I should not have gotten on Joel’s case last month when he did a loop de loop on his mountain bike. I told him he needed to get that out of his system before we went on our 4-day mountain biking trip in September. Well, come to find out, I decided to join the “endo” club last Sunday.

I was actually trying to do a noble thing and avoid running over a giant Great Basin Gopher Snake that was in the trail. The evasive maneuver seemed to be going well until I unfortunately grabbed the front brake. Yep, any bike newer than my 1985 Trek mountain bike apparently has hair-trigger disc brakes so over the bars she went. Not sure what I landed on but I cracked a huge chunk out of my bike helmet (yes kids, always wear your bike helmet,) was bleeding from my lip, elbows, legs and one shoulder and had horrible rib pain.

After remembering about Dad’s tumble down the stairs and his cracked ribs and Joel’s tumble on a trail run and his cracked rib, I decided that I could diagnose and treat myself with the help of the internet. HAHA. Well, the only reason I say that is because there is really nothing you can do with a rib injury except not cough, sneeze, laugh and take Advil. That is my expert advice. I couldn’t lay down for 3 days to sleep but I seem to be on the mend. Phew – didn’t want to have to cancel the trip on my account!

And yes, I did buy a new bike helmet!