My Pain in the Neck

Thursday, April 1

It has been about 98 hours since the pain in my neck started. At this point, I can move both my legs at about 60% capacity. I can stay sitting up and can stand up (if not upright) with aid. My arms, however, have been slower to recover. I can mimic a "chef's kiss" with my left arm, but my right arm and both hands have very little movement.

So, what happened? you may ask. On Sunday afternoon, Linda and I got home from visiting Lauren in New Jersey, and it was really nice out, so I decided to go for a bike ride. I was riding my usual 10-mile route and had just passed the halfway point, cruising along a beautiful country lane, when I accidentally allowed my front wheel to go just off the edge of the road. This has happened to me many times before, and I usually ride through it until I regain enough control to come back onto the road. This time, however, before I could regain control, my front wheel hit a culvert ditch, resulting in my imitation of Superman flying. I, however, am not the man of steel. When I’ve been in this situation before in my life—while skiing or biking—my natural tendency has been to tuck my head and flip so I land on my back. But this time the ground was a little too close, and I hit the ground with the crown of my helmet, flipped onto my back, and landed among a tangle of branches on the ground. Because I was wearing clip-ins, I had pulled my bike with me and it landed on top of my legs amid the branches.

I realized immediately that I had lost all sensation below my neck. I’ll tell you, it was a weird feeling to have a head that was completely independent from any kind of body. I didn’t panic, although there were a whole lot of Oh, gods. I knew I was on a country road and in plain view of any car passing, so I expected the first car going by to stop, but it drove right past. Turns out, it took four cars and 15 minutes before someone stopped. I could see a man get out of his car looking at me anxiously, and I could tell he was wondering if I was dead. I managed to squeak out a “help me,” and he ran to my side. He asked me what he could do, and I said, “Call an ambulance.”

He crouched down next to me and told me his name was Bo. He was understandably reluctant to touch any part of me, even though at this point the only thing I could feel was intense pain under my right upper arm, where I was lying on a small log. It took about three minutes for the fire station chief to arrive. (I learned later that he had come straight from his house down the road, which is why he arrived first.) They looked at me and started talking about the log that most of my body was lying on. They decided they could safely remove it if somebody stabilized my head, which they successfully did. I heard the fire chief on the phone with the EMT. He gave them our location and said, “This appears to be a spinal cord injury.” I looked up at him—or rolled my eyes up as best I could—and quipped, “Ya think?” I think that clued the chief into how lucid I was.

While we waited for the ambulance, one of the men offered to call someone for me. My phone was in a back pocket of my cycling jersey, so I must have given them Linda's number. She didn't pick up, and I told them not to leave a voicemail because I didn't want to cause her panic.

The ambulance took a few minutes to get there—okay, an eternity—and the medical crew got to work on me very quickly. First, of course, was a neck brace. They then rolled me onto a backboard and lifted me to a gurney. Next thing I knew, I was in the back of the ambulance headed to the UVA hospital. On the ride, they started testing my neurological function, beginning with my name, where I was, and what happened, which I assume I answered successfully, because they didn’t seem too concerned. An EMT also scratched the bottom of my feet and asked, “Where’s the feeling? Right foot? Left foot?” At one point, he asked me whether it was the left or right foot, and since I didn’t feel anything I got after him for trying to fool me; he laughed and said I was right, he wasn’t touching me.

During the ride, they cut all my clothes off and pulled my phone out of my cycling jersey. They called Linda from the ambulance, and she picked up this time. They let me talk to her as well. I told her I was okay. I don’t remember what else I said, but she immediately headed for the hospital.

It was a 20-minute ride, but it felt like I was in that ambulance forever. I almost wondered whether they were taking me to a West Virginia hospital instead of UVA. I don’t remember much about arriving at the ER. I know they took me to an exam room, x-rayed my neck and head, and moved me to an MRI, where I was put in the tunnel. I asked a doctor or tech if he had any music, but he said he’d have to put headphones on me and that wasn’t possible.

I must have been in shock at some point, but at no point do I remember feeling like I was in shock. Even when it first happened, I was aware of everything and aware that I couldn’t feel anything and aware that it could be pretty bad. But I never panicked. I long ago learned that it is better not to panic, no matter how dire the circumstances, and I think it served me well that day.

Linda and me on a bike trip in Tuscany a couple years ago.