road stunned, contemplating my sudden change of status, from healthy male cyclist to injured citizen in need of medical attention. It was one of the few times I did not wear my helmet.
I had a hip fracture – isolated fracture of the left greater trochanter. In other terms, I broke off the pointy part of the hipbone that juts out from the outside part of the upper leg. It is an unusual type of hip fracture, and perhaps not as serious as far as these injuries go, because neither the weight bearing integrity of my leg nor the hip joint itself were compromised in any way.
Aside a well-learned lesson in cycling safety, the pain, recovery, and having to tolerate a hopefully small number of weeks hobbling around on crutches, the experience has had a welcome silver lining thus far: nearly normal amount of sleep. It is amazing – I’ve sometimes been hitting 9 hours a night for over 2 weeks now, and feel human again, other than the broken hip part.
The pain meds certainly had something to do with it at first – the vidcodin/acetominephin combo along with the diazepam prescription for pain relief and muscle relaxation really put my lights out. But now that I’ve been weaning myself off of these, I’ve had some solid nights, (and even a long afternoon nap last Sunday!) without the meds. And its been weeks since I’ve taken a benzodiazapene sleep aid (current Ativan prescription, with some left over Restoril, to which I’ve habituated).
So hope springs eternal from the physical trauma of bone fracture.
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