The Art of Falling

I was sitting in the lobby area of the Kaiser Permanente lab department, listening for my name to be called. The room was brimming with people who were waiting to be summoned, so I had no choice but to be patient (not one of my strong suits). A blood sample was what I was there to give. That, and have them wire me up for an electrocardiogram. Standard procedure, I was told. It had to be done before my “operation.”

I had already paid a visit to my surgeon earlier that morning, where he walked me through the procedure that was going to be done on my left hand in about a week. A one-inch incision would be made at the wrist, followed by some intricate cutting of the carpal ligament. This, he explained, would enlarge the space in the carpal tunnel and relieve pressure on the median nerve. The surgery would take less than an hour. I would be home by mid afternoon.

What can I say? I have been on and off the injury wagon close to twelve months now. Sciatica flare-ups and a strained lumbar had been the initial culprits. But I weathered through those episodes and kept at the climbing and mountain biking whenever physically able. Ibuprofen was my friend: my prime defender against the creep of age. After all, you don't stop following your passion because you grow old—you grow old because you stopped following your passion.  

However the Battle of Aches & Pains took a turn for the worse last July when I pulled that endo in Big Bear on my mountain bike. I had lost the line down a dubious stretch of black diamond trail; bashed into a hefty rock with my front wheel; sailed over the handlebars. I’ve done this before, it’s no big deal. Just roll with it. But this time it was an awkward fall and I landed head first, both hands taking the brunt of the impact. Two sprained wrists and a fractured left hand was the consequence of me losing that divine line.

Eight weeks of healing and rehab followed. The fifth metacarpal bone in my left hand mended nicely. But there was lingering numbness in my thumb, index and middle fingers, likely due to tissue inflammation caused by the sprain, which was now pressing against the median nerve in the carpal tunnel. My hand doctor gave it another five months to see if things would improve. They didn’t. And that’s how I found myself sitting in the Kaiser lab department, waiting for them to call my name so they could poke me with needles and even conduct an EKG to test my ol’ ticker because, after all, I’m getting up there in dog years. The things you gotta go through to have surgery these days.

It was afternoon by the time I got back to the house. It was a sunny February day. Since Terry was still at school, I decided to take my trusty StumpJumper into the Chino Hills for a solo ride—besides, I was scheduled for surgery in a few days and would soon be out of action for eight to ten weeks. I loaded my bike onto the rack; jumped in the car and motored up to the Rim Crest trailhead. Since there wasn’t much daylight remaining, I opted for a short but vigorous eight-mile loop that would take me up Telegraph Canyon, returning via South Ridge.  

I didn’t pick up mountain biking until I started dating Terry. She got me into it. I blame her. But I have to admit, it is the closest thing I’ve found to my randonnee ski days, imparting untainted bliss once you get into the Zone. Each year, my riding would improve. Now I can give my wife some bona fide competition on the downhill shreds—though she still dusts me on the uphill grinds.  

I pedaled through the trailhead gate and bounded down the singletrack that dropped into Telegraph Canyon. At the bottom, I picked up the dirt service road and followed it up-canyon for three miles, then turned south onto the Bovinian Delight singletrack, the technical crux of the ride. It climbs into Tarantula Canyon through grasslands and stands of live oak, becoming more rugged as one ascends. Ter and I had ridden it two weeks prior, so I knew there were some eroded and gnarled sections. Vigilantly I navigated through them, nailing the banked hairpins with a sense of purpose. Yes! I was in the Zone now.

The last sweep of Bovinian traverses a steep hillside to South Ridge, and to get across it, I had to negotiate one final chewed-up section of trail. I gained momentum as I approached the bumps, choosing my line judiciously. But things happen quickly when tackling the rough. My front tire tapped a rock, knocking me out of the line; I corrected; hit a rut and lost the line again; struggled to regain it, and then THUD—my front wheel smacked another rock head-on and came to a stop. From there, the laws of physics took charge and catapulted me over the handlebars.

Unlike the crash last summer, I was able to tuck into a somersault instead of landing face first. Not to say it wasn’t a hard landing. I lay there on my back for a minute, stunned and humbled, thinking: Maybe I’m getting too old for this shit. Then I slowly stood up, dusted myself off, extracted my bike from the scrub brush and got back in the saddle.

Quick work was made of the last three miles, shredding the fire road that undulated down the spine of South Ridge. I was back to the car before sunset. Terry was at home when I got there, and she soon noticed the scrape on my elbow. It was nothing, I told her: just took a little spill. After stowing my bike and gear away, I headed upstairs to clean up. A hot shower would feel good on my lower back, which I had to admit, was now quite sore from the fall, and while waiting for the water to heat up, I went to the bathroom. That’s when I got the big shock: I was urinating what looked to be pure blood.

This couldn’t be sunny news, I figured. After a hasty shower, I threw on some clothes, contemplating how I was going to tell my wife—or maybe not mention it at all—when she came into the bedroom. I must have had a dreadful guise to my manner (or maybe she really is clairvoyant), because she immediately asked me what was wrong.

With the most blasé expression I could muster, I explained that I just might, maybe, have to go to the ER. And of course she wanted more details—a lot more details.

“I feel fine,” I told her. Other than my back being a little tweaked from the fall, this was true. I had obviously bruised my left kidney, but maybe I should wait to see if the bleeding cleared up on its own; just give it a few hours before rushing down to the emergency room.

She wasn’t buying it.

Soon after I checked into the Kaiser Hospital ER, an attendant ushered us back to a private bay where I could lay and watch the Winter Olympics on TV while Ter sat and graded quizzes and homework (I’m telling you, she lugs that tote bag of papers everywhere). A nurse instructed me to pee into a cup, and then she dropped by later to examine the blood-red specimen, holding it up to the light.

“That doesn’t look good,” she quipped.

Then she started asking me a slew of questions: What happened? Do I feel pain anywhere? Dizziness? She was standing at the computer terminal as she was grilling me, queuing up my medical records.

“Wait a minute,” she said. “You were here earlier today?”

Yep.

“For pre-surgery lab work and consultation with Dr. Harness?”

Yep.

“You’re scheduled for hand surgery next week… for an injury incurred while mountain-biking?”

Yep.

“But it says you’re here tonight because you were injured mountain biking… is this a SECOND accident?”

With a raised eyebrow, Ter looked up from her paper-grading and responded with an irony-coated “Hmmm.”

Later, a doctor showed up; scrutinized my chart and said: “Fell off your bike, eh?”

I provided an abbreviated account of my endo in Chino Hills, to which he then asked what trail I’d been riding. I told him Bovinian Delight.

“Yeah, I’m familiar with that trail,” he replied. Turned out, he was a mountain biker! Doc and I then talked bikes. Terry rolled her eyes and went back to her grading.

A melancholy funk seeped in after the doctor left. While I waited for the results from my CAT scan, I watched Shaun White choke on his bid for the gold in Sochi. His fall from the top of the snowboarding hierarchy was nothing but gracious. I took note of this. Like my mountaineering mentor, Bernie McIIvoy, once said to me years ago: “One must find the path to grow old gracefully.” And as I lay there waiting for my test results, I had to face the music. I had lost the mojo for skiing years ago. My rock climbing is woefully subpar these days. And now I can’t even stay upright on my bike. Maybe I should grow up: act my age and take up stamp collecting. You’re over the hill, dude. This is as good as it gets. Spend your remaining time with the grandkids—while you can still walk.  

It was after midnight before I was finally released. The CAT scan had revealed no internal bleeding, and subsequent urine samples had shown just traces of blood. The ER doctor surmised that my left kidney had taken a hit when I fell, and that I needed to take it easy for a few days. No running, no biking, no heavy lifting... I asked for the restrictions to include no doing laundry or taking out the trash, but was denied.

So maybe this is the end of my riding days. Who knows? Nothing demolishes your passion for a sport more than repeated injuries. Years ago, when I was pushing hard to master the black diamond ski runs, the mantra had been: “If you’re not falling, you’re not learning.” Unfortunately, the same holds true for mountain biking. Falling is part of the game. But so is aging—and like falling, I’m beginning to see that there’s an art to it.

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(The author underwent hand surgery nine days later. It will take eight to ten weeks to know the full success of the operation. In the meantime, he has been spotted at a Trek dealer, specking out the new Fuel EX 29’er.)