Thanks. I’m happy to update here if there’s interest. I’m sure another unlucky cyclist will find this thread helpful eventually 
The journey so far -
I don’t recall much about the crash. I was knocked out. I remember the moment I made impact with the car, the next thing I recall is being in the ambulance with gobs of coagulated blood in my beard and feeling very confused. The EMTs were dictating their observations of me, I remember hearing all the various wounds and deformities and not really reacting. Then they mentioned incontinence and I immediately felt embarassed and said “oh no.” I guess the mixture of concussion and fentanyl jabs made it so that I didn’t quite get the full picture of how injured I actually was until hours later. In a morbid way I think it was very “lucky” that I was knocked out for this. My arm was totally borked, flopping around on itself.
At the ER the doctors were terrified of compartment syndrome. They had to set the bones in a temporary cast right there to check the swelling pressure, and I don’t think I have ever screamed the F word so many times in my life (and for reference I sing in a heavy metal band). Thankfully no compartment syndrome. A few hours later I went into ORIF surgery to plate all the bone fragments back together.
I also had fractures in my temporal lobe, pterygoid plate, and left maxillary sinus which kept me on a liquid diet until my final morning. They also kept me in a neck brace because they thought I broke my C6 and also damaged my carotid canal. Two CT scans and an MRI later, it turned out to just be a bone spur. I was discharged after 3 days. They would have kept me for 4 or 5 but there was a shortage of trauma beds.
I live alone, so I stayed with my mother for a while I healed. Eating was painful and difficult for the first month. Ribs and left foot were moderately painful and made it difficult to get around. There was concern about a Lisfranc injury in my foot due to the mechanism of being launched out of clipped-in pedals, but no fracture or displacement was visible on xrays so the doctor told me to just take it easy on my feet for a while. I also immediately learned how difficult it is to do anything with only one good hand. You need a lot of help from others to get very basic things done. During this time I slept a lot, I probably averaged 10-12 hours a day for the entire month. I needed it and I was going to be out of work for a while so I took the sleep guilt free. I was in a lot of pain for the first month but tried to keep a positive mindset (“at least I can walk, talk, eat, I’m not dead, etc”). THC gummies helped too. I tried to avoid the pain pills from the hospital because the consipation was too brutal. The constipation from all the hospital opioids was really, really difficult. I didn’t feel “normal” in that regard for about 3 weeks.
After about a month I felt well enough to return home. Things have been difficult, but gradually improving. I have been in PT for about a month now and I am seeing better motion and strength each week.
At this point my feet, arm and head all feel much better. My ribs still hurt but I know that’s an injury that can take forever to heal so I’m not too worried. In the last two or three weeks, I’ve regained some independence, I can tie my shoes, wash my hair, turn doorknobs etc with my hand, but it’s going to be another two-ish months before I can do anything intense with it again.
There is legal action ongoing. In addition to all the injuries, suffering and forced-time-off, my brand new Tarmac SL8 also got destroyed, and all of my kit was sheared off in the ambulance, so that’s all toast as well (including bike shoes, the EMTs couldn’t figure out the boas). I’m eager to get this stuff replaced but I probably won’t see a settlement until next year.
My next ortho followup is in two weeks, which will put me about 12 weeks out from the crash. Hoping to see full union of my arm bones on the xray and to get the green light to hop back on the trainer.
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