Lance Armstrong and Ice Cream Cake

In 2002 I took up the hobby of cycling, both road and mountain biking. It was at the time, due to someone else, that this became an interest of mine, but none the less I adopted it whole heartedly. I commuted to work on a bike, my weekends were biking, and I rarely used my car for probably two years or more. I would grocery shop and pack my backpack with everything I would need for a week, sometimes even condensing and recycling all the prepackaging of foods and groceries before even leaving the bike rack of the grocery store or farmers market to head home. I will admit it got me in great shape without any additional effort, and I loved that I could actually experience the day, outside, where now I commute in the dark and come home in the dark most days. (That might be due to the ridiculous hours my job expects of me too.) I was fit, tan, and full of fresh air and optimism. I had just started a new job in the summer of 2004 at the University of Florida, and ironically my place of employment was also big into cycling. We even had a team that road bike together weekly, and even found me a place to shower before work after my commute in. (It was like 12 miles or so, which now seems ridiculous, but then it was such a short ride). While the shower area was near a necropsy room, and that had it disadvantages, I considered myself a mild hobby cyclist and regardless of what made me start, I really enjoyed it.

Each year I was always eager to watch the coverage of the Tour de France and my boy Lance. After the 2002 race I got an I love Lance sticker for my bike with a big red glittery heart on it. He was such an awesome person, both with his philanthropy and attitude, and his commitment and grit. While I have never been an uber fan of anyone, gushing over someone or any of that non-sense, he was the first person that I think I really felt as a public figure would be someone I would like to meet someday. He was someone that had attributes that I admired and valued.

Ironically in October 2009 I had the experience that I had thought about back in 2004, I met Lance Armstrong. He was the key note speaker at a large convention I was working, and while it was a brief meeting, and I did regret that I had no camera and did not want to be one of those people who stalk a public figure for a photo, it was an amazing experience. Not too many people can check off their bucket list that they met someone that they admired, shook hands, had a few words, and then were able to really observe them up close and personal.  Since the event was in Austin, in his hometown, he simply rode his bike to the venue, was in jeans and a t-shirt, gave his talk, and hopped back on his bike to head home. It was surreal.  I just watched him interact with a string of people all vying for autographs, photos, and trying to chat it up with him. He is not much of a chatter it turns out, so probably a good thing I didn’t get time to talk to him much might have been disappointed. He gave a great talk to the 5000 or so people that were there. He was exactly as I had pictured he would be, and also the same demeanor and personality I had envisioned all those years. He was real, down to earth, approachable, and of course fit. He spoke about his kids, his life, his philanthropy, and even chicken nuggets.  I left that encounter thinking how cool that was, and how not that long before I think he had some small hand in the course my life had taken thus far.  Let me explain.

Right after starting my new job at the University in the summer of 2004, I was taking my normal route to work on my mountain bike. It was sturdier, and I liked it better than my road bike for commuting to work on. I kept my typical routine, of waking up, throwing on my cycling gear, packing my suit, heels, breakfast, lunch, hair dryer and makeup and carried my bike with its glittery I heart Lance sticker, down the three flights of stairs from my apartment to hit the road to work. I rarely even brushed my teeth before heading out since I got ready for the day once I got to work. I would literally roll out of bed and within 5 minutes was on my bike. It was my daily routine.  

This one particular day would change my life forever. I just did not know it yet. I headed out and about a mile into my commute I had to cross one of the largest intersections in Gainesville, now you would think, how big can this be it is Gainesville, but it was about four or five lanes each direction with the turn lanes. I waited for the light, and remember getting past the cars at the red light, and I would always double check for people running it, or trying to beat the green. This one day I missed a car, it was plowing along in the right hand turn lane and was trying to make a right on red without stopping, it was going about 35 I was later told. It was a young man trying to get his girlfriend to class on time, he was in a hurry and just as I saw him, his bumper was in my thigh and his side mirror was on the right side of my ribcage. It was a blur after that. I remember being on my hands and knees in the middle of the intersection and noticing my gloves were torn, and my knees bleeding. I remember crawling on all fours to the corner to try to lie against the cross walk pole. I remember sweating profusely, and being so so hot. I remember the pain, the pain so deep inside of me that I thought I wasn’t breathing still. Then ironically the realization that I am not going to make that meeting I was due to take minutes for at 8am. Back to the pain, that was a reality check. I remember hearing sirens, and people, I remember thinking I didn’t wash my face, brush my teeth, and since I had on padded bike shorts, I didn’t have on underwear. My mother always told me to wear clean underwear and here I was getting loaded into an ambulance, sans panties. Looking back now it is funny to realize what runs through your mind, and how trivial it all seems, but at the time that is where my brain was going. Maybe to distract me, because oh yes that pain, it was still there and maybe getting worse, it was hard to tell, was it def con 4 pain or def con 5 pain, I had no idea, I just knew it had to be bad for it to hurt like it did. Then I remember getting hotter and hotter, and my logical side started in, was I bleeding on the inside and that was why I was getting so hot? Was I dying? Why else would I be getting so so hot? (I would later find out that it was July, in Florida, in a large steel box of an ambulance, I had just been cycling at a pretty fast pace, oh yeah and the air conditioning was out on the ambulance that day) I remember thinking oh man my parents are going to go berserk; they didn’t like me biking to work to begin with, so this was going to be the icing on the cake. I didn’t want to be the one to call them that was for sure. I also made a pact with myself that I am going to fake it, that whenever I see them, I can fake it. I can put on a smile, and pretend I am just fine, just skinned my knees, and need some new gloves. I could manage their fear, and worry, and make everything just fine. They were at least a 4 hour drive away so I had time. I can get myself together in four hours, maybe five since I was sure my dad was still at work and had to come home first to get my mom before heading north. (I didn’t realize that I my bike and helmet would sell me out here, while I went into the middle of the intersection, my bike went under the tires of the car, and I landed on my head, and slid, that my helmet had half of it dented in and scuffed, and my backpack was scraped and torn and took the other brunt of my slide, lucky for my flesh!) It is crazy to realize once again, what you think about when something like this happens. It is so ironic.

They immediately put me in a CT machine to check for internal injuries and assess the damage. I had on that crazy neck brace and was lying on a board. I remember thinking, maybe the board is just really hard and that is why my back hurts so badly. If I could just get on a more comfortable bed, then surely I would feel a lot better. (Crazy was talking here.) What are these people thinking leaving me strapped to this and so uncomfortable?  At this point I was still alone, the person I was dating at the time had not made it to the hospital, and I had told someone my parents phone number to call as well as his number and my work number, since once again I was worried about that meeting that needed minutes done for it.

I got out of the CT scan and they started an IV, and then started the morphine. Oh the morphine, it was magic going in. It turned this horrendous pain into a sprained ankle. I could breathe again, and with the pain managed, my energy turned to fear. What had happened, what was wrong with me? I had not died yet, so that was a good sign. I wasn’t hot anymore, that seemed promising. Did they get ahold of my parents? I hope they told them I am alive and talking and fine. I am sure my mother is a train wreck right now. I don’t see my backpack anywhere so I can’t get to my cell phone to call anyone. Oh my hands are still strapped down; I guess I couldn’t do anything anyways.

What seemed like forever a doctor came in, turns out he was with me earlier, I just did not remember then with all the pain. He had taken a look at my CT and while they needed to do further tests, that right now it looks like I am the luckiest patient he had seen in a while. That my L1 and L2 vertebrates were both fractured, they were hairline fractures that had just cracked right inside the bone just a few millimeters from my spinal column of fluid. That had the cracks gone deeper, or just a hair further in, I would have lifelong mobility issues, and possible loss of use of my legs. Also since these cracks circled the column of spinal fluid and had not dislocated a vertebrae I would not need surgery in his opinion. That time to heal, a few versions of back braces and physical therapy would be my recovery from this. In his words, I dodged a bullet. That the helmet had taken the brunt of my head trauma and I had a mild concussion, but since it was really a time vs. healing thing, that in a few hours I could go home. Crazy right, you get hit by a car at 7am, break your back, and voila you are home and in bed by the afternoon!  They could coordinate my morphine dose so that right when I left I could make it slowly up the three flights of stairs to my apartment, but then I would be spending several weeks there in bed recovering. It was surreal.

It was at this point I lost it. I started to cry, and the realization of what had just happened became, well, real. I had heard my parents had been notified and were on their way. The morphine, while killing the pain, was making me nauseous, and all I wanted was to go home, start my day over, and forget this had happened. My boyfriend at the time, used this opportunity, to show me his true colors, and it was at this point I realized that he was not the one for me. It seemed like all these realities colliding, was just too much to handle.  While it would be months before all these epiphanies came to fruition, the seed was planted, and my life course would change forever.  A police officer had brought my bike to the ER; he had put it in his trunk after the accident. It was mangled, and dented, and my I heart Lance sticker, now ironically, had a slash across its glittery heart. It was also forever changed.

From this point forward, I healed, I stopped biking nearly as often, I moved on from that relationship, I changed my entire attitude about life, my future, my dreams, and what I wanted to do with myself, I ended up taking a new job after a year and half which eventually brought me to Kentucky, to Nathan, and to our current life here.

What prompted me to blog about all of this, is a message, that while it will never reach Lance Armstrong, it might be a good one for him to hear now, that after something very catastrophic, you can change the course your life is on, you can alter your future, and you can change your perception on life, on your values, and what is really truly important to you at the end of the day. I am deeply disappointed in his deception, and the extent to which he misrepresented himself, however I can see that he can still do some good, he can still right his wrongs, dictate a positive path forward, and instead of shielding his less desirable attributes with the glow of a wonderful organization, he can step back in, shift his morality and virtues back to where they probably once were, and take back the reigns of his life. While that will not be the easy path, it is probably the right path, and like we all know the right path is often the more difficult journey to endure. From my life lesson I have gained so much more than that little scar on my knee, which is all that remains from that traumatic day. I became a risk taker in a much different level; I became more outgoing, more compassionate, more patient, a better friend, a better sibling and a better child. I grew that day more than I have grown the almost 10 years since. Knowing how that day changed me, and how it increased my adventurous spirit and drive, I think has a hand somewhere down the line that led to a coin toss that made my decision to move to Kentucky.  I appreciated things more than ever, and still to this day, I feel like it puts things in perspective for me. When I look back on that second that could have changed my life forever in the opposite direction, I am so very lucky that I had the opportunity to head out on another trail, and seek out a life with a fresh perspective.

 In the days after the accident I had a new appreciation for so many things. My sister to bathe me, my dad to be my advocate, my mother to be my cook and care giver, my brother to be my entertainment, and my friends to be that final loop of love and support that got me back to a better version of myself. I remember the day after the accident, my now sister in law, who was I think newly dating my brother at the time, sent up an ice cream cake for me and all of my visitors. I mean what do you do when all you have heard is your boyfriend’s sister has just been hit by a car? (I still think this proves that ice cream is the fix for everything!) I had a little piece with all of my family around me also having a slice, milling about my bed. I remember looking around and thinking, this moment I do not want to take for granted again. That the ice cream was so good, that I loved my family and friends so much, that I would spend the rest of my life living with that same appreciation for the things around me that I took for granted so much in my life prior. That I had seen death and awful things up until that point, but it took that moment with a slice of ice cream cake, to really see how sweet life was, and how grateful I had so many more years to enjoy it with such a different perspective.  I hope Lance Armstrong has this opportunity for a second time, and it won’t have to involve cancer.