Pink platypus bike wreck therapy

So about that pink platypus...

Looking back over this blog, I see that I never posted about S's bike wreck last November. The first day of last fall's Durham County Pottery Tour, while I was busy selling pots, S decided to go for a nice long bike ride. About half an hour after he left, he phoned to say "I'm fine, but I got hit by a car and I need a ride home."

Potter P was also showing at my studio, so he held down the fort and I left with E to pick up S. The very apologetic driver who had hit him was there, and the EMTs were there, and S was there still in one piece. "I used the judo moves I learned [38 years ago]," he said, "and curled into a ball, so all the impact went into the [totalled] windshield and I just rolled over the car." The EMTs said "he's refused an ambulance ride to the ER, but you should take him there anyway." E and S spent the next several hours in the ER, while I went back to the pottery sale. S had a shoulder injury that would take a few months to heal. His bike was totaled.

Bent wheels

Cracked carbon frame

Trashed seat

Cracked helmet

Miraculously intact S

This is all to explain that last month, when S phoned about 30 minutes after setting off for a Tuesday evening ride, and he said "I'm fine, but somehow I wrecked my bike and I need a ride home," E and I were pretty sure we'd be heading to the ER with him again, even though S said "nah, I don't need to go."

We knew this not only from November's accident, but also from a wreck S had had in Oregon in 1992. That time, I was waiting for him to pick me up after a rehearsal. He was chronically late, so I wasn't surprised when he didn't show up--until our next door neighbors arrived and said "S had an accident and we're taking you to the ER." They didn't say "S is OK, but he had an accident and we're taking you to the ER," which was a valuable lesson in how not to convey information after an accident. I was deeply relieved, when we arrived, to find him conscious instead of dead. Turns out he had crashed while speeding down a hill outside of town. He hitched a ride home and wanted to take a shower to clean himself up, but he didn't have any Band-Aids, so he went next door to borrow some, and they took one look at him and took him to the ER, where the doctor spent an hour plucking impacted gravel out of his bloody arms and knees and face before sending him into a shower ("you won't be able to move tomorrow, so you should shower now") and bandaging him up. They wouldn't send him home until I promised to wake him up at 4am and check his pupils.

So on that Tuesday evening this past July, it was off to the ER once again.

Here are some things we learned: (1) if you're dehydrated after a bike ride but the ER folks don't want you to eat or drink until the doctor says it's OK, then your blood will be hard to draw, and what they manage to get out of your veins will be gummy and will probably clot before they can run the blood tests, so they'll have to draw blood a second time. You will need to explain to the nurses that bicyclists need to drink and eat after riding. (2) Folks who are in the ER with blood dripping down their legs will stand out to the non-dripping patients, but not to the staff; you have to wait your turn just like everyone else, but at least you'll give the non-dripping folks something to watch and talk about. (3) If the triage nurse is also a biker jock, he might give you different--i.e. less informed--i.e. wrong--advice about treating abrasions than, say, your knowledgeable dermatologist would. Your dermatologist would tell you to cover wounds with petroleum jelly (no need for antibiotics unless the wound is infected) and a bandage; ER biker jock nurses might tell you to keep the wound uncovered so it dries out faster (and the scab cracks every time you bend your knee).

Helmets save lives. Note that S's instinct to smile for a photo was still intact.

Drip drip drip. S wanted us to save his shredded bloody bike gloves, but we threw them out.

On the plus side, S's cat-scan looked great. On the minus side, the reason his arms hurt so much was that he fractured the radial heads of both elbows. The ER doc referred S to an orthopedist and sent us home.

I called Ortho the next day to make an appointment. "Our next available appointment is August 12," said the cheerful Ortho scheduler. "That's not going to work for us," I said. The Ortho scheduler actually sounded surprised and asked why. "Because today is July 18, and he has two broken elbows, and he needs to know what to do" I said. Ortho scheduler said, "Well, you've been referred to Dr. X, and that's the soonest Dr. X is available." "Can we see someone else?" I asked. Really. I had to ask that. And Ortho scheduler had to check with the doctor first and then get back to us. Thus it was that S saw a physician's assistant the next day.

On the plus side, S's fractures were the best of all possible elbow fractures. No surgery, no casts, not even splints. He was to wear his slings in public to deter hugs and handshakes, until he no longer needed to deter them, and beyond that, elbow and arm movement were encouraged.

So you can see why, ten days later, when we arrived in the Truckee Safeway, and S came across the stuffed pink platypus at 50% off, he bought it and spent a few hours every day squeezing it to build his hand strength back up.

And that is the story of how a stuffed pink platypus ended up on a log watching the ocean on Point Reyes.

The Great Fish Tank Crisis of 2018

Readers who have been following this blog for a while might remember The Great Ice Storm of '02 and The Great 2010 Fish Tank Catastrophe. What these events have in common--along with most other snow storms and home calamities--is that S is out of town for them.

Today, S is here:

Scenic Les Diablerets, Switzerland! What a lovely place for an academic conference, with free time scheduled in for hiking and biking. When the conference ends, S will spend several days biking from Les Diablerets to Bavaria, where he'll spend a week visiting his mom. Fifteen days from now, he'll fly home.

The timing could thus not be any better for The Great Fish Tank Crisis of 2018 to commence.

Yesterday, E and I noticed that the fish tank filter spray bar was making a lot of noise. This happens when enough water evaporates that the spray bar is no longer under water, creating a fountain as the filtered water returns to the tank; and it was odd, given that S had recently replenished the tank.

This morning, as E and I were rushing out the door, we noticed the noise was even louder. How odd that another inch of water could have evaporated so quickly out of the 45-gallon tank. Then we noticed the water seeping out of the bottom of the tank, meandering down--a drip here, a rivulet there--into the expanding puddle on the floor below. I looked at the fish; the fish looked at me. And then, with fingers crossed that the tank would not burst in the next 20 minutes, E drove us to his job (he's still 8 practice hours and 2.5 months away from getting his driver's license) while I texted S in a panic.

The fish tank and its accompanying geekery are S's deal. I know about as much about maintaining the tank as he knows about making pottery--which is to say, usually enough, but not much when the clock is ticking. For example, I know how to feed the fish, and how to add tea-tree oil if someone takes a bite out of someone else's tail, and how to pull out and rinse off the filter, just as S knows how to appreciate a form and fill a handmade bowl with salad, and how to blow into a chickarina butt to make music. He doesn't know how to throw a pot or load a kiln under time pressure, just as I don't know how to stop a tank from emptying out onto the floor or how to set up a hospital tank and relocate 25 living fish into it. (Yes, S guided me through the Great 2010 Fish Tank Catastrophe over the telephone--at 3 a.m., Germany time--but in that case there were, alas, but two survivors to relocate, and the tank wasn't threatening to burst.)

Thankfully, our neighbor R was available and came to the rescue, with S checking in periodically by phone from his scenic bike ride near Les Diablerets. (The above photos were taken at each phone-call stop.) All fish have been transferred to the hospital tank in the kitchen, including the powerful giant plecostomus that resisted netting and that R consequently carried by its tail through the dining room; all plants have been transferred to a second spare tank and bucket; and enough tank water was salvaged to keep everyone healthy and happy through a water change or two. So that E and I don't have to enjoy the scent of decaying fish poop for two weeks, R and I scooped all the gravel out of the tank, carried it outside, rinsed it off, and spread it on cardboard on the porch to dry, and then we carried the tank outside and R rinsed that too. Then we pulled the fish tank stand away from the living room wall, so the floorboards will have a chance to dry out and hopefully unbuckle.

And then peace descended upon the house once more. When S returns, he can repair and reassemble the tank, and it will be ready for a brand new crisis the next time he goes out of town.

From less troubled times: