The bike race

In early March, Laura and Alex came to visit us in Tucson.

They timed their visit to coincide with a bike race, the 34TH ANNUAL TUCSON BICYCLE CLASSIC. Alex is an avid bicyclist.

While he rode in the races, Laura and I relaxed at cafés. She and I rode our bikes to this café. It’s about 7 miles up the bike path from my house.

The weather was slightly cool, perfect for racing and not too cold to sit outside with a light jacket.

We had a lovely visit until the last day. Alex was doing well in his race until suddenly a cyclist in front of him looked back and wobbled slightly, knocking over another cyclist in front of Alex. Alex landed on that cyclist, and then another cyclist behind him landed on Alex. A big pile-up!

It was immediately clear that something was wrong with Alex’s left shoulder – it hung low compared to his right. The medics at the scene put it in a temporary splint. The other guy went away in an ambulance, with his clavicle bone sticking through his skin. Alex’s injury wasn’t quite so dire, so Laura took him to urgent care.

Here he is, sitting patiently in urgent care. Luckily the medics at the scene had given him some pain killers.

We hoped Alex’s shoulder was just dislocated, but nope, his clavicle was broken. Snapped clean through. Ouch!

At urgent care they put him in a better splint and sent him home with a couple of prescriptions. Then we ran around trying to find an open pharmacy on a Sunday night.

The next morning, they got on their plane and flew home. That had to have been a miserable flight. His doctor at home decided to do surgery, so it would heal well. He had the surgery done a couple of days later.

Here he is, only two days after his surgery, hanging out in Santa Cruz.

We’re happy he’s feeling better, but sorry about an upcoming race in Sacramento he was really hoping to have a shot at winning in May of this year. He came in second back in 2019 before the pandemic closed it down. Well, maybe next year.

Here he is working to stay in shape despite his injury:

To send Kristina a comment, email turning51bykristina@gmail.com

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