No, It’s Not Because I Haven’t Had A Baby

 I started to go for regular eye examinations when I was about 45–just around the same time I started my gender affirmation process (what most people—and I—in those days were called my “gender transition”). When I had to cut a conversation with an co-worker short because I had to go to an ophthalmologist appointment, he wondered, “Oh, are the hormones affecting your vision?

That colleague could be forgiven for such an assumption even if, as an “educated” person, he should have known better than to conflate coincidence with causation.  

Then again, I’ve seen and heard of health care professionals who make similar erroneous assumptions.  For example, a friend of mine is, shall we say, Rubens-esque. She laments that when she goes for help with any sort of medical condition, no matter how unrelated (the flu! a broken arm!)  nurses and even doctors have assumed that her weight was the cause. Then again, other women have told me their doctors insisted that their mental as well as physical health issues would disappear if they had a baby.

While such cluelessness or dismissiveness is inexcusable when it comes from trained health care professionals, it (or at least milder forms of it) are somewhat understandable from lay people like my former co-worker. I’ve experienced a it during the past few days.  Neighbors and friends noticed a bandage on my left knee. “You hurt yourself bike riding.” Not a question :  a declaration or an amateur diagnosis.

Now, I can understand why they, especially if they don’t know any other regular cyclists, might think my injury might be a result of riding. But its cause is more banal: I tripped over a divider after I exited the Botanical Garden. I can’t even spin a good story out of it,

Well, at least they’re not assuming my admittedly minor injury happened because of my gender “transition.” Or because I haven’t had a baby.

The Giro From Hell--In More Ways Than One

No-one was surprised when Ewan Caleb withdrew from the Giro d'Italia the other day.  This year's edition of the Giro was his fifth.  The Australian Lotto-Soudal rider has finished none of them, preferring to attempt wins or strong finishes in sprint stages--his specialty--before reaching the mountain stages.  Also, he and his team feel that this is a good strategy, as it gives him more time to recuperate before the Tour de France, which starts early in July.

But perhaps the strangest withdrawal from the Giro came the day before. Biniam Girmay made history when he emerged victorious in Stage 10, making him the first Black African to win a stage--or wear the overall race leader's jersey (the Giro's Maglia Rosa)--in one of the Grand Tours.  Folks like me had high hopes for him but a seemingly-unlikely mishap, wholly unrelated to riding, forced him out of the race.  

He was celebrating his win on the podium when he leaned over to pick up a bottle of prosecco from a magnum.  At that exact moment, the cork launched itself from the bottle, striking Girmay in his left eye, causing damage to its anterior chamber.  

Biniam Girmay

Given how often professional athletes celebrate major victories with the bubbly-fueled reveries, I am surprised (though relieved) that such incidents are not more common. Girmay was injured through no fault of his own, but I imagine many athletes who don't know how to properly open a bottle of sparking wine or who are intoxicated with the stuf (or simply euphoria), have just missed suffering an injury like Biniay's.

Race officials have announced that in upcoming celebrations, the bottles will be opened before the riders touch them.  I can only hope that Biniay's carrer and life aren't upended by his mishap.

Ewan Caleb, on the other hand, is looking ahead to the Tour de France. But he might not have been talking about his own woes when he referred to this year's Italian Grand Tour as "the Giro from Hell."