Happy Fourth of July, peoples. Mine has been not so great. The amount of pain that has result from what is basically skinned knees has been phenomenal. It's like a sharp, shooting, stabbing, biting constant whenever I stand or sit or lay down for the amount of time it takes for my skin to grow accustomed to whichever way my knees are bending. Boyfriend calls it road rash. I say it's more like my knees are little heads that have been scalped. Except one knee was scalped twice, so maybe it was a conjoined twin or something.
The backstory is pretty simple. I'm clumsy as heck and we decided to go biking on the Trinity River Trails in Fort Worth. We had been there the week before and had a lovely time, going about 13 miles. This time, I decided we should try for 18 miles--9 there and 9 back. The first half was fantastic, though I do have a terribly difficult time going up ramps. On the way back, we had gone about... oh 3 or 4 miles when some people passed on the left. They let me know they were passing, but I still panicked and ended up going off the pavement. Now, this happened when we were alongside the river, the bank appeared steep and I started panicking some more. The people who were going to pass were yelling at me to stay off the concrete but all I could think of was the terrific splash I'd make when I fell into the river and decided, heck, I should go on the concrete. I did not make it, to say the least and have assorted injuries to show for my lapse in judgement. A bump and bruise on my head (though the helmet did the job it was made for and kept me from, you know, dying), some scrapes on my hip and shoulder, a few cuts on my hands, a scrape on my elbow, three giant scrapes on my knee--two on the left and one on the right and what is probably a bruised rib and what I believe is at least a cracked toe on my left foot. My neck has been sore, my side has been sore, it hurts to laugh or cough, and I walk with a limp.
But the worst has been the knees.
So far, Tegaderm, Johnson and Johnson Advanced Healing Bandages and nonstick gauze with plenty of Neosporin has been tried. The Tegaderm has been the most effective, but unfortunately, since the little skinless patches of flesh tend to leak constantly, the Tegaderm falls off. The Johnson and Johnson bandages were applied next and they soak up whatever it is that's oozing out of my bared flesh, but they also fall off easily. The nonstick gauze? NOT NONSTICK. I saw that one was peeling off and when I looked closer, saw that it was stuck to the wound it had explicitly promised not to stick to. I went ahead and took all the pads off and they had all stuck to my skin (or lack thereof). Pulling it off resulted in pulling off little bits and pieces. It hurt. It hurt a lot.
So right now I have made do with a combination of all three and will probably end up going to the store for something else tomorrow, which goes against my original plan to stay in bed all day and hope that my knees magically regrew skin by Tuesday. It's been two days, is that so much to ask?
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