03.18.2007 | 10:13 pm
I have many endearing qualities, and one of them is that I get very excited about things most people wouldn’t get excited at all about. Last Friday, for example, I was excited because I had bought a new twelve-foot-long cable for my Python cable lock — just the ticket for locking a couple of bikes to a hitch rack.
But before I could use it, I would need to cut the zipties that kept the cable bound into a tight coil.
Luckily for me, I am never without my Leatherman Micra — I figured that the fold-out scissors would do the job nicely.
“Wow. That is one tough ziptie,” I said to myself as I held onto the coiled cable with my left hand and applied increasing pressure to the scissors blade with my right hand. “The stupid…thing…just…won’t…cut!”
And then, as I put my weight into it, the ziptie cut. Hooray!
After which, suddenly deprived of the resistance from the ziptie, my scissors zoomed forward, the blade coming to rest once it was effectively buried in the flesh of my hand between my forefinger and thumb.
There was a lot of blood.
The One Thing I Remember from Boy Scouts
Here’s a surprising fact you probably don’t know about me: I am an Eagle Scout. Here’s another fact you probably won’t find surprising: I remember hardly anything at all from my two years as a scout (I got my eagle as quickly as was allowed by the program, so my mom would stop pestering me about it).
As blood gushed everywhere, though, I did remember: apply pressure.
And — whaddaya know — it worked. I brought the bleeding under control. The only problem is, this meant that both my hands were now fully occupied — one hand with being a bloody gushing mess, and the other hand with being a makeshift cork.
I was outside (I have a bloody sidewalk that shows exactly where) when this happened, so now had the problem of getting inside to get my wife to drive me to the hospital — I was absolutely certain I’d need stitches for this.
It’s not easy to knock on the door when your hands are occupied as mine were. But if you’re willing — as a 40-year-old man and mortgage owner — to kick your own door, it is totally possible to convey some urgency to your door knocking.
Friday Night Date
My wife, sadly enough, has seen me bloodied up quite a few times. The good thing about this is that she’s now got enough experience with my clumsiness-induced injuries that she effectively (and resignedly) just gets to work.
First things first: she ran across the street to see if our neighbor the EMT was home.
Nope.
So she then went next door to see if our other neighbor the fireman / paramedic was home.
Nope.
While she was checking to see if there was anyone who could lend a hand (no, not literally), I lifted my right hand in order to sneak a peek at the damage on my left hand.
Renewed gushing of blood, and the startling realization that I have never seen the inside of me so clearly before.
You know, I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned this, but: the sight of my blood makes me very queasy. Which is to say, I nearly passed out.
As my wife drove me to the emergency room, I apologized over and over. “Sorry about this,” I said, still lightheaded about being able to see so much of my blood all over the place, but also recognizing that this was the first day I’d been home in two weeks, and the dinner and movie my wife had planned for the evening had turned into no dinner and a trip to the hospital.
Because I — a 40-year-old man — evidently do not know how to properly handle a pair of scissors.
An Interesting Question
There’s something satisfying — in a twisted sort of way — about being a bloody mess when you walk into a hospital emergency room. You’ve got yourself a real emergency here. You’re applying pressure. You’re making a mess on the floor. You feel like it’s your right to blow right by the people who look like they came here because they were feeling slightly disconsolate.
“What seems to be the problem?” asked the person who’s job it must be to not pick up on obvious clues.
“I’ve been cut long and deep. My left hand. I’m bleeding a lot.”
So I’m escorted to what is labeled (oddly, I notice the label) the “Triage Room.” A nurse (or maybe just a helpful bystander — I never made sure) then applied a gauze bandage and wrapped it up tightly. While she did this, she asked me an interesting question:
“On a scale of 1 to 10, what would you say your pain level is?”
Hm. Well, that’s a poser of a question. I thought about it, and then said, “five, I guess.”
After which I immediately regretted not saying, “Eleven! Fourteen! Give me morphine!” because she said, “OK, go sit down.”
And there I sat, for 45 minutes or so, while a number of people who came in after I did — sporting what looked like nothing more painful than a modest case of ennui — got ushered in to see doctors ahead of me.
I’ll Stick With 5
During this 45 minutes, I had plenty of time to contemplate how embarassing it is to have the most serious cut of your life be from a self-inflicted scissors cut at the age of 40.
Eventually, though, they rummaged up a doctor for me. Before he unwrapped the (now quite bloody) bandage, he asked me the same question: from one to ten, how bad does it hurt?
I stuck with five.
He then unwrapped the bandage, and said, “Well. This looks like more than what I’d usually expect from a five.”
He then spent several minutes cleaning me out, sending the nurse to go get a tetanus shot (my shoulder still hurts, thanks), talking with me about mountain biking on the White Rim, testing my fingers to see if I could feel anything, testing my thumb to see if I could move it, expressing surprise that I could because it looked like I had gone deep enough to sever some working parts, and then sewing me up.
By the time I left, I was thinking it’d be fun to ride with this doctor.
Why 5?
On the way home, my wife asked me why I had said this ugly cut only hurt at level five. The answer is easy: I’ve got a pretty good basis of comparison. To wit:
- Level 7: While riding the Brian Head Epic 100 one year, I crashed at mile 70, bruising my hip, separating my shoulder, and breaking off my saddle. I rode the next 25 miles of uphill without a saddle, during which time both my calves cramped up solid and my knee started bothering me.
- Level 8: While riding the Leadville 100 one year, I crashed on a downhill section, completely dislocating my shoulder (I resocketed it on my own), getting a nice road rash, and then finished the race while dry heaving, completely exhausted and pretty dehydrated.
- Level 9: At 0.1 miles per hour on a technical move on Porcupine Rim, I fell on my side once, catching all my weight on my right arm. This tore my rotator cuff and started my ever-growing SLAP lesion. This is what caused the “Elden Scream” my friends still talk about to this day.
- Level 10: I watched my wife go through six months of chemo. That stuff sucks. Not as bad as what happens if you don’t do it, but still.
So on Saturday — the nicest day of the year so far, after I’ve been off the bike for two weeks, even — I didn’t go on a ride. Couldn’t put weight on the hand, and for sure couldn’t use the brakes. You know, that’s probably level 6 pain right there.
The Question
So, was level 5 just about right? Or should I have gone higher? Lower? What’s your personal yardstick of pain?
Oh, and here’s my hand, 48 hours later. Looking much better, I’d say, though still very puffy.
PS: Today’s weight: 163.6, still.
Comments (153)
03.17.2007 | 9:42 am
A Weekend Note From Fatty: I normally don’t post on weekends, but I have two contests I wanted to announce winners for, and something interesting happened yesterday that I need to write about, haven’t yet written about, but still want to mention, albeit in a confusing and non-helpful way.
You Were Really Nice in the “It’s Nice to be Nice to Dave Nice” Raffle
A big fat hug goes out to everyone who helped Dave Nice by entering the raffle. I was hoping we could raise around $500 for him, and imagined $1000 was the most we’d have any chance at all of raising. But thanks to the very generous nature of cyclists, we raised $1210.00 for Dave (and that’s after Paypal took its chunk out).
You guys rock.
I’ve notified the winners by email. They’ll be getting the awesome prizes donated by the Ads-for-Scwhag advertisers, who have shown — once again — that it’s the small companies that really care about their customers. You can, of course, find those advertisers in my blog sidebar. Give them the love they deserve.
You Guys Think I have No Self Control Whatsoever
In the “Guess my weight after I’ve been on the road for 2 weeks contest,” most of you figured that I would completely self-destruct, self-control-wise. A few of you, however, dared to believe that I’d only gain a pound per week or so.
As it turns out, while I didn’t lose weight on the trip, I also didn’t gain a whole bunch. Yesterday I weighed in at 163.6 pounds, up from 162 pounds when I took off for NY two weeks ago. So the winners of the prize I cannot yet reveal (because I’m still working on getting it made) — each of whom was off by a pound or less — are:
- Iceman (163)
- turnonthejets (164.6)
- jill (164.5)
Winners, be sure to contact me when I announce this new Fat Cyclist product — probably sometime within the next couple weeks.
Pain, Blade, Blood
And now for my confusing and non-helpful hint about what I’ll be posting this monday. It will be about pain, a blade, a great deal of blood, and a trip to the hospital.
Oh, and it will be about riding bikes, too.
Comments (20)
03.14.2007 | 5:10 am
A Note From Fatty: Today’s post comes to you courtesy of Dr. BotchedExperiment, who spends all his time busting sick moves, thinking deep thoughts, wearing a square hat, and writing angry letters about things ranging from the way cheese smells to the deplanetization of Pluto (an outrage!).
Today, he is angry about the whole bike/doping situation. I find his logic compelling, and his anger cathartic. Enjoy!
Let’s get a couple things out of the way
There are two reasons doping exists in cycling. 1) Each individual cyclist is highly competitive. 2) For the top riders, there are millions of dollars at stake. Desire and money; prestige and cash. That’s it. Show me a sport where there is no money involved and the athletes don’t care whether they win, and I’ll show you a sport where no one’s cheating.
When I hear cyclists and pundits say that professional road cycling is too hard and it forces the riders to cheat, I want to pull my hair and bang my head against a solid surface. It seems these folks have never heard of track cycling, in which some races last ONE MINUTE and yet, track cycling has every bit a performance enhancing drug (PED) problem as road cycling.
Compare and Contrast: American Football and Cycling
America’s National Football League (NFL) is the most financially successful and fastest growing sports league in the world. American football is also one of the sports in which athletes would most benefit from using performance enhancing drugs.
Only recently has the NFL bumped up its penalties for a positive for a performance enhancing substance: 1st positive = 1/4 season, 2nd positive = 3/8 season, 3rd positive = 1 season. As you know, cycling has a 1st offence 2 year suspension, compounded by a 2 year Pro Tour suspension, making a 4 year ban for a 1st offence.
The NFL doesn’t use blood for any tests, only urine, and astoundingly only recently started testing for most masking agents and considering their presence as a positive drug test. The NFL still doesn’t test for amphetamines. Cycling uses blood, urine, and is trying to get DNA, and tests for an astounding array of substances.
While there are potentially millions of dollars at stake for each NFL player, in cycling, there are only a handful of riders capable of making that type of income.
In every way, NFL players have more reason to use performance enhancing drugs than cyclists, and yet the NFL has never been perceived to have a PED problem. I have never heard anyone say “Yeah, but the Superbowl winning team was probably on steroids,†or, “Ladanian Tomlinson couldn’t be that good naturally, he must be on human growth hormone.â€
In the NFL, the drug testing and punishment is handled in-house by the NFL, and when there is a positive test, the details of the test are suppressed (again, only recently have they even started releasing the identity of the players who test positive). The only thing the public hears is “player x suspended 4 games for violating NFL drug policy.†You hear about the doper and the offence once, after the test has been substantiated, the penalty decided, and the initial denial of the player has been heard by the league. To make doping and punishing of doping even more of a non-issue, no records, wins, or titles are stripped from any players of teams, and there has never been a star player severely punished by the NFL for PEDs.
Time to make significant changes
I used to think the NFL’s drug policy was a joke, and that cycling did it right, but I was absolutely wrong. I have two words to say about that subject: Operation Puerto. UCI/WADA’s inept attempts at saving cycling from dopers is killing the sport. Just as police often suspend a high-speed chase in a city, understanding that during the course of catching the fleeing suspect they may do more harm than good, cycling needs to temporarily cease its more high-profile attempts at catching dopers until they can do it without seeming like a Three Stooges skit.
- Somebody get a big, family sized roll of duct tape and wrap it around Dick Pound’s (WADA) and Pat McQuaid’s (UCI) faces until they can no longer speak. Every time they open their mouths, cycling gets worse.
- Approach catching cheaters as a way of further enhancing the sport’s popularity, and STOP making catching/punishing dopers more important that putting an entertaining product on the road.
- Abandon suspensions for “positive†results from current tests involving heterologous blood doping, testosterone, and EPO (except the 50% hematocrit rule). The science behind these tests is not indisputable and endless debate about them only hurts cycling.
- Begin building physiological profiles for each rider, consisting of hormone profiles (testosterone, erythropoietin, etc) hematocrit levels, red blood cell precursor levels, and DNA (the real future of doping lies in modifying the DNA of blood cells such that an individual “naturally†expresses more EPO, testosterone, growth hormone, etc). These files won’t be of much use for riders who are at the end of their careers, but testing of all the top junior level riders should begin immediately. The idea here is that in the future “positive†doping results will be based on an individual’s deviation from their own “normal†parameters.
- Get the testing labs under control. Right now it doesn’t matter whether someone returns a positive dope test because the labs processing the samples are being run so poorly that the results will never hold up (see Paula Pezzo and Floyd Landis for examples). Use private labs and hold them to a high standard.
- Automate rider sample collection, storage, and retrieval. This is so easy it’s ridiculous. Take the human element out of sample collection and solidify chain of custody and eliminate access to the samples.
- Unify cycling. I don’t know of any other sport that is run by more organizations, here’s a partial list: UCI, ASO, WADA, IOC, International Professional Cycling Teams (IPCT), national cycling associations, national Olympic associations, race promoters, and team sponsors (with each team having many sponsors). Some of this is due to the international nature of cycling, and is the result of an evolutionary process. Time for Intelligent Design! I realize this is nearly impossible unless one organization comes up with billions of dollars to buy everyone out, but the fight against doping has to be unified.
PS: Don’t even get me started about the way UCI and ASO politics are screwing up the sport.
Comments (50)
03.13.2007 | 4:01 am
I’ve been on the road now for nine days, more or less (I was back home for the weekend). Here are some interesting statistics about my trip:
- Number of days during which I have stuck to my eating plan on this trip: 0
- Number of times I have exercised during this trip: 3
- Number of times I have weighed myself since beginning this trip: 0
- Number of belt notches I have had to let out since beginning this trip: 1
So here’s a story problem:
“If a Fat Cyclist goes on a two-week-long business trip where he eats every meal at a restaurant, doesn’t have time (nor facilities) to exercise, spends several hours of each day snacking to keep himself awake while driving (a sedentary position), and occasionally goes on evening eating binges to drive away the boredom of being alone in yet another hotel room, and if, furthermore, that Fat Cyclist weighed 162 pounds before leaving on that trip, what will the Fat Cyclist weigh at the end of this trip (i.e., this Friday)?”
The three closest-to-correct answers get a cool Fat Cyclist-labeled item currently under development (value: $15), the item being something which I have not announced yet but am definitely excited about.
In case of ties, earlier entries win.
PS: I am going to be having very little time to post during the remainder of this week and next week. So if you’ve ever thought to yourself, “I have a story/observation/witty piece of fake news that should go in Fat Cyclist,” now’s your chance. E-mail me your story. If I think it feels like something I would write, I’ll post it. If I don’t post it, however, just remember: it’s not you. It’s me.
Comments (119)
03.12.2007 | 2:00 am
Today (Monday) is the day when I find out whether I won a 2007 Bloggie Award for “Best-Kept Secret Blog.” I promised I would post either my gracious acceptance speech – including a video of me demonstrating my ability to make my face turn purple — or my good loser speech, depending on whether I won.
There’s just one problem: I’ll be traveling for work — to Texas, though ironically to a different part of Texas than where the awards will be presented — and won’t be able to check the Bloggies site until several hours after the awards are presented.
So I think I’ll go ahead and post both of those speeches. One of them’s bound to be correct.
My Gracious Acceptance Speech
I knew I’d win. I just knew it. The other bloggers — a cowgirl, a moose, a dog, and a compulsive letter-writer — may have all actually been better writers than I. OK, fine, they all are better writers than I, but that didn’t matter in the end, did it? Because out of all of us, only one of us has tapped into the highly coveted overweight middle-aged comedy bike rider zeitgeist.
I predict nobody will ever trivialize this massive demographic ever again. Why do you think that bicycle racing is consistently one of the top-rated sports among television viewers, led only by football (both American and not-American), basketball, baseball, billiards, hockey (both ice and air), hot dog eating, yodeling, tennis (both regular and table), and gardening? It’s a huge sport and it’s on the rise. Watch out.
Next, I really should thank everyone who took the time and effort to vote for me.
But I’m not going to.
The fact is, you already voted for me, and it’s too late to take back your vote now, because I already won. Yeah, I know you’re thinking it’s incredibly petty of me to not acknowledge you, but that’s your problem.
I would, however, like to thank all of my Ads-for-Schwag partners for giving me lots of cool stuff to bribe my readers for votes with give to my readers as thanks for their continued support. Oh, and while I’m at it, I have an announcement: now that I’m an award-winning blogger, I’m charging $1200/week for ads. I hope that won’t be a problem for you.
Finally, I did promise that if I were to win this award (and let’s face it, there never was any doubt that I would), I would demonstrate my extremely rare and useful superpower: the ability to make my face turn purple at a moment’s notice.
So here you go: How to Turn Purple.
[youtube]eqp1sUbJ3SU[/youtube]
My Good Loser Speech
I knew I’d lose. I just knew it. I mean, how many cyclists are there in the world? 10,000? Maybe 12,000? Okay, let’s say 15,000, tops. And say a third of us are middle-aged. That’s 5,000. And then say 10% of that 5,000 has a sense of humor that matches mine. Now we’re down to 500. How many of us middle-aged cyclists with similar senses of humor are fat? OK, all of us, fine. But when you factor in that only 5% of the people in the world even know what a “blog” even is, we’re down to about 25 people in my universe of potential readers. Add in friends and family and we’re up to 27 potential readers.
So yeah, I’ve mentioned things about getting around 8,000 pageviews per day. The truth is, though, I’ve always known that 7,500 of those are just me reloading the page over and over, hoping — praying, really — that somebody has left a comment.
And I’m pretty sure Dr. BotchedExperiment is responsible for about 485 of the other daily pageviews. Thanks, Dr. Botched.
Still, when I found out that I had — through some cosmic error, no doubt — been made a finalist in the “Best Kept Secret” category of the 2007 Bloggies, I — fool that I am — held out hope that I would win.
Oh, what willful vanity!
Consider the blogs I was competing against:
- The Gilded Moose: A talented satiric writer pokes fun at celebrities. Well, who’d want to read that? I mean, besides everybody?
- To Whom It May Concern: A talented writer writes letter-form essays about common experiences. Who could possibly find something to identify with in a blog like that? I mean, besides everybody?
- Woof Woofington: A woman writes about her life from a dog’s point of view, including why people should learn “mouth to snout” resuscitation. Who wouldn’t want to know that? Well, I wouldn’t, but that’s just me.
- Confessions of a Pioneer Woman: A smart, funny, nice woman who’s also a stellar photographer and a talented writer tells engaging stories about her interesting life. Who could possibly enjoy such a blog? I mean, besides everybody?Â
It’s just not fair.
Oh, I guess now’s a good time to announce: I’m renaming my blog and changing its focus a little bit. From now on, this is the “General Purpose Blog About Everything and For Everyone.” I’m sure you’ll find something you like in it.
Anyway, I’m not bitter. I mean, it’s not like all my readers didn’t go out and vote for me.Â
Oh, you didn’t?
Well, I’m sure you meant to get around to it. That’s cool. I wouldn’t want to have inconvenienced you by making you take the thirty seconds required to go cast a vote for me. I mean, it would have taken a lot of effort (three mouse clicks) and money (none) to go vote for the guy who spends roughly an hour of each day writing something for your entertainment. I wouldn’t want to overwhelm you with my irrational greed.Â
No, no. Don’t feel guilty. Obviously, my blog wasn’t worth your vote. Don’t start pretending like it is now. It’s too late for that.
Oh well. I guess I’ve reached the part where I have to congratulate the winner. Fine. Here goes:
Congratulations, winner. Enjoy your stupid Bloggie.
And now, I shall go sulk. Some more.
Please Leave Your Congratulations. Or Condolences. Or Both.
After about 1:00pm Central Time, the actual winners should be posted at the Bloggies site. Please feel free to check it out, see how I did, and leave me an appropriate note.
On the other hand, why wait to leave a note until you know how things turned out? I didn’t.
PS: Thanks to all the people who have entered the “It’s Nice to be Nice to Dave Nice” raffle. We’ve raised $1085 for Dave’s Great Divide Race fund so far (the raffle ends this Saturday, at which point I’ll be emailing the winners and sending out info on how to get your fatcyclist.com email address). As you can probably imagine, after telling Dave how much we’ve collected for him, I did not have too difficult of a time getting him to promise to wear a Fat Cyclist jersey for some of the days during the race.
Comments (47)
« Previous Page — « Previous Entries Next Entries » — Next Page »
