squished bits

today i had a real bona fide adventure and i have nice photos but right now i'm just too distracted by the pain which is creeping up on me. it is going to be a bumpy night.

today i decided to go for a little bike ride.

i rode up the bolton valley access road, a roughly four and a half mile ride with approximately eighteen hundred feet elevation gain.

you know, just for giggles.

and then i decided to ride up the actual mountain because, you know, it's a mountain bike. so that's another mile and a half with nearly a thousand feet elevation gain.

and i am wearing a 20 pound pack.

so then from the top i decide to do a little light geocaching and draaaaaag my bike across another 3/4 miles of rough terrain and that's where i got into trouble.

i took a little biff and it totally wouldn't have been a bad fall at all except that i fell with my full weight and the additional weight of my pack with my squishy bits on the top tube.

for several minutes all i could do was lie on the ground and howl with pain.

there's a lot in the public sphere of knowledge about how much it hurts to get kicked in the balls.

what many people (gentlemen especially) do not take the time to consider is that  there's a point in fetal development when the y chromosome works its magic and a little nub of flesh becomes scrota. those of us without y chromosomes still have that homologous structure and it still has just as many nerve endings. it's smaller and less exposed but a good smack to it will make you re-evaluate very sharply how your week is shaping up.

so to recap: i have just taken a concentrated blow with a narrow object (my top tube) to this very point of anatomy with sufficient force as to tear the flesh open for a little over a centimeter. i did not bother to take of my shorts to check it, though. the compression of bike shorts helps keep in check the swelling and sometimes you really don't want to know how bad that's going to be until you get home.

so i got back on my bike and rode it.

i didn't have a choice, really. when you head off into the wilderness and you get a boo-boo you have to get your pretty little self out the way you came unless you are hurt bad enough to scramble a rescue squad.

i've been home a couple of hours and i can tell this is not going to be a restful night.

the pain is creeping up on me. there's going to be ice packs and NSAIDS and not a lot of sleeping. tomorrow the bruising will be more evident, but maybe the swelling will have gone down.

one can hope.