American rider Chloé Dygert has posted a recovery update after undergoing several surgeries in recent weeks, with her trials and tribulations also including a car crash.
She has logged six race days this season, racing to 39th at the Tour of Flanders, and her latest outing came at Paris-Roubaix Femmes, where she crashed out of the race on the Orchies sector of cobbles.
She suffered shoulder damage in the crash, only learning in June that she'd need to undergo surgery as non-surgical rehabilitation wasn't successful. In addition to that, she was diagnosed with RED-S (Relative Energy Deficiency in Sport), and imaging picked up a collapsed nasal valve.
Dygert scheduled surgeries on her shoulder and nose "as close as possible to shorten my overall recovery time and keep moving forward with the progress I'd been making with my shoulder," she said.
She called the double surgery "the worst best decision I've ever made", comparing the pain of the process to her left quadriceps laceration suffered at the 2020 Road World Championships time trial.
"I have to say, my leg accident is hard to top on the pain scale, but this combination came in at a very close second," Dygert wrote in a post on Instagram.
"Less than three weeks after shoulder surgery, I was rear-ended (I was not at fault) and ended up with whiplash through an already-recovering shoulder, which extended my recovery and still under review as it’s impossible to know what damage could have been done with the limited amount of mobility I have and inability to have another MRI as it would just be a mess from surgery.
"Then, the following week, I underwent nasal surgery—which ended up being more extensive than originally planned. Significant deviated cartilage and bone were removed, including deeper portions of my septum and maxillary crest.
"My septum was reconstructed using my own cartilage, with grafts placed on both sides to repair and stabilize my nasal valves. Both inferior turbinates were also reduced to improve airflow, and splints were stitched in place afterward."
Dygert, whose contract with Canyon-SRAM draws to a conclusion this winter, said that the car crash only added to the difficulty of recovering from a pair of surgeries so close to one another.
"Each surgery on its own would have been annoying enough, but combining the two recoveries with a car accident in the middle has made this one of the harder stretches I’ve been through in a while.
"I know that in a few weeks, this will all be worth it and eventually just another memory."
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