Gilbert, AZ
I went down on my bike on September 15, 2012. I broke a few things including my left clavicle and some ribs. But by far the worst break was my heart. I will have to wait another year to complete Ironman Arizona. I had surgery on my clavicle on September 26, 2012. This is an X-ray of my titanium plate on the day it was installed:
The
picture below is my plate. How cool is that it is blue? The company that makes
my Locking Superior Distal Clavicle Plate is called Acumed. Acumed color codes
their plates. Blue is for left clavicles, and green for right clavicles. Now
even under my skin my color scheme remains blue. I have 10 screws. Not all the
holes have screws in them.
Installed below:
The plate does have some depth and I can feel it. Below is picture of another Acumend model installed on a clavicle:
By the way, in all my research of those who have experience with clavicle breaks, none of them had three to their credit. I guess that makes me a virtual expert on the subject. I have had three different types of breaks, in three different decades, with three different treatment approaches, on three different types of bikes – Motorbike, Mountain bike, and a road bike. That has got to qualify for the collarbone hat trick.
I shouldn’t forget the ribs, especially since they were by far more painful. Imagine
Driving a railroad spike into your back and twisting it. I marked below in red
where my ribs broke:
By the way, from
my research I learned that Lance Armstrong has exactly the same plate as I do.
He broke his collarbone into 4 pieces so they used 2 more screws than mine.
Lance has 12 screws, and I have 10 screws, but the plate is the same.
Armstrong’s plate is the right clavicle while mine is the left. Here is Lance
Armstrong’s X-ray:
