Day 1 and Day 2 posts in case you missed them.

Things are going well. I was able to eat some solid food yesterday. I have to make everything small bites, but our turkey will not have to be juiced and that’s awesome.

Some random thoughts for the day:

• I’m on a full regimen on antibiotics. It didn’t dawn on me until yesterday that I had crashed at a farm mere feet away from where animals spend their days. The nastiness that must have been in my wounds is pretty much unparalleled. Clearly this registered to my doctor much earlier than it did me.
• I’ve been able to move off the heavy drugs and to Advil. Hurray for being able to drive again.
• I’m finally seeing injuries in other places. It seems like my left hip hit the ground after the right side of my face. I’ll leave it to you to visualize that, but I’m pretty sure it involves a pivot on my nose.
• It’s truly miraculous that my teeth and face were able to absorb the energy of the crash without passing it through my neck and into my spine.
• Did you know you can bruise your tongue? I didn’t. No pictures because it’d get you a bit too close to my wounds for even me to be comfortable with, but trust me when I say it looks exactly like I licked a grape lollipop.
• My friends are amazing. Not only did they get me to the hospital and get our car home, but they also brought my bike back AND CLEANED IT. I picked it up yesterday. No damage at all, but cleaner than it likely was when new. So thankful to have people like that in my life.
• I was able to ride the trainer yesterday. 10 miles at a painfully casual pace, but it’s the off-season so BASE MILES.
• I posted a blurb to the racing mailing list to thank all the wonderful people who helped me in my time of need:

I don’t know how else to get in touch with those folks who lent a helping hand picking pieces of me up off the ground following the finish of the race this past week. It’s truly an amazing community – husbands, wives, racers, officials, kids… I was a bit out of it, but I recall countless folks being involved. I am mostly okay (gory details at https://www.iammike.org/2015/11/23/all-i-want-for-christmas/) and am thankful from the bottom of my heart to those folks who came to my aid. I’ve yet to hear from the fellow who tried to occupy my space, but from asking and snooping around it sounds like he’s doing pretty well too.

I didn’t get a chance to climb the podium this weekend (I won the race) so I’d like to use this opportunity at the metaphorical one to remind everyone that we are amateurs; we all have regular lives to return to when the racing is done and fun is the ENTIRE name of the game. If you’re like me, you race for fractions of a penny on the dollar (my ratio went way down after this weekend). Knowing when to back off is a lesson I luckily learned early in my racing career and without involving anyone else (broken wrist trying to force room where there wasn’t any). It’s an invaluable one and one that doesn’t require trip to the ER to learn. Please, please, please ride safely out there.

Without further ado, TWO pictures for your viewing pleasure. One is the daily (sorry about the ooze – we’re doing a wet healing here) and the other is my tooth X-ray. Kind of difficult to see the full effect of the damage from the X-ray, but that is how my teeth look from the front. On the backside, the fracture goes all the way to the gum line.