~ cornfields ~

Day One of my VACATION was wonderful. Thursday evening, Josh and I celebrated by going swimming at Barclay Bay right when I got off work. I was rather disappointed by the lack of water in left in the Bay from the dam and could not jump off of my normal jumping off spot because the water was a good thirty feet below my preferece. Also, the water was cold, too cold, and unfortunately, by "swimming" I mean that Josh and I acted like big weiners as we inched our way into the water. I made it down to my waist when I decided that it wasn't worth it. Josh was the brave one and fully submerged himself. I occupied myself by snapping some photos of the brave man. Soon after that, we decided to go swimming in the pool at Josh's apartment complex. And there we had a grand time splish splashing around!

Friday morning, we met up for coffee at the Flying M and had our Saturday morning on Friday. We then wandered around downtown. I pondered some expensive footwear and some expensive jeans, being most interested in the former which were on sale. Josh pondered eyewear. We decided to have lunch someplace where we had never before lunched, which was a difficult decision as we have mostly exhausted our downtown possibilities. Finally, we remembered The Milky Way which I can't believe I have never been to before. It was wonderful!

Then we got all organized and headed out on a road bike ride. We drove past Caldwell, parked the car on Weitz Road, and rode along the zig zagged Boise River Road. Weitz wasn't very great, especially since it has just been chipsealed, but once we got onto the Boise River Road section, it was great. We were riding through all of these different farmlands, cornfields, hopsfields, mintfields, and maybe some people don't understand the aesthetic beauty of these areas, but I found them quite lovely. Also, the day was not too hot - - the stars must be aligned perfectly on my vacation, for the temperatures are only supposed to be in the 80's during this time, which is WONDERFUL.

WARNING: The next paragraph contains details on something very GROSS. Depending on your sensitivity, you might want to skip to the following paragraph or refrain from eating and drinking.

There we were, about ten miles into our ride, when all of a sudden I get a little rumbly in my tumbly. I patted my stomach and said to Josh, "...hrm, all of a sudden, my stomach feels a bit off." About ten seconds later, I realize that I am experiencing MASSIVE gastro-intestinal distress and that I needed a restroom IMMEDIATELY. Which was convenient, considering that we were MILES and MILES from civilization. It was the sort of pre-diarrhea GI pain that sent me into excruciating paralysis. And I found that the actions involved in riding my bike and riding up and over little humps and bumps in the road only served to aggravate my symptoms. I litterally thought that I was going to shit myself. And I was so upset about this, unless you have experienced something similar, you have no idea what kind of stress and anxiety I was having. Josh, being a big map person and having a good sense of distance and direction, was certain that there was a town a few miles up the road, IF ONLY I COULD WAIT UNTIL THEN. And I wasn't sure that I could, but I wasn't fond of the alternatives. One alternative, shitting my shorts, wasn't appealing for a variety of reasons, including the fact that I didn't want to ruin my brand new grey cycling shorts. The other alternative, shitting in the cornfields, also was not appealing. I gave careful consideration to that alternative, however, as it was an incredibly desparate situation. As I was imagining the logistics of that alternative, I became overwhelmed with anxiety as I was imagining the possibility of a corn farmer CATCHING ME IN THE ACT of having explosive diarrhea on his cornfields, and I wasn't sure that I could survive such embarrasment. Additionally, it took me a bit of time before I realized, apparently I wasn't in my proper intellectual state, what with the serious diarrhea situation on my hands, that cornfields grow FOOD that humans including myself EAT. And I was having difficulty with the ethics of causing diarrhea to be on these fields. Sure, perhaps there's plenty of other types of crap on the fields, and pesticides, and the corn is high up in the air and engulfed in husks, so maybe my diarrhea would not have damaged that crop, but I wondered if I would ever be able to enjoy the taste and texture of corn again if I went diarrhea on a cornfield. SO CLEARLY, that alternative ceased to be an option for me. Which implied that if I did not find a restroom soon, I would return to option number one. FINALLY, we arrived at the town of Roswell, a town so small that I couldn't find any information on it in the US Census Data website. It was about two blocks long and I did not have much hope that there was a public restroom available. There was, however, a single convenience store and the relief that began to spring into my heart was palpable as I realized that it was open, despite the outward appearance. I threw the door open and calmly asked if they had a public restoom. At hearing the affirmative, I RAN AS FAST AS I COULD, and it was wonderful. Actually, it wasn't entirely wonderful because as I was struggling to lock the door, I noticed that there was a big gap in the door allowing all kinds of noise and airflow directly into the shop, so I was a bit self-conscious about the obviousness of my emergency, but as they say, beggars can't be choosers, and it wasn't really the time and place to be upset that the people in the shop might know that I was having a catastrophic diarrhea emergency. Afterwards, I was a bit hesitant to get too far away from the only known restroom for miles and miles, so I suggested that we take a bit of a break and have a snack from the shop. I ate a bag of Cheetos, which probably wan't the best thing for my stomach, but wow, I sure enjoyed them! Before we left Roswell to continue our ride, I contemplated stealing an entire roll of toilet paper from the convenience store, because they did not sell anything portable, and I almost offered the store clerk a dollar for a roll, but didn't think that I had room in my jersey pocket to carry it. Josh ended up swiping several squares of tissue just in case. And so we continued our ride...

The rest of the ride was wonderful. I was feeling like an entirely new woman, between that and my knee being fully functioning, I kept exclaiming about how great I felt. We rode up onto a plateau and had great fun on some rolling hills. One of the rolling hills I got a bit freaked out on as I approached what appeared to be a crazy steep drop off before me, with the bottom not visible because it was so steep, but it was loads of fun! We did have a couple of run-ins with some dogs trying to chase us - - seriously, I do not approve of these rural folk not restricting their viscious dogs' ability to chase unsuspecting cyclists. Another wonderful aspect of the ride was the fact that, despite being in goathead and thorn territory, we did not have a single flat tire.

That evening, we went swimming at the pool again, and I felt so relaxed and wonderful.

Posted by jennifer at 9:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

~ back to the ol' drawing board ~

At present, I am working on a mental hump that I need to overcome. If memory serves you well, you should recall a mountain biking accident that I sustained a while ago. And how, since then, I've been a bit tense on the downhills. Well, if you comprehended what you read in my last post, you should have gathered that there are a few things about my new bike that need to be tweaked. The breaks, for one, and the pedals, for two. These two things, my tension on downhills and those items needing tweaking on my bike, were directly responsible for my having crashed, not once, not twice, but THREE times on my mountain bike ride yesterday. Unfortunately, the majority of my injury was mental, and not physical. Physical injury is relatively easy to heal, at least with proper treatment and whatever. Mental injury, not so much.

Anyway, I had resolved that I didn't want to discuss it at all, because I just feel so severely lamed out and disappointed in myself. But, these people around me seem to have noticed that I am not my normal sunshiny self, and have pressed to know what is the matter. Also, I think I just need to get it off my chest, as this might take some time to get over....and I know how important it is for all of you people out there to understand the minutia of my existence.

So, yesterday, I spent the whole day being excited about taking my bike out on her second ride. I rode one of my favorite routes, Shane's to Three Bears and down Central Ridge. The climb was great, I absolutely LOVE the bike.

FALL NUMBER ONE: I was riding down the trail that drops Shane's into Rocky Canyon Road. There's a sudden technical section of the trail that always gives me a hard time. I had to stop and walk my bike on this. When I got back on the bike, I couldn't get my right cleat clipped into the pedal. Shame on me, this was clearly taking up more of my concentration than was the trail. So, I tipped over and flew down the side of the mountain. This has always been one of my greatest fears. Amazingly, I sustained little damage. I scuffed up my right forearm and my right shin. I had landed in a sandy section with a lot of sage brush. I had sand everywhere, in my shoes, in my shorts, in my mouth. I was also wearing a lot of sunscreen and had been sweating, so the sand stuck to every inch of my person. Sand also got imbedded in my water bottles, which I found rather unpleasant. Also, the scratchy pokey sage brush...I am allergic to sage brush, and I've got tiny welts on my skin to demonstrate that fact. At the same time, for having fallen down the face of a mountain, I felt that I was pretty lucky to not be really hurt. I don't remember a thing from my physics classes, but based on my experience of mountain bike crashes, it seems that the steeper the grade is on which one crashes, the force of the impact is less. In this way, falling down the face of a mountain should not be among my greatest fears.

FALL NUMBER TWO: Despite my crash, I decided to continue with my planned ride. I stopped by a creek and attempted to wash away some of the dirt from my person, to no avail. So I proceeded to ride up Rocky Canyon Road, connect with Three Bears and come down. Now, there is a particularly gnarly, steep, and rocky section on the Three Bears trail coming down towards Boise. As I approached it, I felt my tension increasing, my body becoming more rigid and wary. I rode a bit of it and bailed. I stood there for several minutes, trying to get up the courage to try and ride it. I was thinking about how the only way for me to improve is for me to challenge myself and try to do things that are uncomfortable and scary. I took a deep breath and got back on the bike...and bailed. Except this time, my bike started leaning to the right instead of to the left, where my cleat was unclipped and ready to step to the ground. My right pedal is set up particularly tight. And I couldn't get my damn foot disattached from the pedal and I tipped over onto some big rocks. I sustained a small but deep cut on my leg and a deep bruise. When I stood back up, I was fuming with frustration. I walked the rest of the way down feeling like a pathetic lame-o.

FALL NUMBER THREE: I proceeded to ride down the trail. I've been telling myself over and over that it's all about attitude. I was trying desperately to convince myself that I was having a good time, that I wasn't afraid of falling, that even if I did fall that there was a good chance that I wouldn't get too hurt, that I was glad that I bought my new bike. And then I turned a corner to begin my final descent on the off-camber, sandy, washboardy, steep section of trail that marks the end of Three Bears. The next thing I know, I am flying over my handlebars. The sensation occurred for me in slow-motion - - I was thinking about how I better not get hurt three days before I leave for vacation. After I landed, I stood up, saw the blood squirting from my knee, saw my bicycle lying off the trail, its poor handlebars twisted around and the chain having fallen off, the derailleur scratched, looked around and saw that there was no one anywhere near to me, and I started crying. Like a big baby. I felt so frustrated. I had no idea what made me crash this last time...I thought that all was going well and then was flying over my handlebars. I looked around on the trail to try to figure out what had made me fall. As I indicated, it was an off-camber, sandy, washboardy, steep section, but I've ridden it plenty of times with no problems. As I went to wipe away the tears that were streaming down my face, I wiped the sand from my first crash into my eyes. I plopped down and felt myself becoming overwhelmed with discouragement. I decided that I was a crappy bike rider, and what was I thinking, that I was good enough to upgrade to a nice full suspension bicycle. As I started to calm down, I realized that the best explanation for what made me crash was my mal-adjusted disc breaks. I've never ridden on disc breaks before, and these ones...yikes. As I mentioned in my last post, the tension is not adjusted equally on both. It's not REALLY unequal, but the disparity becomes very noticeable on the downhills. Also, there is a great distance that one must pull the break levers before attaining any breaking effect. Once there is breaking effect, however, the breaks are extremely sensitive. All throughout the ride, I was paying close attention to my breaking, but I must have forgotten their sensitivity as I came around that corner and pulled the levers as I would have with my old bike. And over the handlebars I went.

Soon, I'll be off to take the bike to the shop to see if they can adjust it betterly. My wounds are healing. The knee is oozing wound goo, but is not painful or significantly swollen. My deep cut looks black (if it was longer, I'd say that I need stitches, but it's so small that it would only fit one stitch), and my allergic welts from the sage brush are coming down. It's the mental trauma that is bothering me the most. I've decided that I need to take the bike onto some super mild beginner trails to get my confidence back up...but even the thought of bunny trails makes me uneasy. Anyway, I'm sure I'll keep you posted.

Posted by jennifer at 9:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

~ wound care ~

As you read in the most recent installment of this fine recounting of the wonders of my life, I felt that I was in a glorious place last Friday. After a week of being inert in front of my computer, pumping out brilliance in the form of some research papers, I had come upon the glorious day of Friday which was the due date of my final research paper and the beginning of spring break. To bask in this glory, Josh and I went on a mountain bike ride. We rode Shane's Loop, which is a very mild ride that I have ridden countless times. I found this ride particularly difficult on that Friday and I attribute this to my having remained inert for the duration of the week. Which is telling of my out-of-shapedness considering the easiness of the Loop.

Anyhoo, I don't feel much like recounting every single dingle wingle inconsequential detail of the ride, which is unusual for me...do I feel okay?, so I'll skip ahead to the point of impact. Which was the ground and me having failed to engage in the proper landing of a jump, resulting in my flying over my handlebars and landing with an audible 'thud.' I say 'audible' because Josh was riding a decent distance in front of me and heard the 'thud' that I produced upon impact. I have surmised that I was flying through the air for several seconds because I was able to asertain in mid flight specifically how this was going to ruin my weekend.

I'll spare you some of the less sexy details of my crash, like how the impact dislodged an incredible amount of mucus from my nasal passageway, and allow you to think that the crash was totally rad, when, in fact, it was not...totally rad. The raddest part of the crash, however, was how I strategically dispersed the impact to three rather largish areas of my person, rather than focusing the impact at one locus. So, rather than having one part of my person being severely injured (say, if I had stuck out my hand to break my fall and instead broke my wrist), I have three parts having been mildly injured. Basically, the left side of my person is lame, specifically my left knee, my left thigh/hip region, and my left forearm sustained the brunt of the impact. As I recall, that which made me feel the worst about the crash was when I saw the horrid tear that the crash had caused in my brand new awesome green cycling jacket. Just thinking of that two inch tear in the sleeve of the jacket brings tears to my eyes. So sad, it was such a beautiful jacket.

Anyway, here's a gross picture of my bloody knee
post impact with the ground. You might have been surprised, as was I, by the sheer amount of swelling that occured to this knee over the weekend. You might also be surprised at how great the pain was on this knee, pain which has made every movement of my person sheer agony. The pain and inability to move and bear weight on the knee had become so great by Sunday night that I had resolved to go to the free employee health clinic at my place of employment. Monday when I awoke, the knee was remarkably better. The swelling was gone and the knee had returned to a state of sorta-nimbleness. It still hurt like the dickens, but was noticably better.

So, I walked into work and all of my coworkers, many of whom have university degrees on how to take care of the human body, could not contain themselves over the state of my wounds. My supervisor literally saw my knee and then escorted me across the street to get a tetnus shot. She had to hold my hand throughout this process because the thought of being impaled by a needle made my knees weaken and my stomach churn. She even held my hand when it became incredibly clammy and cold sweaty as I saw the ginormous needle about to inject me with poison. I thought I would faint.

Later that day, one of the experts on the human body had a telephone conversation with the local wound care specialist and also utilized the library services to research wound care in sports medicine. This brought her to recommend that I apply a specific kind of dressing (Tegaderm) to my knee. She surmised that this dressing would only be available at specialty medical supply shops and might be rather expensive. I made a few phone calls and discovered that I could buy the dressing at cost through my employer, and so I procured three of them for two dollars. The experts on the human body with whom I work said that Tegaderm would be just the ticket to allow my wound to breath, would not stick to the wound, and would allow for proper drainage.

For those who are like me and are not experts on the human body, here is my experience. First, this dressing, to my unexpert eye, resembles celophane in its clear and smoothness. It is obvious that it is not made out of plastic, unlike celophane, and is more pliable, stretchy, and almost rubbery. I am confident that this is not going to stick to my wound...one of the experts on the human body and I had something of an argument about medical supplies purporting to not stick to wounds. I was a vehement disbeliever and did not want to apply any sort of dressing to my wound. But I now believe. Secondly, the drainage has been an interesting experience for me. The dressing seems a little porous and when I brush my hand against its surface, I sense a slight moistness that may be due to my wound goo evaporating and forming condensation on the outer side of the dressing. At the same time, the dressing forms these pockets in which the wound goo accumulates, and these pools of wound goo push themselves into rives and leak out from the underside of the dressing. The dressing is translucent and it is possible to watch all of the disgusting healing powers of my person. This is not to say that I have wound goo dripping down my leg, but it does accumulate in crusty wound goo patches. I am now in the habit of having a tissue with me to periodically wipe away the crusty wound goo. Here is a gross photo of my knee with the dressing on it. If you examine it closely, you can see how it resembles celophane, the pools of wound goo that accumulate on the inside of the dressing, and the crusty wound goo that drains onto my leg. As disgusting as this looks to you or I, according to the experts on the human body with whom I work, my wounds are healing nicely.

Posted by jennifer at 8:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

My Birthday!

"I chose this road because it was the safest for us." - - Josh, 2006.

Today I am celebrating another revolution about the sun. I do this after a weekend of ups and downs, mainly ups, a big down, and no dull experiences.

Saturday was fantastic. I got up early and met Josh for coffee before he had to do to work. After he left, I had a quality journal-writing experience and then wandered home where I went on a cleaning rampage. Some time before the noon hour, I walked to the downtown music store to do some research on some musical groups. Then I walked to Satchel's for some lunch. While I ate, I read a story from my science fiction anthology of 1981. It was about a distant time in the future when humans have achieved immortality, but the immortality had to come at the price of losing their need to be immortal...losing the ability to be creative. A few hours later, I went to the Art Museum with Devlyn and afterwards we enjoyed some beverages on the patio of Gernika, where Sara later joined us. That evening I played a hardcore version of badmitten ("smashmitten") with Josh at the Fort Boise Community Center.

The next day, I met Josh for coffee at our favorite coffee shop. By the time that I arrived, he was waiting out front for me. I noticed that his bicycle was propped against a pole unlocked. "Why is your bike unlocked?" I asked. "Because I'm using it to lock up another bike," he responded. Jumping the gun, I assumed that he was referring to a birthday gift for me. I was standing next to the tree to which I always lock my bike and saw an ugly crap cruiser locked to it. Mockingly, I gestured to the ugly bike and said with a big smile, "Is this for me?" Almost laughing, Josh came over to me and the ugly bike and said, "Yes, do you like it?" I fingered the torn grips and stroked the chipped paint and said, "It's beautiful." Then Josh said, "Seriously, do you see a cool bike anywhere around us?" And I scanned the area, and off in the distance, I saw a beautiful white glow shimmering in the sunlight. And it was the most beautiful bike in the world.

After we had coffee, we drove out to the Sawtooths to go on my very first road ride. Josh decided that we would go riding on what he considered to be the safest road for us. It was a long open stretch, with a wide shoulder, and no turns with blind corners. Plus, the Sawtooths are amazing. It was beautiful and so much fun. I've never ridden a road bike before so it was quite the experience for me. I was kinda wobbly, but glowing about riding such a beautiful bicycle. Ultimately, we rode about 30 miles.

At some point nearing the last 10 miles of our ride, we were struck by an unfortunate incident. I was riding behind Josh, in his draft, and after getting some energy back, decided to pass him and take the lead. I looked back to verify that there was no motorized vehicle that was going to hit me. I saw one far off in the distance and determined that it was safe for me to pass Josh. About two minutes after passing Josh, that vehicle that I had seen, a large utility truck, sped past me, less than five inches away from my person, clearly having crossed the white line. My life flashed before my eyes and I screamed. I also heard Josh scream. I turned my head and looked back. I saw Josh lying in the gravel along the side of the road. I realized that he had been sizeswiped by the truck and I had a heart attack. I pulled my bike over, unclipped my feet from the peddles, and ran over to him. His bike was off to the side a few feet away, his belongings were strewn everywhere, and he was propped in an awkward position. He was saying that he was alright and I was panicking over all of the blood. His legs and arms were all scrapped up and his hip and left buttock looked like they had been shredded by a cheese slicer. Here is an unpleasant photo of his road rash. Don't say I didn't warn you.

The truck had stopped and a very old man came over to ask if Josh was okay. Josh asked the man how he couldn't have seen us, "I chose this road because it was the safest for us." The man just said he was sorry. I noticed that one of Josh's leses for his glasses was right next to my shoe and I picked it up and began hunting around for the rest of his glasses, which were conveniently the same color as the gravel. I asked the old man twice to give us a ride to our car and he said that he would have to reload the equipment in his truck, indicating that it would be a hassle for him to provide us with such assistance. As I was gathering Josh's belongings which were strewn everywhere, the old man gave Josh $50. Josh said, "Well, thanks but these cycling shorts were $80 and it's going to cost me over $100 to replace my helmet." The man shrugged as if it wasn't his problem and walked to his truck. I was still in a state of shock and wasn't understanding where he thought he was going. As I saw him start up his truck, I made a point of memorizing his lisence plate.

Josh and I then had to ride 11 miles to get to the car. To me, it seemed like a million miles. I felt so shaky on the bike, because I was still not used to riding a road bike but also, you know, because my boyfriend had just been hit by a truck. When we got to the car, I drove us to Stanley, where I purchased a variety of items for his injuries (hydrogen peroxide, non-stick gauze, a spray-on bandage thing, etc.) and while Josh cleaned his wounds, I called the police. We spent an hour making our police report, which was probably pointless because other than filling out some forms, I doubt that anything will be done about it.

We decided to drive over to Red Fish Lake to have dinner at the Lodge. We wandered along the beach, sat on the dock, admired the scenery, used the $50 the old man gave Josh to buy dinner, goofed off in the gift shop, and then drove back to Boise.

I've had constant anxiety since 1:45 yesterday because I keep replaying everything in my head. I've got all kinds of thoughts, anger, anxiety, that just won't go away. My stomach is in knots over this. I haven't spoken to Josh yet today to find out how he's feeling, but it can't be good. Anyway, today is my 26th birthday.

Posted by jennifer at 8:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (7)