Hey @salmonbun,
Yikes! This sounds like some kind of accident!
It sounds like you’ve already made a really incredible recovery, though. This makes me think that you’ll be back before long.
Probably 10-12 years ago, I broke my femur, the bottom of my ischium, and a few other bones. The femur, of course, they could fix, but there wasn’t anything they could do about my pelvis. It wasn’t a major break, but enough that I’d notice it for the next few years, and sometimes I still do on long drives and such.
A few years after the accident, I picked up cycling, and further down the road, I got really serious about it. After spending some time on the trainer, I started to notice things again. At first, I thought I had a leg length discrepancy, but after a lot of time thinking about it and sitting on the trainer, I realized that my left sit bone was probably slightly lower than my right, making me sit ever so slightly crooked on my saddle resulting in a mechanically shorter left leg. ![:sweat_smile: :sweat_smile:](https://emoji.discourse-cdn.com/apple/sweat_smile.png?v=12)
A year or two after first getting into cycling, I broke my left pinky and ring fingers on my commute to work and needed a few surgeries. The pinky healed up fine, but my ring finger doesn’t have much mobility left due to a pretty severe break in the second joint.
This summer, I took my worst spill yet at a local race and broke my collarbone into quite a few pieces, and injured my shoulder pretty badly. I’ve got a pretty big plate in there now and nine screws which are keeping things in place really nicely. My shoulder was the biggest concern as I had super limited mobility even after fixing the collarbone. I was prescribed PT, which I wasn’t optimistic about, but six or so weeks later, I was starting to believe.
Once I was back on my trainer, I was truly shocked at how much fitness I had lost in the span of a month or so, but by November, I was already fitter than I was at that point last year. Fitness usually comes back quicker the second time around, so be patient and enjoy the process. “It never gets easier; you just go faster!”
Today, I’m at about 90-95% in my shoulder and have learned to live with all of my other issues and honestly don’t really notice them much anymore. My ring finger can be annoying when trying to crack climb at the gym, but other than that, it’s fine.
None of what I’ve experienced really compares to your accident. I’ve been lucky enough to have time in between each injury to heal and adapt, whereas you had to deal with it all at once.
What I can offer as advice, though, is:
Make sure you’re working with a doctor whom you trust, and don’t be afraid to have a second doctor look and listen to you down the road if you have any concerns. Follow their guidance and stay on top of any work they’re prescribing!
Trust the process. I had many days where I felt that I wouldn’t ever get back to 100% again, and looking back, I can see that wasn’t a good place to be. There are always ups and downs, but the human body is amazing, and you can persevere!
Change things up! This is a great chance to take cross-training to a whole new level. Things like fast walking, easy strength training, and yoga will likely all help to get things moving again. Find out what your doctor will allow you to do, and then get to it!
Get a comfy bike! Or just make yours more comfortable. Putting some swept-back flat bars on and moving your saddle around a bit might help you get in a more comfortable position, at least while you’re still on the trainer. With injuries on two of your three contact points, it might take some playing around to find what works, but with some time, I’m sure you’ll get there. Take your time easing back into your old position too, or just keep your new one and enjoy a new perspective on riding for a while!
Take it one day at a time. Things seem to move slowly until they don’t. I often found that I never felt like I was making progress, and then I’d realize, whoa, two weeks ago, I wasn’t doing this at all!!
Best of luck healing up, and let us know if we can do anything to help out along the way! ![:smiling_face: :smiling_face:](https://emoji.discourse-cdn.com/apple/smiling_face.png?v=12)
P.S. Sorry I don’t have any pictures on hand at the moment!! ![:xray: :xray:](https://emoji.discourse-cdn.com/apple/xray.png?v=12)