Such a sweet picture of Jesus and Young Life.
Here’s a sneak peak of my first experiment with a GoPro and video editing! Sorry if it makes you dizzy…
My ER Visit
I bought a new mountain bike a few weeks ago with some birthday money (I turned 22!). When I bought it me and my friend Corey started a bet on the over/under on number of weeks until I broke a bone. Well I haven’t broken a bone yet, but I did have to take myself to the ER this weekend.
I’ve been riding a lot since I got the bike and I’ve actually gotten pretty good in a short amount of time. Oak Ridge actually has one of the most popular mountain bike areas in East Tennessee, a section of woods on the Clinch called Haw Ridge. Haw Ridge has about 30 miles crammed into over 20 different trails ranging from steep and technical singletrack to easier old gravel access roads. We’ve been running and biking out there a lot this summer and every time is a different adventure. Because of the confusing network of trails, we’ve actually gotten lost more times than not in the times we’ve been out there.
I decided to go ride for a couple of hours before church on Sunday. A few minutes in I had a decent wreck, going too fast down a hill and hitting a ditch as soon as the trail came out of the woods. I ended up a few feet from my bike and landed in a bunch of bushes. It didn’t really hurt at all actually, I usually wreck a couple of times every time I ride and this was no worse than any other, so I didn’t pay much attention to it.
About 30 minutes later I started having a small pain in my lower back on the left side, but I ignored it thinking it was normal muscle soreness. A few minutes later I started feeling dizzy. A few minutes after that I had to get off my bike and lay down next to the trail, then I threw up 3 times. It was weird too, I threw up nothing but water, and a whole bunch of it. It was like my body hadn’t absorbed any of the water I had been drinking during the ride (I guess the fall temporarily shut down my kidneys, which filter water for the body). But, I throw up every now and then when I’m running or working out hard, so I didn’t peg it as being anything too abnormal.
Later that afternoon, I started peeing blood. I’ll spare the gross details, but after losing a decent amount of blood throughout the afternoon and evening this way, I decided to head to the ER. At the time, I had no idea what was wrong. I didn’t link the blood with my bike ride earlier that morning at all. I did tell the doctors that I threw up 3 times, but I think we all assumed it was just from the exercise. They couldn’t tell me much at the ER, they said it may be kidney stones, but that I would just have to wait a few days to see if the bleeding continued.
Well, it stopped the next day! It wasn’t until the day after that I was able to link it to my wreck. Kidney trauma leading to peeing blood actually happens a lot in football and boxing/fighting. Anytime you take a hard hit to the kidney area, you’ll usually pee blood later, and I don’t think it’s actually that dangerous. My friend Jordon, who used to do some MMA fighting, was telling me that you usually have to get hit very hard in the kidney to cause bleeding. Which is weird, because my wreck didn’t even really hurt at all.
But, I’m fine now! Just some soreness in my kidney area, and the docs just said to take it easy for a few days. So I’m still winning the no broken bones bet! Sucks that I had to go to the ER and didn’t even get any cool scars or anything from it though. But at least it wasn’t kidney stones…
Taylor just got back from Colorado, and he has a helmet cam that he said I could do some experimenting with. So maybe I’ll at least get some of these wrecks on video from now on!
Here’s a few pics that Savannah took a few weeks ago out by Bull Run. I’ve figured out that if I invite her and Cam to tag along that I get someone to play with and someone to take pictures. Pretty sweet deal I think. These are just a sneak peak, I should be able to put a bunch up on Flickr soon (they have a monthly limit).
