As you probably remember, what should have been Roger Hammond’s season highlight – Paris-Roubaix – ended in a hospital bed. He sent me this update and allowed me to share it with you (Roger’s wife works in a hospital, so you’ll notice Roger takes particular interest in that area!):

Just a quick update…

The good news… I’m finally starting to heal now. The stitches are out and I have to say the hospital in Valenciennes did a great job, quite a neat scar when you take into consideration what they started with. And no sign of infection. Although I was on a huge dose of antibiotics for 8 days just in case. The reason for such a high dose, they weren’t taking any risks. They let me know just before they took me to surgery, they’d had a rider in about 8 years ago that had a really nasty infection after crashing in Arenberg. I guess they were trying to make me feel better about the impending surgery!

The bad news is I still have a lot of pain in the elbow joint itself and it is still swollen. I’ve been waiting for improvement but it is a lot slower than anticipated. I’m starting to get impatient so I’m going to see Matt (team chiro) to get his opinion on how best to treat the injury. I subsequently found I had broken a rib in the crash too, which just added to the sleeping difficulties!

This entry was posted on May 4, 2011 at 15:12 and is filed under bike racing.