Well that was unexpected

One of the symptoms some people experience with concussion is loss of taste. This didn’t happen to me.

Except for this one thing.

Ginger.

Weirdly, I’ve also been craving ginger.

One of my regular things to make and eat is granola, and it’s also (happily) easy to make and eat despite my injuries. You can do it all with one hand (recipe below). I switch up the nuts and spices, but usually make it with cinnamon (classic), sometimes nutmeg, or allspice, or cardamom (with pistachios!) I usually also make it with regular all-purpose flour, more butter, and more sugar, but trying to be a little more mindful of that stuff (concussion is largely about inflammation, so the more anti-inflammatory, the better).

My concussion pal had brought over a giant bag of frozen blueberries (so grateful!!) so making granola seemed like the obvious thing to do. This time, I was craving almonds and ginger. 

Funny thing, it didn’t taste gingery.

Next time I made it, I did the obvious thing—double the ginger. This time it tasted… kind of burn-y? I don’t really know how to describe it. There was heat, but no flavour. Then I thought back to one of my daily walks to a coffee shop with a friend—I had ordered a ginger cookie which had no flavour at all. Last time my kid (who goes mad for novelty flavoured chips) visited, I got the “Limited Edition” jerk chicken flavour, which similarly had a small amount of heat but no flavour—and ginger is often a component of jerk seasoning. All very suspicious…

Anyway I’ve still been eating my blueberries, yogurt, and gluten-free granola every day like a good girl, so I’ve run out again and need to make more. This time, I’m not using ginger, hoping for something flavourful. Wish me luck.

Home-made Granola

Granola

Ingredients:

1½ cups rolled oats
¾ cup chopped nuts (almonds, walnuts, pecans, pistachios—whatever you like, or mix them up)
½ cup brown sugar
1½ tsp spice (cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg, cardamom, even ginger would work in theory)
1 tbs chestnut flour (or all-purpose if you like gluten)
½ tsp salt
½  cup butter, melted

Directions:

Spread oats on a rimmed baking sheet in an even layer.

Sprinkle nuts evenly over oats.

Combine sugar, spice, flour, and salt. Stir with a fork to ensure it’s evenly mixed and there aren’t any lumps. Sprinkle evenly over oats and nuts.

Drizzle melted butter over all. Stir gently on baking sheet to ensure even distribution.

Bake at 350°F for 10 minutes. Stir gently, then bake another 10 minutes.

Let sit for a couple of minutes, then use spatula to gently lift so it doesn’t stick to the bottom. Allow to cool on baking sheet.

Store in a jar in the cupboard for up to a couple of weeks.

Learning my limits

Wow, yesterday was horrible!

A 2½ hour morning meeting at 9 o’clock, and then my boss said, “Let’s do a 10 minute huddle before the meeting for our team,” so that was scheduled for 8:30. I had a bad night sleep-wise, but dragged myself to my laptop for 8:30, figuring I’d have time to make coffee between the huddle and the meeting. After waiting a couple of minutes, my other team-mate appeared and said, “Did you see boss’s email? They can’t start till 8:40.” Then they started telling me about a traumatic event they experienced over the weekend. Boss eventually joined as well, and our huddle ran right up to 9 o’clock, and I tried to grab some coffee and breakfast but was called back. So, 2½ hour meeting on half a cup of coffee and no food. 

By an hour in, I was experiencing nausea, tremors, and heart palpitations. My body temperature went up. I felt on the verge of a panic attack. I turned off my camera and lights so I could put my head down and just listen, but then someone shared a PowerPoint so I had to open my eyes again. By the time we got a little snack break almost 2 hours in (2½ for me, because of the huddle that wasn’t) I was sobbing. As soon as the meeting was over I lay down on the sofa with my eyes closed for about 45 minutes. 

And of course, I had another meeting to get through, my regular one-on-one with my boss. I started by letting them know that it had been too much for me in the morning, and they offered to reschedule, but I said that there were a couple of things I needed their input on. After briefly touching on one, they pivoted to talk about their own project, which has a lot of people involved and keeps changing, and invited another person to the meeting. It got really confusing for me at that point, and at one point my boss made the comment that they should be able to just hand the details to me and they can’t. I felt a bit blamed for my injury, but I was so tired at the time I just felt fairly apathetic about it.

Now I’m wondering about how to approach an upcoming team meeting, which is always a big headache (long, lots of attendees, lots of details that aren’t specifically relevant to my work and very jargonny to the point where it feels like a foreign language). And this meeting usually gets rescheduled repeatedly. I really want to say “Hey, I can’t do more than one hour, and I need 30 minutes buffer on either side, so if you’re going to change the time of meetings I need an hour’s notice so that I can adjust the rest of my schedule,” but I wonder how that would go over.

I feel a bit better today (although I cried a bit typing this) because I woke up with the sun and was able to eat breakfast outside on the front porch, soaking up some vitamin D. Can’t wait for my full-spectrum SAD therapy light to arrive.

The story so far

So my fall happened on Saturday 11 October, when my kid was visiting for Thanksgiving and reading week (great to have them here to help out, although it must have sucked for them, and I was probably pushing myself to appear “fine” when I was not). 

Saturday night is never a good time to go to ER, and I did not have a good time. More on that later maybe.

They stitched up my forehead, said nothing was broken asked me to come back Sunday morning at 6:50 for fracture clinic, and if I wanted anything for the pain I would have to wait until then. At fracture clinic, the orthopaedic surgeon told me I did have a fracture, it was just hard to see because the x-ray was not clear, so the night doc missed it. My elbow x-rays had to be re-done because they were not clear at all. Fracture clinic doc said no weightbearing, keep it in the sling (even while sleeping), lost of rest etc., and come back in three weeks (actually the doc said two weeks; the straight-talking admin said it would be three as they’re overbooked and also even with an appointment, I should expect to spend 1-3 hours waiting). I asked if I could see my physio (I already had an appointment that Thursday for my shoulder, more on that later) and he said okay, but not to move my shoulder, only to work on elbow and wrist mobility.

On Thursday, while my kid was visiting their dad, I saw my physio and pretty much broke down crying in his office because I felt so shaky and awful, and it might have been the first time I felt I could cry—the first time I felt someone really saw and understood my pain. I was all vague about how bad my injuries were (because I was in a general cloud of vagueness at that point) and showed him the notes the ER doc sent me home with, but he saw immediately that I had a broken shoulder, I had a concussion, I needed lots of rest and minimal activity. He made sure I was going to see my doctor asap before he let me leave the office.

Then I went to a random clinic to get my stitches out (ER should have provided me with a stitch removal kit, but chose to withhold that, so I had to call around to find a walk-in clinic that had one) followed by a trip to my family doc to get a check-up and a referral to a neuro clinic (I should have given him the one my friend recommended right then! But that’s the thing about concussion, you forget stuff!) and bought myself a doughnut on the way home. I was a wreck. I bumped into someone I knew, almost didn’t recognize them, and then started crying while they backed awkwardly away (part of me wonders—how did he not see that I needed help? I can’t imagine seeing someone in the shape I was in, and not making sure they got home safely).

Oof, that was all hard to write. What an awful first few days. And I left out the hardest parts. Maybe I’ll fill that in later.

Oh boy...

Another year, another injury : (

I feel bad that I didn’t share more about my Bike Rally ride this summer—just too busy!

Strange to think that just a few short months ago I was tackling incredible feats of athletic endurance, and now, I struggle to walk around the block.

Yep, sidelined by an injury.

And just like the start of this blog, I wasn’t doing anything exciting or (seemingly risky) when it happened—I was on foot, and tripped on a curb. Walking (or rather, running to catch a traffic light) and wearing sensible shoes.

I have a fractured shoulder (specifically, a minimally displaced fracture of the greater tuberosity of the humeral head) and concussion. These are things that do not go together well—balance issues from the concussion, and with only one arm functioning, an extremely limited ability to catch myself if I fall. Pain seems to make a lot of my concussion symptoms (headache, nausea, fatigue, brain fog and overwhelm) a lot worse. So yesterday when I had my follow-up at the fracture clinic, which meant I had to move my arm for x-rays, the pain from that made my brain kinda shut down.

Wild that this is almost exactly 15 years from my first injury.

I’ll end this post the same way I ended the first post, since it is exactly true for today too:

Anyway tomorrow I start physio, and I wanted a place to keep track of what I’m doing exercise-wise, diet-wise, and otherwise-wise.

How it started, & how it’s going

 

Team Camp Weekend! F4LBR #5

Not gonna lie, there was a part of me hoped we would have to cancel. Friday week was supposed to be my big  “getting used to the road bike” ride, so getting hit by a taxi left me extra shook. But you know what they say about getting back on the horse. The horse and I really pushed our limits this week. 

My Bike Rally team, the Wheely Wonkas, decided to do a “practice” weekend to prepare—riding to a campsite and setting up our tents, just like we’ll be doing every day for a week in August. 

And just for extra challenge, our route began with a massive climb up the Niagara Escarpment!

To be honest, going downhill was scarier to me than uphill, just worried that I wouldn’t be able to maintain control, and how awful it would be to crash at speed. But I took the information I’ve learned from Steve—specifically about feathering your brakes, a little on the left, a little on the right—to help me through it. Just focusing on that really helped my nerves a lot.

Also, I am fortunate to have my own tent (some teammates had borrowed tents). My tent may not be great, in fact it’s a garage sale find, but I’ve put it up enough times I could probably do it in the dark if I had to.

Luckily, we had beautiful weather! I did catch a bit of sunburn, but I’d rather that than rain!

Learning! F4LBR #4

Going camping with my teammates this weekend—bike, camp, bike!

Meanwhile, earlier this week I did a Flat Fix clinic with a rally veteran, Steve. He did a Hill Climbing clinic last month, which was excellent, so I knew this would be a good one. 

One of the great things about this adventure is all the people I’m meeting along the way—it’s a real community! I feel like I really am going to end up with Friends For Life at the end of it.

Here are some great photos Steve took on Tuesday—love the one where I’m framed in the wheel!

Really learned a lot from this! I thought I knew how to change a flat, having done it soooo many times, but a few tips and tricks really make it all smoother. Having tire irons and a decent pump help a lot too—I love my floor pump, but it was great to give the portable a test run. Thanks Steve!

What a time it's been... F4LBR #3

Well I came back to look at past nutrition and realize it’s been a long time since I posted...

Continuing to work towards August’s bike rally, with my fundraising goal looming!

Training has been out of whack, with my kid being super sick for 3 weeks, and then getting into university, preparing for which has used a lot of time!

Then a week ago I was hit by a taxi while riding on a trail completely separate from cars. Fun times!

Right now, dealing with low blood pressure again. It’s been bothering me basically since the accident—stress response maybe? I don’t know. 

I do remember that there was a magical day that I got all my nutrients from food without consuming 5000 calories, so I want to repeat that experience... ferritin was 129 in March, so I’m assuming it’s not anemia. 

This weekend is a big training event—our team is going bike camping! Riding from Burlington GO Station to Valens Lake Conservation Area Saturday, and back Sunday. 

Excited to have a spiffy new (to me) jersey and matching bibs for the trip!