For months now I’ve been meaning to get around to posting another update, and as we passed the one year mark of the accident last month, I decided it was finally time. So naturally it took me another 5+ weeks.
No news has been good news, for the last 8 months. When the Halo came off in January, I recall thinking, “boy wouldn’t it be nice to have a nice, quiet, boring year” - and I’m pleased to report that - for the most part - that’s exactly what I’ve had. Maybe 2022 is just storing up its energy. We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.
The extended last phase of my recovery has gone magnificently well, if slowly - but that’s exactly what was expected. The first three months of the year were all just about getting functional neck strength and movement back. After four months of complete non-usage, my neck muscles were so weak that I could really only turn my head by a few degrees in any direction. Amazingly, I wasn’t prescribed any official physical therapy - Dr. Lynne told me that I could see a PT if I felt like I needed one, but otherwise I should just keep living normally and let those neck muscles slowly strengthen themselves up over time. By the end of February, I was rarely wearing the removable neck brace at all. I don’t remember an exact day that was the “last time” I wore it, as it was a very slow gradual reduction of use until it eventually found its way up to my top closet shelf where it lives to this day. Through much of the spring my neck motion still felt pretty limited - every week or two I could tell that I was getting a little bit more range of motion back, but it was an extremely gradual process. Patience was the word of the year, no doubt. Thankfully, even with a limited range of motion, daily life felt a whole lot more normal. I was able to drive again (carefully, with very strategic mirror placement), get back to riding my bike (indoors only - more on that later), and overall I felt incredibly pleased and grateful for the ability to get back to doing all the things I loved.
And the rest of the year continued much the same. It’s tough to put a measurement at any given time on how much neck mobility I had regained - I wasn’t using measuring devices to see what angle of flexibility I had in any given direction, it was all very intuitive - and there were better days and worse days when the muscles of my neck would be overused or tired or more fresh or more sore. But I was back to doing 95% of my normal life activities, and so I had no complaints. Here we are now in October, and if I had to put a number on it, I feel as though I probably have about 80% of my pre-accident neck mobility back. That last 20% will come with time, the speed of which will be solely determined by how much dedicated and focused stretching into those last degrees of flexion I do. But everything I need for normal, functional life is there. Now that tight feeling in my neck is just like when most of us inflexible people try to touch our toes without bending our knees and feel our twanging hamstrings groan in protest. No pain, only tightness. And that seems like a very reasonable outcome to deal with, all things considered.
One question I do hear routinely - “So, are you still riding your bike?” The answer of course is yes - but about 99.9% of that is indoors on my bike trainer. I have a terrific indoor setup including a KICKR bike trainer that utilizes my actual road bike, along with cycling programs like Zwift and Fulgaz that give me a super immersive riding simulation with far less risk of swerving cars and edges of mountain roads. I’m at about 8500 miles for the year so far, exactly 40 of which took place outside (on a beach cruiser along flat bike paths down in Florida). Will I ever ride outside again? I’m almost certain I will at some point down the line. For most of this year, my neck just hasn’t felt strong enough to be able to feel safely confident about being able to turn my head quickly to check traffic, and until that day, I’d rather not take any more risks than necessary. For now, if I can get 90% of the enjoyment and fitness returns by using my indoor trainer (with about 2% of the risk of outdoor riding) - well, that’s a cost/benefit/risk analysis I’ll continue to make for the rest of my life.
Look, at the end of the day, I’m incredibly lucky that I can still ride my bike at all. I’m lucky that I’m sitting here typing these words. It’s not lost on me how close I came to shuffling off this mortal coil a year ago, and the fact that I have seemingly little to no long term negative effects from my broken neck and Halo brace experience is a miracle for which I work to be thankful every day. Even stranger, at times, is how many good memories I have of last fall. As difficult and painful and complex as the process was, Lindsay and I look back almost fondly on the extra time we were able to spend together and the wonderfully strange and entertaining stories and memories with which we came away from this journey. And I can say without a doubt that my appreciation for my community has grown a thousandfold over the last year. Sometimes you don’t get to understand just how much the people close to you “have your back” until they are actually there, supporting you every moment and day through a trying time. I’ll never repay the debt I owe to all those in my life who lent me their strength when I needed it the most - so now all I can do is try to pay it forward in kind.
I don’t know what the future holds for BreakneckBean. I plan to keep it active, not just for posterity but also in the off-chance that someone else who suddenly one day finds themselves in a Halo can find this story and take away a glimmer of hope or ideas of how to navigate the process. Finding other people’s blogs was of a great help to me those first few days in the hospital, so if I can “pay it forward” in that respect as well - that’s a win in my book.
If you have stumbled on this “end of story” post first - here’s a couple helpful links if you want to take in more of my story from the beginning
