Riding is funny. And I am stupid. When I had my laydown and tore my thigh, I was riding in less than a week, albeit in severe pain when getting on and off the bike. Maneuvering was fine. I'd stop a block short of work and get off and back on at a gas station. My leg was so stiff and painful after being still for the commute, I had to do a practice dismount and limber up a block away for the first few days to avoid seizing up and falling over while dismounting at work (where people I knew might see it happen). More recently (pretty darn recently), I had an emergency appendectomy. When I came to from general anesthesia, still blissfully unaware that my first and only catheterization had occurred and been removed (removed, evidently, by tying it to a door and slamming it), though no one told me (imagine my surprise), the patient chart on the wall said "movement as tolerated". Since my goal was to set a land speed record for recovering from an appendectomy, I took this rather literally, and was doing toe and heel lifts at 2am (one hand on my IV rack), just hours after surgery. In hindsight, that was too soon. The next day, I struggled into my 5.11's and boots, put on a hat and sunglasses, and did my best to fake a normal walk, sneaking down to the hospital cafeteria in search of red bull (note- hospital administrators are either bastards or are geniunely concerned with a healthy diet... no red bull). I was walking like Ozzy barely shuffling along when I derped back onto the ward. The charge nurse looked at my dumb ass and quietly noted that they'd been looking for me. The godawful pain from overdoing it that first 24 hours sucked. I got back on a bike after 4 weeks, which was just 2 weeks shy of being cleared to do anything like that, before being cleared to go back to work (I had aleady been back to work starting a week after surgery). It was stupid, but I was fine, started with padding the bike around in the garage, and then to short rides. Mac- glad you were able to get back to business so soon. Great pic.
