Don't break your arm, it hurts

Hey guys, remember this?

Rode clipless for the first time tonight. Fell. Now I have a lovely jammed, swollen elbow. #beginner #shimano #clipless
— Kalyn Louise (@geezlouise23) August 21, 2013

After a few hours of debate, 1200 mg of ibuprofen, and a lot of pain, I decided to take myself in to urgent care to see just how bad the damage was. My handy nurse instincts were telling me it was something serious, but my stubbornness didn't want to face the fact that I could have broken a bone.

Can you see the tiny crack?

 

Lets start from the beginning, shall we? After Derek and I got home from work, he installed some new clipless pedals on my bike, since I finally got around to buying some shoes to clip in. I rode up and down the driveway for some practice, being that this was my first time riding clipped in, and was doing pretty well getting my feet off the pedals quickly. Until I wasn't. As I was turning around to head back to the house, I couldn't unclip my left foot... and that's the way the bike started to fall and I put my arm out to brace myself. Since my foot was still clipped to the pedal, all my body weight went right on my arm.

 

At this point it hurt, but I thought it was just jammed and I would be able to just shake it off. So I went inside cooked and ate dinner with Derek and made an ice pack for my sore elbow. As I was getting ready for bed I realized I could no longer extend or bend my elbow without the pain intensifying. Derek was convinced it was only jammed and I really really wanted to agree with him but something was telling me it was worse.

 

Finally at 11 the pain was bad enough to get me out of bed and go to urgent care. I had to get Derek to help me a little and I think the funniest thing about all of this was him trying to get my hair in a ponytail (you would think an engineer could grasp such a simple concept). After my hair was out of my face and my clothes on straight, Derek's mom took me to urgent care. When the doctor confirmed the fracture, I burst into tears. He looked a little nervous, reassuring me it wasn't the worst that could happen but all I could say was "You don't undeerrrrstaaand, I have a raaaccceeeee!"

 

 

I finally made it home around 2:30 am and passed out. Thankfully, being a nurse at a rehab facility has its perks, because I know people who know people and I should be first on the list to see an orthopedic specialist today.

My arm at the moment. Now I've got to figure out how to put a bra on one-armed.