Summary
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| Left Clavicle Break, 6/23/2018 |
Last Updated: 9/1/2018
Here is where, for convenience, I've gathered the individual posts together that chronicle my journey from clavicle break to recovery.
Every cyclist will have a different experience. Some may be back on the bike in a week or two. Others may take weeks or months. Some injuries may be very simple, while others are very complex and require a lot of therapy to regain functionality. Most will fall somewhere in between. Your health at the time of injury, and how you care for it through recovery will make a big difference
The most important lesson I've learned is to respect your injury.. Eat well - remember, it takes a lot of calories and the right nutrition to heal. Sleep well - sleep enough and be careful how you sleep so that you don't stress the injury during the night. Move well - moving or lifting too much, or jumping into exercise too soon can sabotage the healing process.
That said, my experience has been that things don't always go as you'd like. My fracture didn't heal. After 21 weeks, the X-Rays look exactly the same as they did on day 1. I've gotten lectured about moving too much and eating too little and none of it matters because I followed the doctors orders and ate very well and the bone still didn't connect. Sometimes, it just doesn't work out.
I suspect that the two halves were simply too far apart to heal in the normal amount of time. Maybe they would have healed in a couple of years. Maybe not. Fortunately, my doctor agreed that it was better to just fix it than wait it out. So, on day 165, I finally had what I'd asked for on Day Two - open reduction and internal fixation surgery to take care of what my body wouldn't.
As I read in one of the many forum posts I poured through, the bike will wait, but you only have one shoulder that has to last you all your life.
Other Resources
Here are a couple of examples of what I did find out there. If there are others, please let me know and I'll include them here.
During this process, I found a couple of similar articles online written by cyclists as they documented their own recovery. I didn't find that much, though what I did find was helpful. Even so, I didn't find any that provided the week to week detail I was looking for, even knowing that my experience would differ from theirs.
My hope is that putting this out there, I help others deal with their injury as others helped me deal with mine.
Discomfort and Pain Levels by Week
The end goal is to narrow the colored bands as much as possible. The deeper into discomfort or the higher into pain it goes (the larger the colored areas), the worse things are.
Weekly Chronicles
The Event (June 23, 2018)
Week 1 (June 23, 2018 - June 29, 2018)
Week 2 (June 30, 2018 - July 6, 2018)
Week 3 (July 7, 2018 - July 13, 2018)
Week 4 (July 14, 2018 - July 20, 2018)
Week 5 (July 21, 2018 - July 28, 2018)
Week 6 (July 28, 2018 - August 3, 2018)
Week 7 (August 4, 2018 - August 10, 2018)
Week 8 (August 11, 2018 - August 17, 2018)
Week 9 (August 18, 2018 - August 24, 2018)
Week 10 (August 25, 2018 - August 31, 2018)
Week 11 (September 1, 2018 - September 7, 2018)
Week 12 (September 8, 2018 - September 14, 2018)
Week 13 (September 15, 2018 - September 21, 2018)
Week 14 (September 22, 2018 - September 29, 2018).
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