On April 2, 2011 I was on a group bike ride getting some base miles in. At the end of the ride my Dad and I had broken off from the group. Only a few miles from home we touched wheels and I went down hard on the left side of my head. I started to get a mild headache almost immediately. We waited a few minutes because I was a little bit dazed, but then we got back on our bikes and rode home. I thought I was fine.

Unfortunately I wasn’t fine. It turns out I had a concussion and for 8 weeks I was in and out of work and off the bike. The good new is I’m better. I’m also an expert on concussion. I spent most of my recovery time reading everything I could get my hands on that was related to concussions. Here is my resulting plan for managing and preventing future concussions. I think it should be fairly easy to adapt to your own cycling plans and even other sports.

How I Plan to Prevent Future Concussions

I’m completely changing the cycling events I plan on participating in and adjusting my commuting. This year I’m focusing on centuries and individual time trials and I’m avoiding group rides alltogether. After this experience I don’t know if I’ll ever race in a crit. Next year I’ll probably throw in a road race and add cyclocross. The incidence of head injury in cyclocross is relatively low compared to road racing. I’ve also changed my commuter to a cyclocross bike so I can put on wider, nobby wheels for the winter. You won’t see me taking the icy cemetery shortcut to work ever again.

I need to improve my bike handling skills.

Not just bunny hops and wheelies, although those are fun. Specifically, I need to work my way into riding with other riders, then with a group.

I bought a $230 helmet.

It’s an absurd amount of money for a piece of styrafoam, but it’s the only Snell certified cycling helmet I could find that my fellow roadies wouldn’t mock me for wearing. And honestly I probably wouldn’t wear a dorky helmet. Snell certification is essentially no different than the CPSC standard all American helmets must meet. The difference is Snell actually buys helmets on the market after they are certified and retests them. In my opinion, helmets that meet this standard are likely to have higher quality control. I also think that a manufacturer that pays the extra money to be Snell certified takes safety seriously.

Here is the helmet.

I’m adding neck strengthening to my routine.

A strong neck, (and all of it’s supporting muscles), can prevent a concussion altogether.

Neck strength and preventing concussions.

I’ve started supplementing creatine.

Creatine has been shown to lower brain damage in rats with head injuries. I’ve also gained 5 pounds of water weight since I started taking creatine; weight-weenies beware.

Creatine may limit brain damage.

I will be taking a baseline IMPACT test.

The baseline score will help me measure recovery in future concussions. I think all cyclists should do this at the beginning of the season.

Brain supplements.

In addition to the creatine I’m taking a few other supplements that have been shown to be good for the brain in general.

• Fish oil
• B-50 complex (for the b6 and b12)
• D3
• Magnesium (helps with migraines)
• Creatine

Oops, I hit my head again. Now what?

Assuming I’ve been to the emergency room if necessary and my brain isn’t bleeding, here are all the guidelines for the first 2-3 weeks:

• Cram in the protein as soon as I can and continue eating a diet very high in protein
• Total cognitive and physical rest. Lay around in a dark room and do as little as I can stand. This is incredibly important.
• Sleep as much as possible
• NO DRINKING ALCOHOL WHATSOEVER
• Keep taking the creatine and other supplements
• As you start feeling better, use the IMPACT test to guide a return to work and riding
• Don’t forget, most concussions also come with a neck injury. And neck injuries have symptoms very similar to a concussion.
• If the symptoms last longer than 6 weeks, don’t forget it could be a neck injury. Start considering adding exercise back in
  ala the University of Buffalo concussion clinic.
• Supplement resveratrol

These are all the things that helped me feel better:

• Sleep. Lots of sleep. The more the better.
• Meditation. I couldn’t do this at first, but as my symptoms lightened up it was quite helpful.
• Noise cancelling headphones (these were a life saver while at work)
• Slow walks outside
• Melatonin helped a little with sleep problems. Amitriptyline worked a little better, but requires a prescription.
• Modest, daily goals. It was always uplifting to get something done.
• Go really light on the caffeine. I didn’t outright quit but I cut back. Caffeine made my symptoms flare up in the mornings.
• Ask for help. Friends and family want to help, they probably just don’t know how.

A great place to look for general information is the post concussion forum on neurotalk. There are some very helpful people there. If you post only a few days after a concussion, they will all tell you the same thing: rest as much as possible!

Here is my description of my experience at the University of Buffalo concussion clinic.

That’s literally everything I know. Be safe out there and always wear a helmet.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

I can’t write. Seriously. I’m not happy with where my writing skills are at the moment. I came to this conclusion some time in December and so I committed to blogging at least once per week to improve the situation. Tonight I started writing a post about my motivations as an entrepreneur, and then I stopped writing it because it was crap. I don’t mind writing crap, I have to start somewhere, the problem is I don’t know why it’s crap. Yarg.

I need a new strategy. First, I think some books on writing are in order. I’m also going to pick a writing format, you know, like I’m only going to write sonnets. I probably won’t write sonnets, but I think giving myself some constraints is bound to help. I’m also canceling cable. Watching TV is not conducive to writing, or anything else other than watching TV for that matter.

Also, once per week is too ambitious. I’m going to knock it down a notch to twice per month and I’ll ratchet it up when my writing gets better.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

By day I’m your average enterprise developer. I develop in Windows. I write VB code on .NET. I write standards-compliant Javascript. When I head home for the day I’m just glad I haven’t literally died of boredom. By night I’m a dual-wielding Python/Django hacker battling my foe  with a stream of commits to GitHub. I’m an entrepreneur bent on market domination.

I struggle with this dual identity. In the startup community quiting your day job is tantamount to seeing God on the road to Damascus. Having a day job and starting a company are like water and oil. Paul Graham says my day job is why I’m going to fail. This dude says I’m not an entrepreneur because I have a day job. For me and others like me there is little choice. I’m married. My appetite for risk and my lifestyle are not self-determined, they are negotiated. So I need a job or a great big pile of cash.

Assuming a reasonable padding of cash, working full time on my startup would be optimal. Perhaps my time would be better spent tracking down investors. Certainly I’m constantly evaluating this option. But for one reason or another, here I am and I’ll likely be here for a while yet. So to make myself feel better here are list of the advantages that come with having a day job.

No Investors

I’m a fan of startup war stories. Over the years I’ve likely read hundreds. Perhaps I’m coming to an erroneous conclusion, but based on this pile of stories I’ve been left with the impression that much of the pain in starting up stems from bad relationships with investors. There seems to be a correlation between the success of startups and their skill at managing their investors. My working theory is the possible number of extremely painful endings increases exponentially with the amount of equity owned by investors. Programs like YCombinator seem to be exceptions to this rule. I don’t have investors because I don’t need investors and I’d say on the whole this is an advantage.

Plenty of Room for Errors

I’m new at this whole startup thing. It’s nice to know if I screw up the only cash I burned through was my own. How is this an advantage? Wouldn’t it make more sense to risk another person’s money? I’ve always felt that the value of the relationships I have with friends and family, (my most likely source of angel money, maybe you are different), vastly exceeds the few thousands of dollars I might raise from them. If I don’t ask them for money I don’t have to worry about irreparable damage to a relationship. I used to play a lot of poker, and the saying is “scared money is easy money.” Never sit down to play cards if the stakes are outside your bankroll. I’m never worried about money, because as long as I keep my job, there’s always another paycheck.

There’s Never Enough Time

The number of things to do in a startup is approximately infinity. Having a job constrains me to roughly 35 hours per week spent on my startup. If I want to make measurable progress in a reasonable amount of time I have to be really good at prioritizing what I’m working on. I’ve put great effort into learning skills and methods for focusing my energy on the right tasks. I’m pretty good at it. In the past I would have just thrown more hours at the problem, and now I simply don’t have that luxury. This is why having an externally imposed constraint on my time is a good thing.

Starting up is hard enough without giving up a big chunk of your week to a job. Maybe it’s impossible, I’m not sure. But this is where I find myself. How could I call myself an entrepreneur if I didn’t make the best of it?

Next post: Tips for starting up while working full time.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

I haven’t blogged in over a year. I started Meshsandbox so that I could record my thoughts as I learned all about mesh networking. I quickly expanded the topic of the blog to include entrepreneurship, since I was learning about mesh networking in order to start a business. Considering the very narrow topic I had a relatively large audience. In short time I felt obligated to update Meshsandbox on a semi-regular basis with useful and interesting content. Once my energy shifted away from mesh networking, posting to Meshsandbox was like pulling teeth.

Planning for Aliens will be a reflection of what I am thinking about at the moment. It will catalogue the progression of my thoughts and ideas. I doubt this blog will never generate the kind of traffic Meshsandbox did because it will not be focused like a laser on one topic and it will not be full of useful information. Nevertheless, I am really happy to be blogging again.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.