Just another injury

Let me orient you to this picture. This is Jairo’s lower leg and what looks to be a second knee is a ginormous hematoma. The story behind this lovely injury …

Jairo decided to go on a long bike ride Saturday morning. This particular day I woke up at 5:45am and Jairo was gone, which did not surprise me as he usually trains early in the morning, but what bothered me was the rain I heard. I was hoping he changed his plans and went on a run or swim instead since the roads would be quite slippery, but to my chagrin, when I finally got up Jairo’s bike was not in garage. Well, I figured, if he did run into problems he would give me a call.

So, 9am rolls around and in walks a drenched, limping, ragged and bloody clothed Jairo. Dude, what happened!! Jairo’s reply, “well, I slipped on the road and took a little spill. I thought about calling you, but once I fixed the bike I figured I could get myself home.” Seriously! This is not the first time Jairo has taken a bad fall on a bike and the statement from the “guy mind” is, “at least we fixed the bike.”

When we were first married I came home to a house full of mountain biking buddies and Jairo was sitting on the couch with a busted lip, black eye, horrible road rash up and down his body and what we later learned was a broken hand. They had all been sitting there for almost 3 hours waiting for me to come home (this was before everyone had cell phones) and no one, including Jairo, thought to wash all the gravel out of the wounds before the blood dried or even maybe just go straight to urgent care to get the hand checked out. The first thing I hear when I walk into this scene is, “hey, don’t worry, we just need to get one part and the bike will be fixed.” REALLY! Thanks for easing my mind … that’s exactly what I was worried about!

Ok, back to this incident. Our plan for Saturday was to take Ethan to the children’s museum and Jairo was not about to change plans (obviously not a big fan of changing plans based on the situation is he??). I asked if he just wanted to take it easy but he said he was fine and just needed a quick shower. So, we head off to the museum and after walking around for a few hours Jairo says his leg hurts. I think he’s referring to the road rash leg and he says no, it’s his other leg. I ask him to lift his pant so I could take a look, to which he reveals this third knee. A guy standing next to him almost lost his lunch when he glanced over. The picture really does it no justice.

Needless to say, we made haste to get home to rest, ice, and elevate his leg. At this point I also force Jairo to point out any other injuries to which he reveals bad bruising all across his abdomen from slamming into the handlebars and a large gash near his groin … let’s not forget the major artery he barely missed! Luckily he didn’t pass out at the museum from blood loss due to internal injuries. Well, at least the bike is fixed.

(Jairo's better days on the bike)