That’s what I told my aunt in a letter a long time ago, longer ago than I’d like to recall. But I was reminded recently when a friend broke her leg in a bike crash. By unhappy coincidence, her crash happened almost to the day on the anniversary of an accident which took me to the hospital with a shattered lower leg. Mine wasn’t a bike crash, though. I soared off into the woods bordering a diamond run at a downhill ski area. Large portions of my tibia and fibula were vaporized. No shards could be found in x-rays. But I should be grateful. If my leg hadn’t taken the force of the crash, my head would have, and I’d have been dead, or worse, brain-dead.

It was be more than five months from the time I crashed before I could even think of pedaling. I was in a full cast for all that time—a full plaster cast, nothing like the high-tech casts of today. I couldn’t shower because allowing the plaster to become soaked was prohibited. I wasn’t allowed to bear weight on my leg, so had to use crutches and hobble around with my leg sticking out front like a pointer, or like some kind of malformed Dalek.

For more than five months, I endured the pain, and the swollen foot, and then the itching. Worst of all, I was an invalid. I hated immobility, so instead of taking the bus to school, I crutched most of a mile there and then repeated the trek to come home at the end of the day. With an all-terrain bootie over my cast, I swung along the snowy roads, then roasted in early spring sun, developing calluses where the crutch pads rubbed constantly under my arms. I hopped up and down the stairs in school and at home, using the rails and crutches as braces. I fought against the restrictions that living in a cast imposed, but I could do nothing to accelerate the healing of my bones.

At long last, when the school year was coming to a close, my cast was removed. The doctor used a small electric saw to slice through the layers of plaster, first along the inseam, then along the opposite side, being careful not to cut through into my leg. He then peeled back the front half and lifted the cast away. I was horrified by the appearance of my leg. I thought it had rotted, but the doctor was pleased and told me that I was looking at the dead skin which under normal circumstances would have sloughed off gradually and unnoticeably. The hair on my leg had grown to two or more inches. And all my muscles had atrophied, so my leg was skinny and featureless except for my knobby knee and even knobbier and now re-contoured ankle. The itching was still there. I raked my fingernails through the dead skin and jungle of hair, and it felt so good I kept doing it, leaving a pile of ashen gray flakes on the floor of the doctor’s office.

The worst was over. Or so I thought.

I expected to return more or less to where I’d left off physically. But I couldn’t. My leg was very weak and my knee would bend the wrong way when I walked. And my leg hurt badly even after short walks. I had to keep the crutches in case my knee let go. There was no such thing as physical therapy in the little rural town where I lived. I was left on my own, and I began to despair of ever returning to normal.

But I had a bike. A gleaming new ten-speed that my grandparents had given me as a graduation present. I didn’t think I would be able to ride. After all, I couldn’t walk. Then one fine summer day a couple weeks after my cast was removed, I lost patience with my lame leg, and pushed my bike down the driveway, using it as a brace. I drew up to the front porch, got up on the first step, and cringed as I threw my “broken” leg over the saddle. I rested on the saddle with my good foot on the step and my bad foot on the pedal. It felt great to be back in the saddle again, but sitting still wasn’t my style. I recklessly pushed off and coasted along as I settled my good foot on the pedal, and then I made a tentative spin. I rolled across the front lawn, bumped over the slate sidewalk, and took my place on the asphalt road.

My first ride was a soaring success. My bad leg didn’t hurt when I was pedaling, even if it was as weak as a baby’s leg—most of the work was done by my good leg. I rode up the street and back, up and back, reveling in the freedom from immobility and a sense of lightness.

The next day, I rode all over town and felt great when I finished. My leg ached, but in a pleasant way, a way that told me that I was building muscle. I might not have been able to walk down the street a hundred yards, but I could ride my bike, and all that summer, I did, gradually increasing the amount of work I demanded of my bad leg. I redeveloped calves, rediscovered my quads, and my leg no longer looked like a toothpick. By autumn, I was back on my feet, walking. But the bike remained my preferred way to get around, because obviously, bikes had magical healing powers.

They still do.

 

 
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