Bicycle Accident

Dear diary,

Right at the beginning of the one-week spring/summer break, I had a bicycle accident. That was, of course, the best time for that to happen. I an aerodynamic position, with my hands on the lower handlebar, I sped downhill behind a friend.

The next thing I heard was the sound of my helmet breaking on the tarmac. While I slowly recovered consciousness, the woman who had so blithely jumped onto the bike path, walked away if nothing had happened.

Stunned, I quickly got up and suddenly started giggling, barely knowing where I was. But it didn’t last and mostly, I figured I was fine, and after we had done some basic repairs on our bikes, my friend and I began to cycle home. Suddenly, I started feeling dizzy, as if I was drunk.

I couldn’t cycle in a straight line. I couldn’t hear anything with my left ear, my bike started wobbling, and I fell over. Determined to get home where I could lie down properly, I got back on and continued cycling… very slowly.

It was in my apartment, that I started feeling the real pain, in my wrists, right ring finger, hip, neck, and spine. But as a competitive rower, I’ve ignored pain before so I didn’t think it was serious and called a friend in Switzerland to get some mileage from my war story. He didn’t think it was funny: it was concussion, he said, and dangerous said I needed to go to the hospital as soon as possible.

At the emergency room, my whole body was x-rayed. My friend was right: I had a light concussion, and also a sprained hip, spine, neck, ring finger, and wrist. My skin definitely showed some similarities with the color of a blueberry.

But there was a silver lining: almost a week of guilt-free-television! And contrary to my dad’s claim that I’d be fine in time to get married, I actually felt better as soon as I had to go back to school. That must mean something.