So my bike’s fixed
For those of you just tuning in or who don’t care enough to remember all of this mess (I know I’d rather not), let’s start with a quick recap. I broke my heel when, while on my bicycle, I lost a fight with a car. I’m out of the cast and in a heavy, goofy-looking removable boot, and I will continue to wear this until everything’s signed off by the bone doctor. I see Dr. Newfield again sometime in October, the twenty-somethingith. October twenty-somethingith doesn’t have any memorable tragedies associated with it like my last appointment, so I’ll probably call midway through next month if I don’t find that little appointment reminder card by then. I can put some weight on my foot now as I walk, and I’ve been seeing a physical therapist twice a week. There are no lawyers involved yet, and I’m not eager to hire any based on the free advice of some guy I met in the police station and readiness so far of State Farm to pay any claims I throw at them. I had been popping Vicodin like candy for a while, but once I stopped out of fear that I’d be buying painkillers in the Love Shack parking lot for the rest of my life my foot didn’t really ache much more, so I don’t guess I’ll be going back to them. I have some leftover if anyone wants to make an offer.
And now, the rest of the story.
I got my bike back today. Kat was in town for the day for some anime convention, so I enlisted her help in picking the bike up. The final total ended up being over $600, so I’ll have more fun with copying machines and faxes submitting the rest of this claim. I’m not even quite done with it yet. I realized after I got home that I didn’t get the fancy extended warranty on this new set of wheels, so I have to talk with Raul on Monday to sort that out.
The new crank is a Shimano Ultegra, which I’m told is way better than the worthless pieces of junk Schwinn installs at the factory. Both the crank and the bottom bracket are chrome colored, whereas the old ones were both black. It still fits with the three-color scheme of the bike, so whatever. The new bottom bracket says “DO NOT DISASSEMBLE,” written in the same ominous font and tone as “REFILL ONLY WITH KIKKOMAN,” so I guess that means the new one is a sealed assembly and the old one probably wasn’t. So that’s a nice improvement. The wheels have some different markings on them, but they’re the same model, so I guess it’s just a new model year. The new rear rack is the exact same one I bought at REI a few months ago.
As far as the healing process goes, my therapist says I’ve been making a lot of progress, and she keeps finding new ways to torture me in our semiweekly sessions. Though the ankle is still a concern, things have been moving on to getting the rest of my leg working again, and that hasn’t been really very pleasant. Apparently my bone should be pretty well healed by now, but it still hurts a little bit to put a lot of weight on it. While at the bike shop today, I decided on a whim to hop on and coast the fifteen yards or so from the door from the car, and, while beginning to instinctively dismount on the right side, I got a feeling in my heel that, though I didn’t hurt myself, I was about to do something really stupid. I quickly corrected with no damage done, but I still found that concerning. If the bone is healed, why does weight make the heel hurt? The heel’s not a muscle, so it’s not like it’s been wasting away or anything. My foot is also still all swollen and gross, though, so maybe that has something to do with it. I hope that goes away soon.