Tim is injured.

Did that get your attention?  Thought it might.  First of all, he's okay.  But he is hurt.  It's a slow news day on my front, so I might as well report on him.  Tim has, I'm 99% sure, a broken right wrist.  If you remember, he spun yesterday morning, ran 20, and then went out for a 30 mile ride with Bill.  Right before he left, I went out to take his picture on his bike (because I have so few of these).  I walked inside right as he was heading around to the garage to grab his helmet.  Nothing out of the ordinary.

About 15 minutes later, he came back onto the porch and into the front door.  I wasn't sure what happened.  My first thought was a flat, but then he said that he was just stopping to get more Gatorade, as he and Bill had decided to go further than he initially planned.  He said, sort of on the side, "Oh, I fell about 10 seconds after you took my picture."  I don't know exactly what happened, but it wasn't a crash--it was a bike fall.  Bike falls can be nasty if you are clipped in.  He somehow got caught up in his shoe (wasn't clipped in yet), and the bike toppled over.  He broke the fall, naturally, by extending his right arm, landing on his wrist.  He sort of pointed to his right wrist, but didn't seem too concerned.

He made it through the ride fine, saying the wrist was just sore.  However, as the evening progressed, he began to have quite a bit of pain.  Any kind of movement of that hand/forearm/wrist, and he was wincing.  It was slightly swollen.  We were hoping it was just sprained.  He iced it a lot and took some ibuprofen.  This morning, though, it was much worse.   It was noticeably swollen, and he couldn't bear to move it.  He headed to Walgreen's to get a brace for it.  It was at that point I figured it was probably broken.

He refuses to go get it x-rayed.  He is just assuming (and likely correctly) that it is broken.  The treatment for a broken wrist pretty much involves a cast, which he believes he has achieved using his Walgreen's brace.  Of course, if it is fractured AND dislocated, the fracture will heal incorrectly.  And, of course, you'd need a physician or advanced practice nurse (well, not this one...I'm a CNS, not an NP) to reset the fracture if it's dislocated.  But he's having none of it.  You want to know why?  I know why.  He doesn't want someone to tell him not to ride or run.  He's more like I am than people realize.  He can ride in aero position, or sitting upright on his bike on the trainer, but he cannot grip the handle bars.

What about running?  I don't know--can you run with a broken wrist?  Probably.  I don't think he'll hurt it worse, but it could be really painful.  That's a lot of impact, and you don't realize that your entire body is affected by it until something like, say, your abs or your ribs, are hurt and painful.  He's running a tempo tomorrow, so that should tell.  I hope he can do it.  Again, not much to be done for a fractured wrist.  It's pretty much immobilization for 4-6 weeks.  But I do wish he'd go to have it looked at.  But we've already been through that 20 times today, and, so far, he's not budging.  I bet Bill could convince him in five minutes, though.  The most important limitation this wrist injury has imposed, however, is Tim's inability to chop vegetables and meats.  This is serious, folks.  If I have to do the cooking around here, we might starve.

As for me--I saw Dr. Russell this morning.  I've been working it over in my head how I was going to break it to him that I ran a total of 30 miles in my TENS unit.  He asked me how things were going, and I just blurted it out.  "I ran 10 miles Saturday and 20 yesterday with the TENS on."  "Oh, you put the TENS on after?"  "No, I wore it the whole time I was running."  "Attached to you?"  "Yeah."  "O.......kay."  I told him that I knew it sounded crazy, but it really worked.  He started smiling.  "Yeah, actually, that would work.  I just never thought of it."  He pointed out that wearing it would, of course, never fix my problem, but if it helped me get through my runs, there was certainly no harm in it.  Though he was amazed that I could tolerate the TENS pain while running.  I think that gave him a new appreciation for the other pain.  I describe it as the difference between being punched in the gut or stabbed in the gut.  I much prefer the punching, and that's what the TENS feels like.  Literally--when it is turned up to the maximum setting, it's like a punch.  Beats a stab any day.

I had the usual treatment, and we've determined that my right psoas is much improved.  We're still dealing with the right and left rectus "ridges," though.  I get injections on Wednesday (Hallelujah!) and then I get to see Dr. Russell and Dr. Houze at the same time on Friday.  Dr. Russell said that Dr. Houze has a very big bag of tricks (good thing, he'll need 'em).  Dr. Russell is then going on vacation, and I'll be in Dr. Houze's hands for a while.

That's pretty much it.  14 miles tomorrow, and Kathy may join.  Now it's back to taking care of my husband and, possibly, dinner.