For all my military buddies…

Here is one I could not help posting this one, it is not far off on my personal experiences from transitioning from the USMC to commercial ICT work. (I have linked the comic to the original site, hoping to provide enough credit where credit is due to prevent any infringement problems, this strip is copyrighted and property of United Media)

Cast off after three and half weeks

So, yesterday morning I was off to the hospital to get my cast off and check the progress of my broken hand. They removed the cast and it was not a very pretty sight due to the scratches I had obtained in my original fall, but it was nice to have the thing off!

The doctor checked me out and said that the cast had been a bit tight on my outer three fingers causing some rubbing blisters between the knuckles and some bruising (see the pics), but other than that I would have to take it easy for a week. The normal time is four weeks in a cast, so he made me promise to wait a week before I start working the hand to get strength back.

I spent the better part of an hour in a hot shower once I got home to loosen up the stiffness, remove some of the garbage from being in a cast and just because it was wonderful to have my hand back. After drying it off it was still pretty painful, from the blood starting to properly circulate through the fingers again. My knuckles swelled up a bit and I decided to wrap the hand up in a soft bandage for the day.

This morning I woke up and have kept the hand out of the bandage all morning. It is slowly getting better but you can see in the pictures that there is some serious swelling and bruising that needs to be a bit more healed before I start to work on mobility. But I am free!

More one my hand…

Last week Tuesday I headed back to the hospital for what I was told would be a new fiberglass light weight cast. I get there, am sent straight to the cast room without seeing the doctor and the lady there wants to cut off my old cast without even looking at my file. I asked her what the hell she was doing because I was pretty sure that my broken hand was not set in 8 days and I was not planning on going thru the 4-doctor procedure of resetting my hand because she cuts my cast off without thinking…

After stopping to look at my file and calling up a few x-rays on the computer she thought it would be a better idea to leave the cast as it was. Doh! I guess to make it look like my trip to the hospital was not for nothing, which basically it was, they removed the top layer (pink) and gave me a new purple one. I was then told it would all be removed at the end of the month (only in cast for 3 1/2 weeks by then).

Crash and burn…

Last Sunday I was out riding with my buddy Marcel, a nice sunny day to cycle to his parents and back. We left around 0830 and as it was quite cool out I had decided to wear long legged tights until it warmed up later. We arrived without incident at Marcel’s parents house 45 km later, enjoyed a few coffees and I removed the long trousers to continue in my shorts which I had on under them. I balled up the long trousers and stuffed them under the back of my shirt, something I have done often.

Departing at around 1100 hrs we headed back for home, stopping at 1145 hrs to call home to let the ladies know we would be a bit later than we had planned. We were at 71km’s distance for the day, just about to leave Drunen when the long trousers decided to drop out of my shirt, into my back wheel… I was standing up and the bike just stopped under me… needless to say, I went head over heals onto the rather rough pavement and slid onto the grass next to the bike path we were on. Marcel was in front of me and was rather shocked at the noise I made hitting the ground and of my bike flying around. He rushes back to me while I am spitting out grass and taking assessment of the damage. I have various bruises, scraped a good deal of skin off my arms, legs, elbows and knees. The worst was my left hand, broken for sure as I can’t see my last knuckle anymore or feel my last two fingers.

Marcel’s girlfriend Diana was nice enough to pick me up and take me to the emergency room. 3,5 hours later I have the cast and sore body that is the grand total at the 1700 km mark of my cycling summer. I am out of biking and off the road for 5-6 weeks I am told.

The knuckle is broken off the top end of the bone in my hand just under the pinkie. It took four doctors two tries to set it and a grand total of 7 x-rays before I was allowed to go home. Man did this hurt, more than my other injuries in the past (broken collar-bone, both wrists, right hand and blown out knee). The pictures are of me heading to the hospital the day after the accident as they though it might need an operation to set it right. Luckily not!

First flat tire yesterday

I rode to work yesterday with Robert along for the ride. Was nice to chat on the way to Nijmegen and he dropped in for coffee before heading home again.

I left work a bit early as the weather was not too nice with severe rain showers expected later in the afternoon. Keeping an eye on buienradar.nl I picked the best time I could to head for home. On the way there I had to stop twice, once under an overpass and once under a tree for about 15 minutes to let the rain showers pass.

Just outside of s-Hertogenbosch I got a flat back tire, checked the km count and I was at 1700 km in total without a puncture. Luckily, I had a spare tube with me. I proceeded to removed the old one, find the piece of glass (actually two pieces) that caused the puncture, removed these and inserted the new tube. Took me about 20 minutes in all as I have never done it before, but luckily I was in a patch of sun so not working in the rain!

Total ride was 111 km’s and took about 5 hours (due to bad weather and wind on the way back home). My legs were pretty toasted yesterday evening!

Weekend ride around s-Hertogenbosch

This weekend I rode again with our tour group of Marcel and Robert around s-Hertogenbosch. Robert had to catch a train at 1000 hrs so we met at my house and did a ride around Vught and back to his house in the center of town. We stopped there and had a bit to drink before Marcel and I continued on for a bit more touring. It covered eventually 57 km’s and we go in just before the rain started so was a good day!

Fixing up the house a bit

This weekend has been devoted to finishing up the various little tasks that needed to be done on our house. I have several projects that I wanted to finish before we start on getting the my daughters room ready for the baby. We want to move her from the baby room and give her her very own room. This will need cleaning out (was a storage area), painting and the addition of new furniture.

Before we begin on that I wanted to replace our old shower screen, a glass sliding thing that has been in the house for about 10 years. We now have a very nice folding one that I put in, including fresh sealing along most of the tub.

Also needed to finish up the top floor of our house which I had remodelled myself, adding a loft and splitting the large single area into two rooms. We only needed to finish the painting of the laundry area (two walls and the ceiling) one last time. I also want to put up some decorative things in the corners where the walls meet the ceiling to hide any gaps between these walls. They are there to allow the room which is built on the top floor of our house to work in the heat and cold. Once the paint dries I can hang pictures and mark this done!

Next step is to clean out my daughters new room and get it done before the end of August.

Flying to Nijmegen today!

Total ride of 109,6 km. Average speed on the way there was 29,7 km/hr and I was able to hold long stretches of road at 32 km/hr. No rest stops on the way or back home (normally I stop at least once each way to give my bottom a rest). Total average speed was 28,6 km/hr for the total ride.

I was flying, I guess our vacation for three weeks in the Dutch mountains paid off!