Update, finally

Alright, I've had you look at these grody pictures long enough. Time for an update. I did eventually make it to Sweden, though I still have not shown any signs of Baltic herring poisoning. That could be because I don't know what the signs of Baltic herring poisoning are. It certainly isn't from lack of trying -- there were days I ate herring for brunch, dinner and snack. Mmm-mmm. Tasty.

Getting there was not part of the fun. When I left, I had just been stitched and pinned back together and was supposed to keep my left leg as straight as possible so as not to rip the stitches out. Had this huge leg brace, very gimpy. When I got to the airport I gimped up and asked them if I could have an aisle seat so I could stick my leg out and keep it straight. They happily gave me one -- too bad it was on the wrong side of the aisle. Thanks, folks! Oh well, at least it was only a 10-hour flight or so.

What with the brace and my hand splint, I attracted a lot of strange looks, not only at the security gates. (THAT was fun.) People kept asking me what had happened. I got bored of telling the truth, so after a while I started saying I'd been in a plane crash. Most of them quieted right down after that.

Tried to pick up my "reserved" rental car at the airport, but Avis decided to cancel it without telling me, since they didn't have any automatics available. Luckily, Hertz had some. I picked out the smallest, which was HUGE. Off I drove.

It very quickly became clear that driving, even an automatic, is pretty hard to do while keeping one leg totally straight. Ouch. I was set to drive a loop around the southern half of Sweden -- from Stockholm to Falun and Mora to Gothenburg and all the way down the coast, then back up to Stockholm. Hard to do on Vicodin. There were a few times when I was glad I was alone in the car so I could just scream and cry, but for the most part it went okay. I didn't dawdle, that's for sure. And by the end of the 10-day drive, my leg was magically bendable. It still killed when I sat still for very long, but I was no longer gimpy, except on stairs. Hooray!

Photos from the Sweden trip will be up soon.

The day after I got back to Portland, the docs took my stitches out. Awesome. They left the pins in for two more weeks. Not awesome. I couldn't get my hand to work right with the pins in -- it just wouldn't grip anything without catching the fingers on the little sticky-outy "ears" -- so I decided to skip the huge Memorial Day weekend ride all the boys went on. Damn. It snowed on them, but I bet they had fun anyway. Oh well -- next year!

Two weeks later -- May 31 -- the pins finally came out!! Yeay! They were only in for five weeks, but those were some LONG weeks. Best part: getting to wash my hand in actual running water. And showering without the plastic bag over it. Heaven.

Now I'm doing all the physical therapy stuff. Exercises once an hour, which is a LOT more often than it seems like it would be. Not sure how much progress I'm making, either. The thing is still fat and very reluctant to move. It won't bend much and won't straighten all the way. But I can type fairly normally. And I think I can ride -- off to find that out in a few minutes! :)

Pics and further Sweden stuff coming soon.